Then again, the ring he’d put on her hand spoke loudly enough.
And the dress she wore was a masterpiece. Griffin imagined that he would see a great many dresses cut precisely like this on the island’s fashionable ladies within the next few months. It was perfectly feminine, yet authoritative. It announced not only the elevation of Melody’s rank, but signaled her ease with her new role. It was both more than a shift and less than a gown, showing off the heartbreaking beauty of her form while remaining modest enough to win the approval of even the most ferocious society matron.
He found he was...proud.
“I should have prepared you for what would happen today,” he said, and then stared down at his hand, astonished to find he was pressing it against his chest. Because something there...ached. “I apologize that I did not. If I am honest, it never occurred to me that they would force this protocol upon you. I assumed you were relaxing into your new role, in private.”
He had also been far too busy frothing about in the grip of his own demons. Not that he planned to share that with his innocent bride.
Who seemed to glow at him. “I’m actually pleased you did not prepare me.”
Melody sat with her legs together and her ankles demurely crossed, a vision of propriety. Her hands were folded in her lap, gracefully, and he found himself staring at them—remembering how it had felt to have those very hands all over him.
And the fire that had kept him up half the night surged back to life. Flames licked over him while all of that want tumbled through him, making him edgy with need.
Making him think he might burn to ash if he couldn’t get his hands on her—
Griffin didn’t know what he might have done then. And he would never know, because the staff was all around them, seamlessly clearing away one set of tea things and bringing another to take its place.
And Melody looked as if she was staring right at him with her eyes like the sea in summer, when, of course, she wasn’t.
That thing in his chest unfurled and ached all the more.
“You should not be pleased,” he told her, and only when he heard his own voice did he realize how tense he was. He ordered himself to find his way back to the charm he was known for. “We have been married less than two days and I have already failed you.”
“Not at all,” his bride told him, her voice far airier than his. “It was far more fun to do it blind.”
For a moment, he could only stare at her. Slowly, Griffin blinked.
Then watched, while that ache in his chest hitched and turned into something far hotter, as she smiled.
Wickedly.
He had the lowering, white-hot notion that if they’d been truly alone in this room, he would have ignored the table between them and gotten his hands on her at last. He would have taken her, there and then, any way he could.
It was that wickedness in her lovely smile.
It was the way it changed her. Altered her face, making her look almost as if...
But then she laughed again, and this time, she sounded as innocent as ever. As pure and good.
Untouchable, something in him complained.
When he had vowed to protect her, not defile her. She was goodness personified. She deserved more than...him.
“I shouldn’t say things like that,” Melody said brightly, then laughed again. A tinkling sort of laugh, like a bell, that made him think of the sorts of churches he never entered. Griffin tried to ignore the lick of flames inside him. He tried to shame himself for all this greed, but failed. “Madame Constantinople Dupree was very clear on this point. But she did tell me that a little bit of firmness, just the faintest hint, wouldn’t go awry.”
“They eat sweetness for breakfast,” Griffin agreed, trying to shift to make himself comfortable. But she was still sitting there before him, looking every inch the Princess, and he was undone. And uncomfortable. “And regurgitate it as a scandal whenever possible.”
“Then I already have a leg up,” she said, almost merrily. “As, being your foremost work of charity, I’m already scandalous.”
There was nothing specifically untrue about that statement. There were many reasons that Melody was the right choice for him, forcing him to keep the promises he’d made to his brother in more ways than one. Married, settled, scandal-free and bonus, yes, his choice of the hidden Skyros sister had instantly made him seem far better than he was.
There was absolutely no reason that should sit on him, a heavy weight he couldn’t seem to dislodge.
“What you are,” he said, with more temper than should have been involved, surely, “is my wife. A royal princess. Should anyone treat you as something less than that, whether or not your tone is something less than polite will be the least of their concerns.”
Melody smiled and this time, sadly, without that wickedness. “Can you imagine? A royal prince charges forth to defend his wife from passive aggressive comments... I can see the papers now. It would cause a terrible ruckus and neither one of us would look good at the end of it, would we?”
He considered her for a moment, realizing that this was yet another version of his wife. Every time he saw her, it was as if she was someone else.
If he was any kind of a man, that should probably not excite him as much as it did.
But he found her fascinating.
“I did not marry you to force you into society battles,” he said, because though she sat there looking as if she was perfectly happy to let the silence between them drag on forever, he found he was not. “There are no winners. Only Pyrrhic victories if you’re very lucky. And everyone walks away stained.”
“Are
