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The prince was carrying great pain. He held it in the grip against the reins and in the stuttering of his breath.
Without thinking, she reached around and placed her hand on his forearm, right where the king had clutched him, feeling the cold tension beneath his skin. “I know you only asked me to dinner to be kind. And I know that I am just a low envoy from a whole different polity. But if you ever need to talk, I am here. I know what you must be going through.”
“How could you understand this?” he said, without anger.
“My... father died when I was fifteen,” she said, omitting the full truth of that tragedy.
His body untensed. “I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” she said with a weak smile. “It was. And it still is.”
They rode in silence. When he next spoke, his voice was barely audible. “How did you survive something so terrible?”
“I had to stay strong for my family,” she said, giving his forearm another squeeze as they reached the embassy gate. “More than money, or fame or titles, duty and family are the only things that really matter. Don’t you agree?”
As he helped her down, his eyes shone in golden resonance. “Yes, Ms. Cosmin. I agree. I agree entirely.”
Then he disappeared back down the street, back toward the palace of wax smiles and comforting lies.
The poor man. He has to bear so much.
When she entered the embassy compound, Aurelius was waiting. “How did it go?” he asked, rushing to her side.
Her jaw clenched. There was something repulsive in his voice. Desperation. Wanting to know whether his relationship with the good and decent man he’d been tricking for months was still intact.
Would you have noticed his pain, Aurelius? Would you have cared that his father is dying? Or would you have cursed the king for ruining your moment? For messing with your mission?
“Oh, Aurie,” she said, conjuring all the doe-eyed, bachelorette fascination she could. “It was simply magical.”
It took all her willpower not to turn around and see his expression as she clicked the door closed.
58
AURELIUS
Simply magical.
The words had knocked around his head for five fucking days. At first, he’d thought nothing of it. It was laughable to think of Teigra as a threat. To him? For the affection of a man?
And yet, with each passing day the gnawing worsened.
Things were not going as expected.
By now, the prince was supposed to be chasing him. He should have been groveling at his feet for how he reacted in the vineyard, with all that disgraceful yelling and grabbing of his wrist, the grip so hard it left bruises and little puncture marks in his soft skin. He was supposed to be scared, relieved, desperate to connect, and fearful that Aurelius would expose him!
Instead, Calix was ignoring him.
Just this morning, he’d visited Palaestra Xiphos, shooting Calix a dashing smile as he neared the bathhouse tunnel. And the prince had just walked right by. As though Aurelius was just another face in the crowd. As though he didn’t have a huge dagger hanging over his head!
As though Aurelius was nothing...
He couldn’t imagine Teigra was the cause of that. An evening with her had all the impact of being hit with a lettuce.
Oh, she was all right when she knew her place—being a rapturous audience to his tales of debauchery. But she had no right to sit at the high tables of power, where one was expected to dazzle and captivate, not just soak it all up like an old rag.
And yet, the rumors were everywhere. Every bachelorette in the city whispered some story of seeing them together. Of stolen kisses and fleeting touches.
And Teigra appeared to be spending longer away from the embassy during the day...
