Page 35 of Dance with the Dragon Duke

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Her head came up, and he paused to give her a chance to fill in the gaps for him. She didn’t deny it but didn’t explain herself either.

“I sense it,” he pressed, “and I don’t like it.”

“Dark, please.” Her usually sweet face hardened. She pulled her willowy limbs in around herself, hugging the fur over her chest. “Whatever it is you think you want, you can’t have it. Do you understand? Our relationship is supposed to be a farce. A plot to get me my inheritance. Remember?”

The blows just kept coming. This one about knocked him off the bed. How could he have read her so wrong? She’d wanted him earlier, hadn’t she? She’d been so pliant and willing before, so eager to indulge, to touch and be touched. He could still feel the phantom of her lips at his throat, moaning her release into his neck.

And what had happened to that initial joy when he’d called her mate? Where had it gone?

“That’s how it is then?” he said, voice cracking.

“I’m sorry.” She picked at a stitch in the leather chair. “I need to rest.” Tomorrow turned away from him, pulling her legs up to her chest.

“Fine,” he barked. He stood up from the bed, needing to move his body to free it of the uneasy energy knotting his muscles. “If you’re going to insist on keeping secrets from me, then you can stay over there all night.”

Dark stormed from the room before she could respond. He kept stomping until he reached the entryway.

Susan called to him from the bar in the parlor, “How’s our girl doing?”

Dark paused for several thumping heartbeats, his fingers flexing at his sides. He grunted absently to her, then keptmoving, nearly barreling a footman over. Out on the street, the winter weather did nothing to cool the heat that churned through him. He clung to that feeling. Surprise and shock had abandoned him to the claws of rejection. He sensed they were ready to sink in deep, a wound that wouldn’t easily heal. The familiar heat of anger was easier to manage than the spiraling pit hovering just below it.

Perhaps he’d send Tomorrow to her own room. He wouldn’t abandon her to her cousins, but he could put her away for now. Dark didn’t have it in him to allow real harm to befall her. Glen Freest had earned a dagger in his thigh, truly, but if Tomorrow couldn’t be forthright with him, then he didn’t want to look at her all night. Quiet from a woman prone to ramble on about everything else felt like a taunt.

And she’d refused their bond.

She couldn’t or wouldn’t feel it.

She dismissed it.Dismissed him.

He paced the streets, cutting through alleys until his hair was damp with snowfall and he’d nearly gotten himself lost. The sun was setting before he found a familiar walkway and returned to the Gilded Boot. Margot was waiting for him in the dining room with dinner.

“Cook made your favorite,” she said, motioning for a footman to plate his food. “Stuffed cabbage. Susan said you looked like you needed it.”

Dark lowered himself into the highbacked chair beside hers. He picked up his fork, staring at the silver tines, thinking briefly of tridents and freedom from tyrants before his mind inevitably circled back to the woman in his bedroom. The woman he was frightened he was falling in love with.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about Magistrate Balder?” Margot prompted.

“Go on then,” he said, rubbing his fingers across the silver, letting it scratch over thick callused dragon flesh.

“Balder is preparing the engagement document for us. I gave him half his asking price today. He’ll get the rest when we have it in hand.” Margot grabbed a chunk of bread from the basket in the center of the table and broke it in two. She pressed it to her nose and smelled it before continuing. “He said he can’t just hand it over right away. That would draw suspicion.”

“How long?”

“A fortnight at the most. It’s better than months.”

“That’ll have to do, then.” He dug his thumb against the fork hard enough to leave lines on the pad of flesh. He felt Margot’s eyes, but she didn’t pry.

The sounds of eating flittered around him. Flatware scraping ceramic, wine sloshing against the bottom of a glass, the thumping bootsteps of footmen tending to their mistress.

“Why’d you bet against us?” The question hurtled out of Dark before it had fully formed in his mind. “In your wager with Susan, why’d you bet against Tomorrow and me?”

Margot broke her bread into even smaller pieces. Briefly, her painted lips pressed together, forming a line. “Against you? What makes you think I betagainstyou two?”

“Susan bet I’d fall in love with her,” Dark guessed, basing his reasoning on the snippets of their game he’d overhead. The madam was the most intuitive person he’d ever met. It seemed only natural that she’d figured him out before he’d figured himself out.

Margot dipped her bread in her dish, soaking it in the broth. She chewed and swallowed it down before responding. “Susie guessed you’d fall in love with each other, yes.”

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