“But of course! What sort of father would I be to deprive you of your passion?”
The sort of father who’d have his daughter murdered.
“Go, look. Please! Your grandmother made the selections herself, and I assure you, she spared no expense.”
I lurched in the direction of the chests, my feet feeling heavy as bricks. Half expecting to be incinerated, I cautiously touched one of them, but the wood was smooth and cool beneath my fingers.
“Perhaps you might play for us on this joyous occasion, my lady.”
My father’s words made no sense to me, but when I turned my head, I realized they’d been directed at Marc’s mother.
“Not today,” the Comtesse replied. Her voice was steady, but the trembling orb of light above her betrayed her fear.
“Shame.” My father’s smile was all teeth. “I well remember the days when you used to entertain at parties, though it seems a lifetime ago. Such a beautiful thing to possess.” His eyes shifted to Marc’s father. “The gift of music.”
The Comte’s face gleamed with fury, because that wasn’t at all what my father had meant. But as Duke, my father outranked him, so the Comte could say nothing. How many lives have my family raked their claws across? I wondered. How many have suffered, how many have died, because of us?
“Aren’t you going to look, Pénélope?”
His attention had shifted back to me, and I let my hair fall into my face as I reached for the latch on the chest, unwilling to let him see my fear. Half expecting snakes or worse to leap out at me, I flipped the lid, the contents within glittering in a rainbow of colors beneath my light.
Jewels.
All new. All worth a small fortune, and all suitable for the head of a household, not a teenage girl. I picked up a pair of diamond earrings that would reach nearly to my shoulders, the gems winking as though they were laughing. The next three chests were full of gowns made of costly imported fabrics, many marked by the names of famous human designers. Then one full of undergarments quite unlike anything I’d previously worn. The last was full of small jars of pigment. Picking up one, I stared at the label, knowing that this chest of rare, brilliant hues was worth more than all the rest combined.
“It is important to pursue one’s passions.” He’d come up close without me realizing, his breath smelling faintly of mint. I shivered, placing the jar back with the rest with a tiny clink.
“Do you think all of this will undo the fact you tried to have me killed?” I whispered. “Do you believe my forgiveness can be purchased?”
“No,” he replied. “I don’t. Sometimes, one’s emotions get the better of them. But it would’ve been a tragedy and a mistake if Lessa had taken your light from us.”
“Lessa?” I was shaking, the jars of precious color rattling under my hand. “Does she do anything you don’t want her to?”
He chuckled softly. “Does anyone?”
And there it was. As though a trousseau full of items that would have taken weeks, if not longer, to procure were not enough, the statement was all but an admission that Marc and me bonding was no act of defiance. At least, not toward my father. He’d wanted us to do it. Lessa trying to kill me had been nothing but a ruse intended to make us desperate enough to take that leap, and the realization carved out my insides as thoroughly as a knife.
The door to the parlor slammed open.
Marc stood in the doorway, breathing hard. “Get away from her.”
As if Marc hadn’t spoken, my father said, “Well, if it isn’t the man of the hour.” Flipping the lid of the chest closed, he strolled over to Marc, his cane making soft thuds against the floor. Marc’s hand lifted as though he might strike, and I lunged at them, desperate to stop the altercation before it began. But my father only clapped a hand against Marc’s shoulder.
“I must commend you,” he said. “Honor is a rare thing in our kind, but you, young man, possess it in a quantity beyond my wildest dreams. Most in your position would have left my poor daughter alone to bear an illegitimate child, but you…”
With his cane, he gestured at the Comte. “What a son you’ve raised, my lord. What incredible bravery he must possess to take such a risk for the girl he loves.”
“I have always been proud of my son,” the Comte said. “That will never change.”
“To be sure.” My father sighed, then reached out to cup my cheek as though I were the most precious of things, then inclined his head to Marc. “I really must thank you. I confess, my behavior of late has not been particularly… fatherly, but you’ve done everything in your power to protect my little girl.”
The sincerity in his tone was sickening, and I stepped out of his grip.
“Yesterday was… If I had lost her like that, I’m not sure I could ever have forgiven the mistake.” Reaching into his pocket, he extracted a card embossed with red and gold and handed it to Marc. “Consider this a display of my eternal gratitude for the brave and noble choice you made.”
Then he left without another word.
No one spoke, but the room smelled faintly sour with too much magic and even more trepidation. My knees shook as I took them in: the young man I loved and his family, who were nothing but kind to me. To everyone. And as payment, I had put them in my father’s sights. Put, I was certain, their very lives in danger.
“I’m so sorry.” My knees failed me and I dropped to the carpet. “I’m so very, very sorry.”
It was a mistake that could not be undone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Marc
The Duke’s celebration was a week later, the intervening days passing in a blur. I had what I’d always dreamed of: Pénélope as my wife. Every night, she slept in my arms, and I spent every waking minute where I wasn’t occupied with my duties to the crown in her company. Though I would have been happy enough to dine with her alone, she insisted on eating with my family, her interest in my mother’s music and my father’s work genuine, her delight at the mundane gossip that we discussed making the meals more engaging than they had ever been before. My father had the servants rearrange the solar for her use, and I spent hours watching her work, brow furrowed in concentration and errant paint smeared across her cheek as she brought those in our life alive on canvas and parchment.
But it came at a cost, and that cost put a pall on my dream, as reality often does.
Tristan hadn’t spoken to me once since the night Pénélope and I had bonded. He took great pains to avoid me, which was fine at first, because I was angry with him. But it was only days before his absence began to prey upon me, the loss of his companionship leaving a void that grew harder and harder to ignore, though I did my best. Pénélope, however, was not fooled.
“Keep trying,” she said, stoppering a vial of paint. “He’ll come around. He needs you more than you need him, I think.”