Page 16 of Wedlock

‘This is exactly why I don’t want to be under the same roof as her.’

“Fuck!”

Pushing my chair back roughly, I head for the door.

13

I’m in the bath when the door opens, and I don’t bother even turning as I stare out the window into the darkness beyond.

All day I’ve considered the depressing fact that Jag had been to visit my brother yet had not, clearly, decided to rescue me from Viper’s mind prison.

Eleanor had said he’d most likely visited days ago, and while I hadn’t acknowledged the information while she was in the room, I’d fallen into a deep, dark, black hole of despair after she’d left. I can only conclude that either Adam didn’t get to tell him my message, or that Jag was, as I’d feared, so heartbroken over mydeceit that he’d gone away, just as he had when Coquette died, never to be seen again for centuries.

And I’ll be long gone by that stage.

The fact that I’d alienated my only champion and might never get the chance to explain why I did what I did makes me sick to the stomach. I’m sure if my family could have seen me today, crying and listless and virtually pulling my hair out with wretchedness, they might very well believe the Dragonspur lie that I was suffering post-natal depression and planning to top myself.

The only one I’d seen, though, was the nanny, on time as usual to take my boy to his wetnurse. Seeing me red-eyed and listless she’d suggested calling the doctor, but I’d objected vehemently. I don’t trust the Dragonspur doctor. He has a propensity to talk to Eleanor rather than me when he’s examining me, like I’m not even there, like I’m nothing more than a dumb animal presented for a checkup, and its owner wants a report. I suspect his testimony will be used to give any report required to the Court when I eventually ‘kill myself.’ His seeing me like this is exactly the kind of evidence they could use.

At my insistence I was fine and didn’t want the doctor, the nanny, expression still disbelieving, had suggested she perhaps take the baby for a walk after his feed. I’d shrugged my acquiescence, and she’d advised I should also brush my hair and take a bath. I wanted to tell her she could shove the hairbrush where the sun doesn’t shine, but instead I’d done as she’d proposed. In the past, baths had always cheered me up, and perhaps she was right and I could soak away this feeling of misery, which was doing nothing constructive in terms of helping me concentrate on an escape plan.

But so far all I’ve succeeded in doing is to help fill the bath with tears.

“What did you forget, Nanny?” I choke, wiping my eyes as I keep them on the forest in the distance. I know she’s likely going to say ‘pacifier’ — it wouldn’t be the first time, and the baby is fretful without it.

But it’s not the nanny who answers my question.

“Mother says something is ‘askance’ with you. I came to see for myself.”

Gasping, I whip my head around to see my husband standing in the centre of the room, so tall, dignified, and handsome. He’s still wearing his dinner suit.

Images of the nights we’d had after dinner, the number of suits I’d helped pull off his muscular body in our frenzy to make love, swim before my eyes. We might have just been doing our Dragonspur duty all those nights, but that didn’t make them any less memorable. I wonder if he thought back on our time together. I wonder if he thinks of me at all now. Part of me wants to believe he must if he’d returned to the castle.

I raise hopeful eyes to his, but his eyes, when they meet mine, narrow slightly, and a frown flits across his forehead as he crosses his arms and scans the room. It occurs to me there might be another reason he’s here, a very unwelcome reason.

“Where is the baby?”

It takes me time to find my voice, croaky as it is from crying, my throat still thick with tears and my mind racing over why he might be here, but I eventually answer.

“With the nanny. Are you here to kill us?”

“Not today.”

I can’t help but snort and give a wobbly smile. His answer is so like the ones he used to give when we were on The Games. Was there ever a time I wasn’t afraid he might kill me?

He steps closer and shakes his head as he studies my face.

“What’s wrong with you?”

I gulp and look away. I can’t meet that cold stare, not after the warmth I’d seen in his eyes when I’d first returned with the baby. Not now that I know he loves me.

‘Loved me. Past tense.’

“Nothing,” I whisper, looking down at the bubbles in the bath. “Everything.”

I don’t want to say any more. I can’t talk to him because Viper’s instructions are on the tip of my tongue. I have to tell him, whenever we talk, that I hate him, that I never loved him, that it was all part of the game.

I have to lie.