shake on the box of tea bags.
Devrim clasps my shoulders and turns me toward him. “I came to talk to you.”
As he gazes down at me, his expression is so gentle that it makes my heart turn over. “What is there left to say to each other?”
His eyes trace lovingly over my face. “Everything.”
Chapter Nineteen
Devrim
I reach for her hand. My fingers draw along her pinky finger and brush her knuckles.
“You asked the King to restore our home, didn’t you?” Wraye whispers, her eyes searching mine. “Why did you do this for us?”
“For you.” I breathe in her familiar flowery scent. Her eyes are filled with longing, but she’s holding herself back from me. “Only for you.”
Not her mother. Not for the sake of the Court. Her, so she can hold her head up and be the person she was born to be. Now I know why she could be so tormented and evasive when we were together. She was keeping her mother’s secret, and hating herself for it.
“We don’t deserve it, but I suppose Archduke Levanter is granted anything he petitions the King for.”
The King owed me no favors. I expected him to tell me that if the Rugovas had mismanaged their estate, that was the end of it. It’s what his father would have done. “King Anson only asked me one question. If you were the young lady I was dancing with at the ball.”
“What did you tell him?”
I reach up and cup her jaw. “I said she is. She’s important to me. She’s precious, in fact.”
“Devrim, you can’t go around saying things like that, especially not to the King. There’ll be another scandal, if it gets out.”
I lean down until my mouth is close to hers. “There won’t be a scandal because I’m going marry you.”
Her eyes close briefly as she angles her cheek into my palm. “Have you given up asking? Are you just going to tell me what to do?”
“I never get the answer I want. It’s frustrating the hell out of me, because I love you.”
Wraye sucks in a breath, despair filling her eyes. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it can’t ever happen. You’re dealing with a scandal that’s my family’s fault, and we can’t do that to Aubrey.”
I gather her to me and press my nose into the curve of her neck. “Aubrey will understand that we’re in love. You nearly told me how you felt the last time we were alone together.”
She curls her fingers into my hair. “The King has given me a job. I want to focus on that and try to understand the world I’m living in. You’ve had months to get used to who you are, but I’ve been an imposter the entire time. How can I go from that to marrying a man like you?”
Her words are telling me to let her go, but her eyes are begging me to kiss her. I lower my mouth to hers, but she turns her face away.
“I need things to slow down, so I can figure them out.”
I glance through the door and see Lady Rugova with her ear pricked toward our conversation. When she catches my eye, she hurriedly starts packing a box.
Wraye pulls herself from my arms. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
I’m not letting her go so easily. I take her face between my hands again. “Listen to me. You’ve done nothing to be sorry for. You deserve to be happy.”
Wraye reaches up to clasp my wrists, imploring me. “Please don’t tell Aubrey what we did. She must already feel so betrayed by my family, and I don’t want her to suffer more.”
“Aubrey will be fine. Everything will be fine. You’re coming home with me, now, and we’re going to plan our future together. Do as you’re told.”
Her face hardens, and I remember what she said about liking me telling her what to do, though, it didn’t mean that she’d always do it.
“Your Grace, you need to get out.”
Chapter Twenty
Wraye
I watch Devrim walk down the grubby street to the bridge, leading back over to the nicer side of the river. He stops in the middle of the bridge and looks back at the apartment, right where the children from school told me the truth about my father. Losing my innocence, that way, had been sharp and irrevocable. What revenge it would be to walk out of this squalid place and into Levanter House at the Archduke’s side.
I let the curtain fall and turn away.
The house is nearly packed