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Her head lifted sharply. ‘You’re...?’ But she snapped her mouth shut before she’d finished uttering her first word.
‘You’re?’ he prompted.
The smile returned. She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
Staring at her, he tried to decipher the flash of emotion he’d detected when she’d opened her mouth. ‘Tell me what you were going to say.’
Her throat moved and her lips pulled in together before she answered. ‘I was just going to ask where you’ll be sleeping.’
Still watching her closely, he tightened the belt of his robe. ‘I thought you were aware of our living arrangements. They were agreed during the negotiations.’ When she only continued staring at him, he smothered a sigh. ‘Were you told about the arrangements?’
There was a slight hesitation before she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘You should have been. I was told you were in agreement with them.’
‘I will abide with whatever has been agreed between you and my cousin,’ she intoned.
Was she for real? She couldn’t be. If he couldn’t still feel the imprint of her body on his skin, he would question if she was even human.
‘These are your quarters. I have separate ones on the floor above.’ At her blank expression, he only just stopped himself from adding,Nod if you understand what I just said. Instead, he continued with, ‘We will see a great deal of each other during our shared engagements but our private lives will be separate. I’ve been told you are keen to be a mother—is that correct?’
Her nod was emphatic. ‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then I suggest we share a bed together each Saturday until a child is conceived. Do you agree?’
The vacuous smile this time came complete with pretty, white, even teeth. ‘I will abide with whatever you think best.’
‘I do think that is best.’
‘Then I abide.’
Needing to get out of this room and far away from the woman he’d married before he said something he’d live to regret, Amadeo bowed his head. ‘Then I wish you a goodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ she replied.
After closing the bedroom door behind him, Amadeo took what felt like the deepest breath of his life.
He really had married a wind-up doll. Beneath the beautiful veneer, there was nothing. Only emptiness.
Elsbeth pulled the bedsheets up to her neck, closed her eyes and swallowed to get air into her lungs.
Why had her mother not warned her that she would be living alone in this castle? She must have known. Her mother knew everything. She had a way of listening at doors. Elsbeth had tried it herself once but had been caught. The beating she’d received from her father had stopped her ever trying the same again. Mercifully, it was the only beating she’d ever suffered, but it was a lesson she’d never forgotten and never wished to have repeated.
It was inconceivable that her mother hadn’t known. It wouldn’t have changed her mind about marrying Amadeo. Nothing could have changed her mind. The opportunity to escape Monte Cleure had been too great.
A royal woman’s role was as an adornment, her function to breed and obey. Elsbeth knew that. She’d seen it and lived it every day of her life, and she knew she should be grateful that living separately from Amadeo made it much less likely that she could disappoint him. Much less likely that she’d find herself on the receiving end of his displeasure. Much less likely she would find out what form of chastisement his displeasure took. Her gut told her he would not be a man to use his hands as weapons for punishment, but powerful men didn’t need to use their hands to punish women. There were a myriad of ways they could punish them, and she had no idea what form Amadeo’s punishments would take.
Whatever form his punishments ended up taking—and it was a near certainty, whatever their living arrangements, that one day shewoulddo something to displease him—what kind of fool would she be to listen to her gut? Hadn’t it tantalised her with the possibility of happiness in her new country with her new husband?
The solitary tear rolling down her cheek told her happiness was as far away as it had ever been.
CHAPTER THREE
ELSBETHLAYUNDERAmadeo’s weight, his breathing heavy in her ear.
Their second copulation. She wouldn’t call it making love. Couldn’t call it that. It was humiliating that she’d enjoyed it so much. More humiliating that she longed to wrap her arms tightly around him and press her mouth and nose into his strong neck and breathe him in. She supposed it was the euphoria of good sex bringing those longings out in her. It certainly wasn’t him.
Their ‘honeymoon week’ had been spent apart. Elsbeth had spent it with only her domestic staff for company. She’d dined alone. She’d had no visitors. Her husband’s absence had been stark.
