House of Shadows (Royal Houses 2)

“You look lovely,” March said as they fell into step with the waltz.

“Thank you. You’re as handsome as ever,” Kerrigan said.

It wasn’t a lie as much as she wished it were. March was more stunning every day. It was a sin that he could be this attractive and not be the person that she wanted.

“Seeing the House of Cruse on you again brings me much joy.”

She flushed at the words. “I never thought that I’d see it again.”

“Why did your father get rid of you in the first place?” he asked calmly. As if it wasn’t a loaded question.

“I’ve only heard the story he’s told the rest of the court.”

“He buried you, Kerrigan. Yet you were safe in the mountain all along,” he said, holding her tighter. “Why would he do that?”

“He just wanted to keep me safe.” With the shift in her relationship with Kivrin, she couldn’t help defending him. Even though she had wondered the same thing for years.

“Why didn’t you come back? Why did you let us all think you were gone?” He drew her off the dance floor and into a private alcove. She glanced behind her, looking for the safety of the crowd. “Why did you let me think you were gone? You could have sent a letter… anything.”

Kerrigan bit her ruby-red lip and didn’t answer him. There was no reason for what she’d done. She could have reached out and let someone know. But she’d been so young and so afraid. She hadn’t been wanted. It was enough to keep her in one place.

“Answer me,” he snapped. Kerrigan balked at the tone. He hadn’t used that tone with her in years.

“Don’t speak to me like that.” He grasped her arm and pulled her even farther away from the safety of the party. “March, stop!”

“I want answers, Kerrigan. I’m tired of tiptoeing around the situation. Give me what I desire.”

“I don’t have answers. I was abandoned as a child. I didn’t know what was going on, and by the time I did, I’d been buried. What child thinks that they’re wanted after that? I buried my life that day.”

“You didn’t bury your betrothal contract as easily,” he growled at her.

She stepped back, but he still had her arm. “Release me.”

“No.”

“You’re hurting me,” she said, trying to wrench her arm back.

“You’re a Society member. You’ve been through worse.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“How long have you been fucking him?”

Kerrigan startled at the brutality of the question and the careless use of the vile word. It said so much and so little about what had actually happened last night. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Everyone knows it. Don’t try to play dumb.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she repeated.

March narrowed his eyes. He still hadn’t released her arm. There would be bruises. She shouldn’t have been afraid. She was much more powerful than he was. She had four other Society members here with her. She could stop this. And yet she felt ensnared. As she had all those years ago as a child when she caught him skinning the squirrel. The ruthlessness of the act and complete lack of remorse. She’d thought he might be different. That he might have changed in those years apart, but no, he’d just gotten better at hiding it. And she was frozen in place as time shifted around them… and fear took the place of her confidence.

“You went to the hot springs last night. You returned to his rooms,” March snapped. “How long?”

“How do you know that?” she gasped. “Have you been spying on me?”

March searched her expression carefully, as if looking for guile. When he found none, he actually laughed. He laughed at her. “You know nothing about your own lands, do you?”

“What does that mean?”

March dropped her arm, and she stumbled back two steps. “Your father was in disgrace before you were born. He cut a deal with the House of Medallion and then disappeared for five years. We protected the lands and people with the understanding that we were allies. And allies repay their debts. That means, as soon as you were born and named heir to the House, you were tied to my house, to me. The House of Cruse owed the House of Medallion a marriage betrothal for everything that we’d done for you. To this day, your father has next to no standing army, and we have been securing your lands even after your supposed death.”

Kerrigan blinked at those words. Realization dawned on her. That meant that the soldiers she’d seen in Lillington hadn’t been for the House of Cruse at all. They weren’t her father’s men. They’d been March’s lackeys all along. They were the ones to see her and Fordham head off into the woods. They reported what had happened to him. They had likely been doing it all week.