I let Alexi press me back against alcove and we disappeared into the sweet, forgiving darkness. His hands roamed down my waist and under my dress, hiking the skirts high. I devoured him with kisses, chasing his mouth whenever he drew away for a single instant. I had never allowed myself to want this because I assumed it wasn’t a possibility. I had assumed he was too enthralled by your charms and Magdalena’s sunny smiles to even notice me in this way. But now, with Alexi’s hand cupping my bottom and his stubble scraping my cheek, I realized how long I had been concealing a treacherous hope.
Our lovemaking was hurried and amateurish and all the sweeter for it, Alexi pressing inside me while I twined my fingers in his hair and urged him on with soft repetitions of his name. We gasped and clung to each other in the alcove, kissing each other as though these may be our last kisses ever on the earth. I came quickly and with a cry, my hips braced securely against the wall while Alexi took me under my dress.
When he finished, he sagged against me, the curls at the nape of his neck tight with sweat. It was such a small, human detail that I suddenly wanted to cry. Young. Alexi was so young. What had we done to him, bringing him into this life?
“Little Alexi,” I murmured as he nuzzled my throat.
“I love you, Constance.”
Somehow, it sounded like an apology, and the tears pricking my eyes threatened to spill over.
“I know, my darling.”
We were both a mess, but managed to right our clothes and smooth each other’s hair into some semblance of order. I pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand and released him into the heart of the house, praying that he found his way to refuge before the monster roaming the halls caught him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back into an argument.
I met the monster myself minutes later in the hallway, when I almost collided with you as you stalked around a corner.
“Have you seen Alexi?” you demanded, not even looking at me. “He’s being hysterical.”
“Oh, I… that is to say, I haven’t, ah…”
Your eyes flashed over to me as you opened your mouth to snap, but I must have been very obvious, with high color in my cheeks and my dress askew. Or maybe your keenly developed predator senses could smell him on me.
“Oh,” you said, voice thick with disdain. “He was with you.”
“My lord,” I began breathlessly. “I didn’t intend — ”
You pressed past me as you continued on your mission, barely pausing long enough to throw me a flat final word.
“He only fucked you because he was angry with me and Magdalena’s been sick for three days. You know that, don’t you?”
Yes, I decided as I gasped for breath, run through with the rapier of your words even as you disappeared down the hallway. He knows how cruel he can be.
There was no huge argument that predicated my decision to betray you, no ultimate act of tyranny. I simply broke under the weight of a thousand tense nights, a thousand thoughtless, soul-stripping words. I felt like I was losing my mind in that place, and eventually my desire to do something about it, anything about it, outweighed my fear of you.
We had lived in the house for months, maybe years, before I had the courage to act. I immediately implicated Magdalena and Alexi. I had spent so long trying to protect them from you, but there was no way forward without their help.
“Are you out of your mind?” Magdalena whispered. She had taken to lowering her voice, even when you weren’t around to overhear her. At the moment, you were out hunting. We had a scarce hour or two to ourselves before you came back.
“Aren’t you at least a little curious?” I pressed. The three of us were huddled around a flickering candelabra in one of the many parlors. The house was not outfitted for electricity, and so we made do with firelight. “About what we might learn?”
“What you’re proposing is suicide,” Magdalena went on. “What if he catches you in there, rooting around in his things? God, I don’t even want to think about it.”
“He won’t catch her,” Alexi chimed in. “He’s miles away tempting some milksop out of the village so we can all eat. We’ve got a little time.”
“What exactly are you hoping to find?” Magdalena asked.
I fixed my mouth into a grim line.
“Anything that will get us out of this place. This is no life. You can’t tell me that you’re happy here, like this.”
“Of course not,” she muttered. “But I’d just as soon walk into the sun as I would go rooting around in his things, looking for answers to questions he won’t let us ask.”