It is Not my Wish Either
601 Words
That answer, simple as it was, landed harder than if he had said nothing.
Lydia studied him. “But I’m meant to marry you.”
His expression did not change. “That appears to be the plan.”
“Is this how royal marriages usually begin?”
“No.”
“Good,” she said. “I would hate to think this palace was always this welcoming.”
His mouth did not quite move, but something in his face shifted. Not amusement. Not exactly. A brief fracture in that impossible control.
It vanished quickly.
“You should be angry with the people who brought you here,” he said. “Not with me.”
“Is that your way of saying you had no part in this?”
“It is my way of saying I did not ask for it.”
Lydia believed that immediately, which annoyed her more than if she hadn’t. If he had seemed smug or pleased, she could have hated him cleanly. But there was no triumph in him. No hunger. No sign he considered her a prize.
Only restraint.
She folded her arms. “Then why let it happen?”
His gaze settled on her fully for the first time, and the room seemed to tighten around them.
“You assume I’m allowed to stop anything in this palace.”
The answer was quiet. Flat. But something under it moved—something sharp and bitter enough that Lydia felt it like a touch.
There it was again. The sense of pressure she had noticed from the moment she entered his wing. Not around the room.
Around him.
“What exactly are they afraid you’ll do?” she asked.
For the first time, his expression altered in a way she could name.
Not anger.
Warning.
“You ask too many direct questions for someone who has only just arrived.”
“And everyone here lies too easily for me to do otherwise.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction. Not offended. Measuring.
Lydia should probably have backed down then. Any sensible woman would have. She was alone in a locked room with a man the palace seemed terrified of, and every story whispered in those corridors suggested he was dangerous in ways she had not even begun to understand.
Instead she said, “You don’t look unstable.”
The words slipped out before she could decide whether they were brave or stupid.
Something changed in the room.
It was slight. So slight she almost thought she imagined it. The fire snapped softly in the hearth. A glass paperweight on the edge of the desk trembled once, then stilled. Logan did not move, but the stillness around him deepened until it no longer felt human.
“You should be careful with appearances,” he said.
His tone remained calm.
That made it worse.
Lydia felt her own pulse in her throat now. She did not look away. “Then perhaps someone should stop speaking in riddles.”
A knock sounded at the door before he could answer. Not loud. Not casual either. The kind of knock given by someone who did not want to be here longer than necessary.
Logan stepped back from her by a single pace, and somehow that felt more deliberate than any approach could have.
“Come in,” he said.
The door opened just wide enough for an older woman in palace grey to u resting on the tray.
Something cold slid through her stomach.
The woman addressed Logan, not Lydia. “The ceremony has been prepared.”
Lydia turned sharply. “Tonigh
- Writer
