In the Veins of the Drowning(40)

Theodore flung the door at the end of the hall wide open. “After you, my lady.” He stood with his back against the jamb, watching me with his chin tipped back, features hard. As I approached the threshold he stood upon, I stopped. The small space between us was charged. “You loathe me, don’t you?”

He held my gaze, features unreadable as ever, but the rise and fall of his chest increased. As did mine. Then he cocked his head toward his chamber. “Get in.”

It was as grand a space as I could have expected. The ceiling soared, coffered and painted with the island’s flowering vines. The entire space was dressed—unsurprisingly—in shades of green and gold. At the center sat a bed even grander than the one on the ship. Wide, with stairs at its side. Heavy velvet drapes hung from its towering posts. Before an opulent mantel sat a large settee, but it was too far from the bed. We’d have to drag it closer so we could both sleep without growing sick.

I jumped when the door slammed. Theodore brooded his way across the room, unbuttoning his coat and tossing it over the back of a chair. “Keep close,” he said, as he stepped into the washing room. I moved nearer and heard the burble and splash of water.

Crossing my arms tightly over my chest, I studied Theodore’s room closer. There was a perilously tall stack of books on the table by his bed, one splayed open at the top, upside down to save his spot. A delicate crystal glass and a bottle of wine sat beside them. A desk as messy as the one on his ship sat before the floor-to-ceiling windows. Large, lilac-colored blooms sat in a vase amid the clutter. I itched to move closer and look at the papers there. I found myself wondering over the shape of his writing, if it was angular and prickly, like he was toward me. Or if perhaps he let the curling warmth he hid so well creep into its lines.

A knock sounded.

“Yes, what?” Theodore called. He emerged from the washing room shirtless, golden brown skin flecked with drops of water. He toweled his hair, his face, and I stared dumbly at his strong, beautiful body. His chest was hard and muscled, with a smattering of dark hair. Divots looked like they’d been carved over his stomach, into the edges of his hips.

“Dressmaker, Your Majesty,” came a weathered voice from the other side of the door.

“Come in.” Theodore draped the towel over his wide shoulders. When the door opened and a hunched woman, black hair streaked with white, entered, Theodore smiled. “Hello, Antheia. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

The old woman giggled, chiming and unaware as a young girl would be. Slowly, she pushed a cart of hanging gowns into the room. She stopped and bobbed into a wobbly curtsy.

“None of that,” Theodore said. That devastating smile of his dimpled his left cheek. “Let me.” He took the cart from her and rolled it into the middle of the room. “I’m sorry to rush you, but the lady needs to be dressed quickly. Something subtle if you don’t mind.”

The old woman, Antheia, glanced at me and shuffled toward the cart. “Subtle!” Her dark, deeply wrinkled eyes twinkled. “Pity. I’ll see what I can do.”

Theodore looked at me, and his smile slipped away. “Go on,” he said to me, the words empty and quick. He strode toward me to return to the washroom.

“I think you were wrong.” I spoke quietly as he passed. He stopped, close enough for me to smell the vetiver soap on his skin, with a question in his green eyes. “You called me a gnat, but you were wrong. I’m a mosquito, I think. A nuisance you cannot be rid of, and I take and take and take—” I pulled the engagement ring from my finger and held it up between us. “Here. As payment. I do not want charity and I do not wish to be further in your debt.”

His gaze bore down on me, amplifying that hollow feeling in my chest. “A mosquito.” Then the corner of his mouth lifted.

It took effort, but I raised my chin. “Are you laughing at me?”

He shook his head, and before he could speak, I pressed the ring closer.

He sobered. “I don’t need your ring.”

“That’s not the point.” I nearly stopped myself from speaking further, but for some bleeding reason I wanted him to understand. “My care has always been dependent upon what I could provide in exchange for it. It was that way with Nemea, with Evander. With you. Agatha is the only one who has ever cared for me in earnest, and even she looked after me in exchange for compensation.”

His look became fathomless, grave. “That’s the end of it, then.”

I shook my head, confused. “The end of what?”

He wrapped his hand over the ring, warm fingers touching mine. He pushed it away in refusal. “The end of transactions. We came to a deal, yes, but that is done. I offer my care now because I choose to.”

His words made me feel placid and troubled at once. “But why?”

He didn’t answer. It was a long moment before he broke our stare and glanced at the old dressmaker. “Antheia is waiting for you.”

Not an hour later, Theodore and I were descending the grand stairs into the entry hall. He glowed in a light suit, his crown nestled back into his dark hair, but his mood had grown even more sullen.

I shot him a sharp look. “What are you upset about now?”

“I’d asked Antheia for something subtle.”

The gown she’d put me in was anything but. The satin silk reminded me of a cherry blossom painting I’d loved in one of the books in Nemea’s study. It was the palest, most delicate pink, the color deepening at the hem. The sleeves were sheer and flowing and cuffed at the wrists. The bodice was cut low, fitted, until it gave way to a skirt that moved like rippling water with my steps.