Page 84 of Heart of Snow
Margaretha
Ilsa yanked the brush througha snarl in my hair, muttering an oath under her breath. She seemed particularly ill-humored tonight, and I wondered if it was another display of her waspish mood since the masque or something more.
She set the brush on the washstand with a thump, returning my attention to the key resting beside the pitcher. The dark metal glinted in the light of the flickering candles, looking dangerous and inevitable and making my breath come faster.
“Ilsa, have you finished yet?” The warm room had turned suffocating, the idle chatter of the queen’s ladies vexing me like fingers rapping against my skull.
“You would know if I had,” she muttered, then added more loudly, “Almost done.”
Just a few more moments, a few more twists of the plait, and I would be ready for the evening’s gathering. I doubted I would ever be ready to see the prince again, but he was sure to be there, and I could avoid it no longer.
The moment Ilsa’s hands left my hair, I bolted out of the chair, my nervousness forcing me to move despite my reluctance to leave the room. I had no notion what I would say to Felipe. I had no desire to even think of it. My brain was sore and bruised from all the mental volleying. Would I degrade myself? Would I abandon Samuel?
“Lady Margaretha.” Thieuloye’s voice called my attention to the ladies gathering beside the door, and I reluctantly moved to follow them. The corridors were cold against my bare shoulders. Belinda had insisted I wear the scarlet gown gifted to me by the prince, with its dropped neckline and exposed shoulders, and the gown did its work, attracting the eyes of the prince the moment I walked into the nobles’ gathering room. He sent mean impish wink, his lips quirking into the grin I once thought charming.
I looked away.
I was not surprised when a short time later his voice whispered beside me, “Shall we talk?”
Still turned from him, I gave a hesitant nod, and he took my hand, pulling me toward the door and away from the nobility. His attendants followed for propriety, but we’d hardly left the room when he ordered them to stay behind. I allowed them to depart without a trace of shock, without a thought chasing through my mind. There was nothing to think, nothing to feel. Even my very limbs tingled with a pervasive numbness as Felipe tugged me to the bottom of a narrow staircase isolated from the main hall. He backed me against a wall, propping an arm over my head and effectively trapping me.
“I’d almost given up on you. You look”—his eyes trailed over my dress, lingering on my neck, my shoulders—“ravishing.” Lifting his free hand, he trailed his fingers across my bare shoulder and over my collarbone.
I studied the buttons of his jerkin. How odd that the scrolling patterns there should keep my interest at such a time.
“Will you not look at me?” His voice was as gentle as his finger under my chin, lifting my gaze up.
It was as if I’d been choking, suffocating for want of air, but not feeling the burn in my lungs until my eyes met his. Then frantic panic overtook me, the sheer instinct to breathe, to live, fighting through me, and I pushed against the prince’s chest with a force that sent him staggering backward.
His eyes were wide, his chest heaving. I mirrored him, watching him. Waiting.
He straightened, his hands falling limply to his sides. “You despise me, don’t you?”
“You manipulated me,” I hissed, unable to conceal my disgust.
“Then you are only here for your brother.” He took a step back.
“You made it abundantly clear my body was the price of his freedom.” I should not be saying these words. Every outburst risked Samuel’s life.
“No.” Felipe had the audacity to look hurt. “His freedom was only meant to help you see the stupidity of mankind’s constraints on love. It would be nothing to overcome such inconsequential laws if you cared for me as I thought you did.” Sinking down onto a stone step, he ran a hand through his curly hair, then lifted his sad eyes to mine. “Could you not love me, Margaretha?”
No, I would not pity him. He deserved none of it.
And yet . . .
Was he not, in many ways, a product of his upbringing? A man born to entitlement, with no notion of how to love when life had trained him to command, force, and maneuver to get his way? Though his affections may have been sincere—and I suspected they were—no matter how deeply he felt, he had no idea how to love unselfishly. Maybe we suited each other more than I’d realized, with my own frail, pathetic offering of affection shaded by manipulation, by trying to entice him into saving my brother. With my heart numb and cold, asleep after a lifetime of guilt. With my soul struggling to free itself from the ache for another man. My love was broken too.
I sighed, settling onto the stair beside him. Despite everything, I could not hate him. “I care for you, Felipe.”
He took my hand, playing with the ring on my finger. “Every minute apart from you is torture. My heart wrestles to flee from me, pounding against my ribs to escape its cage and settle by you, where it belongs. Can you not see?” He looked at me. “It’s not by choice, but necessity that I’m drawn to you, and I beg you to end my torment. You are the only woman I will ever love.”
Dropping my eyes, I took a deep breath. “And what of your wife? Where shall I stand when you are joined with England?”
“That union of state?” His voice was laced with disgust. “How could such a cold marriage ever overtake my love for you? In the depths of my soul, Margaretha, you are the only wife I shall ever have.”
I stared at the stone beneath us, reflecting on the prince’s words, on his claim that I would be his only wife. Pulling the idea apart and piecing it back together in different ways, a notion formed. One that could save Samuel and allow me to keep my honor intact. It would mean closing all other doors, of committing myself to a lifetime with the prince, but my brother would live, and my atonement would be made.
But I would need to convince Felipe.
