Of Thorns and Beauty by Elle Madison

Chapter Forty-Eight

My hands snake around to the buttons at the back of my shirt, and I hear a muttered curse. I turn to face him only to see that he is digging around in the drawer of an armoire. He holds a hand out behind him with some sort of garment in it.

"I said I was tired, Zaina, not a eunuch,” he groans. “At least wear one of my shirts."

An unexpected laugh escapes my lips, because he has still not turned to face me. I have been forced to use my body as a distraction, a lure, a weapon. I never thought I would find myself feeling gratified by a man's reaction to it.

Still, I decide to show a little mercy on him and take the shirt he has offered. I finish disrobing and throw it over my head. It reaches to my knees, and the gap with the laces is nearly at my belly button. I am still drawing them in to tie them when he turns around.

His lips part, and he shakes his head.

"I'm not sure that's better." He rubs a hand over his face, letting out a low chuckle. "Just... Get under the covers."

It’s freezing in here, so I am quick to oblige him. The furs on his bed aren’t as heavy as those on mine, but they are still exponentially warmer than the air outside. Khijhana crawls up into his plush armchair as if she owns it, and he groans but doesn't tell her to move. It offers the tiniest fragment of relief, knowing that he will take care of her when I am gone.

I am providentially distracted from that line of thought when Einar reaches for the hem of his own shirt. He may have been a gentleman when the tables were turned, but I greedily soak in the sight of him, knowing what a limited time I have to admire the hard planes of his abdomen and the clearly defined V that leads into the soft trousers he decides against removing.

I force my eyes to travel upward, my gaze snagging on the small, unusual golden key that hangs from his silver chain, before finally lifting to meet his own amused eyes.

I smirk at him, and he sighs, looking skyward as though looking for assistance. Finally, he climbs into bed. He stays so close to the edge, I almost laugh again at the lengths to which he is going to behave. For my part, I'm somewhere between appreciating the gesture and being utterly baffled by it, but I also know that the last thing I need is something else coming in to complicate my feelings even more.

We stay like that for a moment, both lying on our backs and gazing up at the ceiling, neither of us anywhere near sleep from the sounds of his breathing, before he abruptly rolls over onto his side to face me.

He is still a solid couple of feet away, but I swear I can feel the heat emanating from him. He studies me, and I can see a question in his eyes.

I shuffle a bit closer, close enough to be within arm’s reach, rolling over as well to face him.

"What are you thinking?" I whisper.

His behavior tonight has made me bolder than usual.

Instead of answering right away, he cautiously moves a hand toward my face. His fingers gently play along the chain that leads from my nose to my ear.

"I was wondering about this. It's unlike anything I've ever seen, even in pictures from the Eastern Lands." On the way to the alchemist’s, he had been interrogating me, but I sense nothing but genuine interest from him this time.

"It's...a symbol of purity," I try to phrase it delicately. "Normally, it would be removed on the wedding night.” I hedge, trying not to think of the way I stood naked before him and the way he’d refused me, trying not to think of every inch of his bare body pressed against mine in the caves. “But since ours didn't go exactly according to plan..." I can't help the small wry laugh that escapes my lips. “I suppose I have just gotten used to having it on. Besides, I assumed no one here would know the difference."

He matches my laugh with a chuckle of his own.

"Nothing about our wedding went exactly according to plan, though, did it?" He grins down at me. "It didn't help that you were late."

"I was not!" I say with some offense.

I am never late.

"You most definitely were." He raises his eyebrows. "Why did you think the thing was already in progress when you arrived?"

I think back to that day and how angry I had been that no one had given me even a moment to rest or freshen up.

"I just assumed you were a thoughtless ass." My tone is teasing, but we both know it's the truth.

I should have assumed Madame's hand in it, as it is in everything else, but I wasn't exactly in a mind frame to think critically that day.

"And I just assumed you were a selfish, spoiled heiress." He smiles to soften the blow, but I don't blame him, considering his side of the situation in hindsight.

He moves his hand from my face to my shoulder, running his fingers gently up and down my arm.

"Is that why you insisted I come alone?" It's something I've been wondering about. If he was willing to let one person into the castle, I wonder what harm a couple of servants or companions would have done.

But his hand stills.

“You’re freezing,” he comments, shifting to get out of bed.

I get the impression he’s buying himself time to respond, but I let it slide.

“A hazard of living here,” I comment wryly.

He pulls several thick furs from a chest at the foot of his bed, then walks around to spread them over me, tucking the ends around my feet.

My throat clogs at the unexpectedly tender gesture, something no one has done for me in at least fifteen years, but I manage to croak out a thank you.

He nods, then gets back into bed. Only when he is settled back in on his side of the bed does he finally answer my question.

"In hindsight, perhaps that was...overly rigid of me." He sounds uncomfortable again, and I realize he is on the verge of another apology. “There was so much going on here in the castle, so much at stake. My people were clamoring for me to find a wife, but it seemed imprudent to add anything else on top of that.”

His reactions at the wedding, his fierce anger, make more sense in the light of that revelation. The subject is clearly making him uncomfortable, though, so I settle on another one.

"You are one to talk about interesting jewelry. I haven't noticed any other men here wearing a chain." I reach my hand out toward his chest, grabbing hold of the small worn key on his chain.

With lightning-fast reflexes, his hand closes over mine. The motion is gentle, but the sentiment is clear. His grasp relaxes a bit around mine, an apology in his eyes.

"That is a longer story." He sighs, moving his hand away.

I let go of the chain and entwine my fingers with his.

"Then I suppose it's fortunate we have time."

Einar studies my face for something before his gaze travels to our linked hands and he takes a deep breath.

“You’re not what I expected.” His eyes flick back up to mine, a question lingering in them and something that looks like hope.

It’s the second part that breaks me, but I can’t let him see that.

“Oh? And what did you expect?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “It hardly matters now.”

I nod back at the chain around his neck.

“Does it have to do with that?”

“It does.”

I wait for him to continue, allowing the silence between us to grow until he’s ready.

Visibly steeling himself, he removes his hand from mine and examines the key he always has on him.

“Seventeen years ago, I was engaged.” He begins to weave a tale of intoxicating beauty and parties, exchanged letters, stolen kisses and laughter. And of how he truly believed himself to be in love, in spite of the fast and furious way he’d found it.

I listen intently. I know this story doesn’t have a happy ending. Not only are they clearly not together now, but I recall the comments I overheard from the servants that day about “the other one.”

“She came to Jokith to finalize our engagement, and it must’ve been the fact that she felt our alliance was so assured that she could allow herself to let her guard slip so much.

“Before, I had been so distracted by her beauty. By her wit and charm. But when she arrived, her disdain for my people was shocking. Her vanity and pride were overwhelming. And her cruelty...” He takes a steadying breath, his knuckles going white from his grip on the key.

My stomach churns. I’m getting a sick suspicion of who this woman was, is, and I hope against reason that it’s one of the many things I’ve been wrong about lately.

“She slapped Sigrid.” He pauses again. “She often abused or ridiculed the servants, forcing them to bend to whatever ridiculous whim she had. She had no respect for anyone she viewed to be beneath her.”

My heart beats a furious rhythm, and heat rises to my cheeks. I don’t have to feign anger on his behalf. I know there has to be more than one heartless woman in the world, but the coincidences are mounting. And if I’m right, I have had half a lifetime of watching Madame mistreat those she considers beneath her.

“She wanted to push the wedding up, but something was telling me not to. She was in such a hurry.” A humorless laugh escapes his lips. “She wanted more than that.”

Of course, she was. I do the math in my head. She was pregnant with Melodi, the only one of us who actually belongs to her. With that, I lose my last shred of doubt that the woman he was engaged to was Madame.

My anger mingles with an abrupt surge of jealousy. The man in front of me, the one who would never truly belong to me, had belonged to her for some period of time.

The realization shouldn’t come as a surprise. Hadn’t she always taken what she wanted? Hadn’t she left nothing for my sisters or me that was untainted by her?

“She was desperate to climb into my bed. She threw herself at me at every turn. But something about it never felt right. It was never genuine or real with her.”

My cheeks flush at the memory of our wedding night, but now for a wholly different set of reasons. No wonder he hated me. I hate myself for bearing any resemblance to Madame that night. Or ever.

“Anyway... one night, I went to confront her about it all, went to tell her we were through, but she must have already known. When I arrived at her chambers, she wasn’t alone. Odger was with her.”

“No.” My eyes widen, and my mouth pops open in surprise.

Not because I would put it past her, but because it’s so unlike Madame to be careless with her plans. Unless it was part of her plan? My head hurts from analyzing this.

“Yes. And I’m sure I don’t need to explain the compromising position he had her in up against the wall.”

I actually cringe. His disdain for the weasel makes so much more sense now.

“Were you terribly upset?” I ask, unreasonably afraid of his answer, and he shakes his head.

“Not in the way you would think. It stung, but I had already planned to break off our understanding. That she slept with Odger was just a slap in the face after the fact. But I never imagined that she would be so cruel...” He closes his eyes as he fidgets with the smooth key.

I try to put myself in his shoes, to somehow believe that the woman who now goes by Madame had a shred of kindness in her. That he could believe himself in love with her.

Was she softer then? Her very essence unmarred by every black and twisted thing that she would do in the years to come?

It's no use. It's impossible for me to imagine a version of that woman who is anything but a liar and a monster.