“Signorina Cassano,” I said, “your wine looks intriguing. May I try it?”
Giulia handed me her glass. I dumped it down the front of her dress and swept out of the parlor.
I found Ale in the exact sort of place where he always took shelter—the manor’s library, sitting on the floor with his back to a bookshelf. I sat down next to him, tried to think of something to say, and came up empty. I hadn’t seen him cry since we were children.
“Is everyone laughing at me?” he whispered.
“Of course not,” I said. “They know better.”
He furiously wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“What, do you think you made me look bad?” I say. “That’s impossible.”
His mouth trembled again. “No, it’s… I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like everyone else is exactly who they’re supposed to be, and I’m just… not.”
A strange feeling, almost like foreboding, crept over me.
“What does that mean?” I said.
Another tear rolled down his cheek. “I’m going to be awful at being the grand duke—”
“But you have me,” I said automatically.
His face crumpled. He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Instantly, I was convinced this meant his parents were about to end our engagement. They were the richest family in Occhia. They could get rid of me for any reason—for being too prone to scandal, or too sickly as a child, or even too short. They were all horrendously tall. They probably wanted tall children.
“Ale.” My voice was a little too harsh. “Is something going on?”
“It’s— You don’t deserve this. You deserve more, and I should have told you sooner. I was trying to convince myself that I could—” He paused for entirely too long. “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think I feel the way a good husband should. About you. And if you want someone who can—”
“Wait,” I said. “Are you just trying to tell me that you’re not in love with me? And that it’s partly because you don’t favor girls at all?”
He stopped short, gaping at me. A strange look, almost like betrayal, crept into his eyes, and I wondered if I should have let him fully explain himself. Ale and I never talked about the romantic part of our engagement, but I thought it was because we didn’t need to.
“Dear God, Ale,” I said. “I’ve seen the way you look at boys. You’re not subtle. Do you think you’re subtle?”
He kept gaping at me. He looked so stunned that I had to laugh.
“Do you think I care about that?” I said. “Do you think they’re going to perform a test on us at the altar, and if they decide we’re not in love, they’ll call it off? Wait, wait—do you think I’m in love with you? Do you think I lie awake at night dreaming of kissing your drooly mouth?”
I laughed until I couldn’t breathe. I had to brace myself on his shoulder.
“I—” He rubbed at his eyes. “Everyone’s always saying we’re so perfect together, and you always seem so pleased—”
“We are perfect together,” I said. “I’m ambitious. You’re rich.”
And we were best friends. But I didn’t say that. It felt silly.
“You can step out with boys if you want,” I continued. “I don’t care. People do that all the time.”
“My parents don’t,” he said, scandalized.
“We’re not your parents. We’re going to do things our own way, and that means you can have the torrid affair with Manfredo Campana that you so obviously want to have.”
Ale’s face turned red. “I— How did you know— Manfredo could have anybody he wanted. He would never notice me.”
“Oh, I could make sure he does.”
His face turned purple. “No, I don’t want… I mean, it’s not that I don’t want— I don’t know. It’s just that I spend every day sitting in on all these Parliament meetings and training to be like my papá and pretending this is what I want. But that’s all fine, I suppose. I know I’m lucky to be born into it.”
That was an understatement. I wasn’t allowed into Parliament meetings. I’d tried—once in disguise as a servant bearing the coffee, even—but it was a privilege reserved for men who were the head of their House. Unless, of course, they were the House of Morandi, and then they were rich enough to do whatever they wanted.
“I just didn’t want to pretend with you, too,” Ale said. “I can’t spend every day of our marriage lying to you. I just can’t.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
My fingers slid discreetly to my hip.
He went quiet. I could see the wheels turning in his head, and I wondered how long he had been tormenting himself over the idea of being a good husband with a good marriage. I wondered how it was possible that we’d spent our whole lives engaged and not been on the same page about something so basic. I wondered, uneasily, if there was anything else on his mind that I didn’t know about.
He turned back to me, and I quickly readjusted my hands.
“What about you?” he said.
“What about me?”
“Well… are you having torrid affairs? Secret, torrid affairs?”
“Perhaps.” I tried to sound mysterious and full of experience.
He took a sip of his wine. He stared at me, and his eyes were a little too curious for my comfort.
“Chiara Bianchi is very pretty,” he said.
“Chiara Bianchi is all the worst things in existence combined into one girl-shaped object. And what is a pretty girl going to do for me, anyway? If I want a pretty girl, I can just look in the mirror.”
It was so obtuse of him to bring up my lifelong enemy, just because she was the only girl who was even close to being as attractive as me. He clearly understood nothing about the concept of enemies.
“That’s true,” he said agreeably, which was very annoying. “Well, we should probably go back before the chaperones lose their heads.”
His nose was still pink, but all other evidence of his tears was gone. He climbed to his feet, helped me up, and then started for the door. But I lingered by the bookshelf, fiddling with my skirt.
“Ale,” I said.
He turned back.
Nothing he’d just told me was a surprise, and yet, the fact that he’d done it had changed something between us. I could feel the relief, like we’d been wrestling with a tangled knot that had suddenly unraveled. He’d given me something, and I could give him something in return. I wanted to. But the words were stuck in the back of my throat.
“I was just teasing about Chiara,” he said in response to my silence. “Because you two have that… y’know. Long-standing rivalry. For reasons that are still very confusing to me. But obviously, it all makes sense to you.”
He was smiling a little.
“I—I heard something,” I blurted. “This morning. From one of my family’s kitchen maids. She said that when she was growing up, she had a sister who got her first omen, but instead of going to the watercrea’s tower, she waited to see if they would spread, and they… they didn’t. For years. I know that has nothing to do with anything, but I heard it this morning, and I just—I was thinking about us, and how if something happened to you—”