Bound To The King She Hates

Who Are You

Chapter 6

The door swung open.

Ella did not move.

She could not move. Her whole body had locked itself in place the moment the handle began to turn. Her hands were pressed flat against the desk. The letter was hidden inside her clothing against her chest. The war documents were back in the drawer. The ribbon was tied.

Everything looked exactly as it should.

Except for her.

She was standing in the middle of Augustine's private study at midnight and there was absolutely no explanation in the world that would make that acceptable.

The candle came in first.

A single flame cutting through the darkness. And then behind it the person holding it stepped into the room and the candlelight fell across his face and Ella felt every single nerve in her body go completely cold.

Augustine.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

He did not say anything.

He just stood there with the candle in his hand and looked at her across the dark room. His expression was completely unreadable. Not angry. Not surprised. Not anything she could name or prepare for. Just still. Watching her the way he always watched her. Like he had all the time in the world and she was going nowhere.

The silence stretched between them like a pulled wire.

Ella straightened her back.

She was not going to crumble. She was not going to apologize. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of watching her fall apart in his study in the middle of the night.

"Your Majesty," she said. Her voice came out calm and clear. She was proud of that. "You startled me."

Augustine looked at her for a long moment.

Then he looked at the desk.

His eyes moved slowly across every surface. The papers. The maps. The bottom drawer that she had gone through twenty minutes ago. He looked at all of it carefully and quietly and she could see him cataloguing everything. Checking. Measuring.

Looking for what was missing. Looking for what had been touched.

Then he looked back at her.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked. His voice was quiet. Dangerously quiet. The voice of a man who was not asking because he did not know. He was asking because he wanted to hear what she would say.

Ella held his gaze without flinching.

"I could not sleep," she said simply. "I was walking the corridors and I saw the door was open. I came in to look around." She paused just long enough to be natural. "I hope that is not a problem."

Augustine walked forward slowly.

He set the candle down on the edge of the desk right beside where she was standing. The flame threw warm light across both of their faces. He was close now. Close enough that she could see every detail of his expression. Close enough that she could see the thing that was sitting behind his eyes.

He did not believe her.

He had not believed her from the moment he walked in.

"The door was open," he repeated slowly.

"Yes," she said.

"This door," he said, "is never open. I lock it myself every night before I sleep."

The candlelight flickered between them.

Ella did not look away. Did not blink. Did not let a single muscle in her face move in the wrong direction.

"Then perhaps you forgot tonight," she said pleasantly.

Something shifted in Augustine's expression. Just slightly. Just enough that she caught it. He was not angry. That would have been easier to handle. What she saw on his face was something much more dangerous than anger.

It was certainty.

He knew she was lying.

He just did not know yet exactly what she was lying about.

He reached past her slowly and pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk.

Ella watched him.

The war documents were there. Tied exactly as she had found them. She had been careful. She had been so careful.

He looked at the documents for a moment without touching them. Then he pushed the drawer closed again and stood up straight and looked at her directly.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" he asked.

The words landed like a blade between her ribs.

Ella kept smiling.

"I was not looking for anything," she said. "I told you. I was simply walking."

"In my private study."

"The door was open."

"At midnight."

"I could not sleep."

They looked at each other across the small space between them. The candle burned steadily. The rest of the room was deep in shadow. Somewhere outside the palace walls the wind was moving through the trees making the only sound in the world.

Augustine crossed his arms slowly.

"You are very composed," he said. "For a woman who has just been caught somewhere she should not be."

"I have not been caught anywhere," Ella said. "I have been found in an unlocked room by my husband. That is not the same thing."

Something moved across his face. Quick and controlled. Almost like surprise. Almost like something else entirely.

He looked at her for a long time.

Then he uncrossed his arms and moved slowly around the desk until he was standing directly in front of her with nothing between them but the candlelight and the terrible silence.

He was too close.

He was always too close.

"Sit down," he said.

It was not a request.

Ella looked at the chair behind the desk. The one that belonged to him. Then she looked back at him without moving.

"I would rather stand," she said.

"Sit. Down." Each word was separate and quiet and left absolutely no room for argument.

Ella sat.

She kept her back straight and her hands in her lap and her eyes on his face and she did not let herself think about the letter pressed against her chest underneath her clothing. She did not let herself think about what would happen if he searched her. She did not let herself think about anything except surviving the next few minutes.

Augustine walked around to the other side of the desk and sat down in the chair across from her. He leaned back and looked at her with that quiet measuring look that she was beginning to understand meant he was building a case. Piece by piece. Detail by detail. The way a patient man built something that was meant to last.

"Tell me about yourself," he said.

Ella blinked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Tell me about yourself," he repeated. "Where you grew up. What your childhood was like. Your family." He tilted his head just slightly. "The things a husband should know about his wife."

It was a trap.

She knew it immediately. This was not curiosity. This was not a husband wanting to know his wife. This was Augustine opening a door and waiting to see exactly which version of her story would walk through it. Waiting to catch the details that did not line up. Waiting for the single small mistake that would tell him everything he wanted to know.

She folded her hands in her lap.

"I grew up in the east," she said. She had practiced this story for months. Every detail. Every date. Every name. "My father was a merchant lord. Not wealthy but comfortable. My mother died when I was young. I was educated privately." She kept her voice smooth and unhurried. "I do not have a dramatic story, Your Majesty. I am afraid I will disappoint you."

Augustine watched her.

"A merchant lord," he said.

"Yes."

"From the east."

"Yes."

"What was his name?"

"Lord Cassen," she said without hesitating. "Of the Edenmere province."

Augustine was quiet for a moment.

"I have never heard of him," he said.

"He was not a notable man," she replied. "That is rather the point."

Augustine leaned forward slowly and rested his arms on the desk between them.

"I know every lord in every province of every kingdom within three borders of Valdris," he said quietly. "I make it my business to know. And I have never in my life heard the name Lord Cassen of Edenmere."

The candlelight was very warm.

Ella looked at him across the desk and did not say a single word.

Augustine looked back at her.

And then he asked the question.

The one question. The one she had spent four years preparing for and somehow still felt completely unprepared for when it finally arrived in this candlelit room in the middle of the night.

He leaned forward just slightly.

"Who are you?" he asked softly. "Not the story you have rehearsed. Not the name you chose, not the mask.

"Who are you really?"

The candle flame flickered once between them.

Ella felt the letter against her chest. Her father's handwriting pressed against her heart.

She looked at the man who had destroyed her kingdom. The man she

had married to kill. The man who was sitting three feet away from her asking the one question that could end everything.

And she smiled at him.

Slowly. Quietly. The most dangerous smile she had ever worn in her life.

"I am your wife," she said softly. "Is that not enough?"

Augustine stared at her.

The silence between them was the loudest thing she had ever heard.