CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Come with me,” Tarquin demanded the next morning, but made no move to leave the bed they were pressed together in.
“Come with you where?” Mira asked sleepily, her face buried in his neck.
He didn’t answer, and when she moved to sit up and look at him he just smiled slyly at her.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
He sat up too, cupped her face in his palms and kissed her. It was slow and tentative with none of the usual urgency. There was no heat, no demand for anything else, just something sweet and whole, all by itself.
Mira felt a wave of unease, but pushed it away. He was hers. He had said it himself, and she had no reason to doubt him, had no choice but to trust him. So instead of pulling away she leaned against him.
He helped her dress. The tenderness with which he looked at her as he buttoned her pants around her waist made her falter. There was a sweetness that had never been present when he was removing them. He dressed after she did, and she found herself watching him, admiring him from her seat in her big chair.
The gentleness between them was new, but had a sturdiness that had never been there before. They had fought for it for months; it was hard won. Mira had no intention of letting it go without a fight, and as she watched him pull his shirt over his head she hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.
He held her hand as they left her room, and she was thoroughly confused when he opened the door right next to hers. She’d been in the room countless times, had picked over all of the items left in it, but when he pulled her inside after him she was shocked by the change. It no longer had forgotten items stacked on various surfaces, no longer had a thick layer of dust, but was instead just a bedroom, clean and tidy and ready to be slept in.
“This is mine,” he said, a sweet proud smile on his face.
She just raised her eyebrows at him.
He pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You knew I wanted to be close to you, even your first night in the palace. You ran away so I guess I have to chase after you.”
She smiled widely at that.
They left for the breakfast room. Her hand felt small in his warm one, and she savored the feeling, but as they approached the front hall she tried to pull hers away. He looked at her questioningly and she just shrugged.
“You don’t care if people see?” she asked.
“I do care,” he said, as a look of sadness crossed his face. “I want them to see. I should have wanted them to see months ago. Do you care?”
She didn’t know. She was crazy about him, utterly swept away and totally in love with him, but the thought of making such a public declaration was unsettling. She didn’t know how to say that without hurting his feelings, so instead she just said, “I like touching you.”
That seemed to please him, and when they sat down together for breakfast, his hand found hers under the table as it had a million times before. He traced his fingers along her palm as he’d done for months, but this time he lifted her hand in his and pressed a kiss against the back of it.
She watched him as he did it, and it was easy to ignore the way the conversation had quieted and easy to ignore Lily’s delighted grin. It was even easy to ignore Caelian’s muttered, “Finally.”
They sat silently, and hardly a minute had passed before the conversation had resumed, and Mira felt safely invisible again. Not invisible, though, never invisible again, not when Tarquin looked at her like that, not when he grinned at her like he was proud of her. Like he loved her.
It was strange to Mira to have everyone know that there was something between her and Tarquin, but it was hard for her not to like it. Not when everyone knowing meant that whenever she visited the queen’s parlor, he would sit next to her and pull her feet across his lap, or when he passed her during the day, he could lean and kiss her forehead, or her cheek, or her mouth, right there in the open. She liked not being a secret.
They spent a quiet afternoon in the library together, after Tarquin had described to her how much he’d enjoyed reading when he was growing up. He’d had little time to do it in the years since, he explained, so she took him by the hand and pulled him behind her, straight to the massive room with books stacked from floor to ceiling.
“You should find something to read,” she said, and then stretched out long across a sofa.
“You don’t also want one?” he asked.
She just stared at him. He knew, he must have known. He’d walked in on her struggling with books for children enough times that he must have known that there was nothing in this library that she could possibly read.
She didn’t know how he took her silence, but he disappeared around a row of shelves, and returned a minute later with a book in hand. She lifted her head from the cushion it was laying on and raised her eyebrows at him. He sat, and she settled her head in his lap.
He didn’t open his book, just watched her as she pressed her cheek against his thigh, and after a moment he’d set it down entirely.
“You know I can’t read,” she said suddenly. She wasn’t trying to be accusing, but it came out that way.
He paused for a minute. “I know you’re trying to learn.”
“That’s a nice way to put it,” she said. She watched him thoughtfully. “That’s why I didn’t write to say I was coming. You were so mad at me. My father’s the only one who could write, and he never would have written that for me. He wanted me to stay at home.”
“I shouldn’t have been mad at you,” he said, and his big warm palm came to rest on her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you,” she smiled faintly. “Besides, it means you kissed me, so I can’t be too annoyed at it. But why were you so mad?”
He smiled down at her. “You terrified me. I was so worried about you— it was too late for that, I suppose. There was also the fact that I’d been keeping an eye out for your letter so I could be the one to escort you. I was missing you.”
“I was looking for you the whole way,” she said.
“I love you, you know,” he said. “At least, I hope you know.”
“I think I do,” she murmured.