‘Why?’ she asked, curious now. ‘I’d have thought it would have been easy for you, when you were brought up with all of this.’
‘Just because I was brought up with it, doesn’t mean it was easy.’ He sat down beside her, sadly not close enough to touch; during the day it was obvious he preferred some separation between them, which she found annoying, yet she wasn’t quite brave enough to push it. Not yet.
‘My father always insisted on stillness and absolute attention,’ he went on. ‘He said it was rude to fidget and to look bored, and that one of the first rules of being a good ruler was to be patient and attentive to whomever was speaking.’
Cassius let out a breath. ‘But I could never sit still or concentrate, and I found all the protocol and royal etiquette we had to learn boring. Caspian never had a problem with it, only me.’ He glanced at her, an unexpected glint in his eyes. ‘I used to escape into the gardens to hide with the head gardener. He’d tell me all about the plants he was putting in the ground, and how they grew and what they needed, and I found that far more interesting.’
Inara didn’t want to move. She didn’t even want to breathe. He wasn’t the King now. She could tell. He was Cassius, sitting beside her, talking to her the way he used to. She wasn’t sure what had prompted the change, but one thing she did know: she wanted to keep him like this for as long as possible.
‘So is that why you have all those plants in your study?’ She kept the question neutral. ‘You said they helped your mind settle.’
‘Yes, they do. I still remember telling my father that I wanted to be a gardener, not a prince.’ There was a note of dry humour in his voice. ‘He wasn’t impressed.’
Inara smiled, thinking of Cassius as a little boy, digging earnestly in the dirt. ‘I’d imagine not.’
‘You need something similar, I think.’ There was a shrewd look in his eyes. ‘And you already have it, don’t you? Numbers are your escape.’
A little jolt went through her. She hadn’t expected him to know what mathematics meant to her, let alone to have thought about it. They’d discussed it, of course, but she just hadn’t expected him to remember.
‘Yes,’ she said, her cheeks heating with a ridiculous blush. ‘I suppose they are. Numbers feel easier than dealing with people.’
‘Easier than etiquette and protocol, yes?’
She nodded. ‘And talking to people and all that...social stuff.’
‘Yes, I remember. You found that difficult.’
A warm feeling blossomed in her heart. He’d remembered their conversations, when she’d chattered artlessly about how painful her upbringing had been.
‘It still is, to be honest.’ Inara picked up her pen and fiddled with it. ‘And Mama didn’t help. She watched everything I did and always had a criticism. It was always, “Stand up straight, Inara. Smile. Be more graceful. If you can’t be beautiful, then for God’s sake at least be interesting.”.’ She stopped, her throat tight and, though she could feel Cassius’s gaze on her, she didn’t want to look at him. She couldn’t bear the thought of him measuring her against the same impossible standard her mother had once used.
Firstly, would he really do that? And secondly, do you care?
Perhaps he wouldn’t. His standards for himself were high, but he didn’t put those onto other people. And, as for whether she cared or not, sadly, she did.
Be brave. You’re stronger than that.
It was true. She brought a king to his knees every night. Surely she could look that same king in the eye during the day, unafraid of his judgment?
Inara lifted her chin and looked at him. ‘I couldn’t do any of those things. I couldn’t stand up straight or smile or be graceful. I couldn’t be beautiful, and I could certainly never be interesting. That’s why they lost patience with me. That’s why they gave me to Stefano Castelli.’
Cassius’s gaze was steady and direct, a familiar heat burning in it. ‘If you’re expecting me to agree with your mother’s opinions, then you’re going to be disappointed,’ he said levelly. ‘Because I’m glad you couldn’t do all those things. I’m glad you failed. And I’m glad that you were given to Stefano Castelli, because otherwise you wouldn’t have come to my limo that night. And you wouldn’t now be my wife.’
The warmth in her chest blossomed further.
‘Not that I would call any of that a failure,’ he went on. ‘I’ve always thought you were interesting, and indeed beautiful, though I shouldn’t have thought that when you were sixteen.’ He paused, holding her gaze. ‘You’re even more beautiful now.’
Her eyes prickled, the warmth flowing through her. How strange that being told such lovely things should make her feel like crying.
She wanted to say something—maybe that he was wrong, that only at night in his arms she felt it might be true—but her voice had somehow become stuck in her throat.
Not that she needed to speak, because he continued, ‘I’ve been going about this wrong. I’ve been forcing you into all the same things as your mother.’
‘You’re not forcing me,’ she managed thickly. ‘I’m doing all of this because I want to.’
‘Why?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that he hadn’t exactly given her a choice, but then that wasn’t quite true, was it? She could have said no. She wasn’t sixteen any more, with all her choices made by her parents. She was a grown woman and her choices were her own, and being here in this palace, with him, was a choice she’d made.