We walked outside among the gardens. These weren’t like Tansy Crowne’s measured grass and severed hedges; it was savage and green with overflowing wildflowers and stalks of grass blowing in the wind. Birds perched on crumbling cobblestone walls, their seraphic melodies like the dappled green and gold world around them.
“Some birds know up to two thousand songs,” West said.
I trailed my finger along the weathered and cracking stone, memories of my uncle overwhelming me. “My uncle used to tell me songbirds were the original poets. He would have loved it here—”
I broke off, hating myself for sharing the memory. When West ghosted me and I shared my first poems with my uncle, he’d started to encourage dreams I’d always considered fantasy. I remembered the words he’d said to me, the look in his eyes.
Hope.
I looked back, finding West was looking at me strangely. In his riding boots and pea coat, he looked like a rogue on the marshes. All he was missing was a cravat.
My brow furrowed. “Why do you care so much about my uncle?”
“I’m trying to win you back, Angel.”
I quickly shifted the conversation away from me, from anything personal. “What are you doing if you’re not here all day?”
“I’m still here. Working.”
“On what?”
He gave me a look. “Our happily ever after.” My gut churned. I couldn’t help the feeling that every time I spoke, no matter the subject, I was giving him what he wanted. I didn’t feel safe—at all.
He stepped toward me. “I think I’ve just had a breakthrough.”
I stepped behind the broken cobblestone wall, putting a barrier between us “And what did you find—”
West gripped my chin, dragging my neck over the wall, cutting me off. “When you’re alone with me, you can talk. Always. But when we are with company, you must never talk. Ever.” His grip bruised. “This is very important.”
His eyes traveled beyond me, where the du Lac servant with green eyes walked the fields. When she was gone, he let me go, spearing his pockets.
“What about…” I trailed off, taking my bottom lip between my teeth as the words those girls had spoken earlier spun in my mind.
Is it true you’re the Cinderella of Crowne Hall?
My—rather, our, all four of us—twisted little fairy had traveled the world.
“What about the paparazzi when I become your mistress? How are you going to explain that away?”
West straightened his shoulders. “What about the paparazzi?”
“The paparazzi will wonder. The world will wonder. I’m not just a nobody anymore.”
He laughed. “Any stories that got out about you, were only because I wanted them there.”
I opened and closed my mouth.
That couldn’t be true, could it?
“Even the one that got me attacked?”
Pain flickered across his eyes, almost making me think he was sorry, but it vanished in an instant.
“Yes.” His voice was stone. “Even that one.”
“You’re evil.”
His eyes flashed to mine, but he said nothing.
“You can’t silence the internet,” I gritted.
“Josephine used to be a famous model, she was on the cover of magazines, on runways, and at one point you couldn’t turn on the TV without hearing her name. Josephine St. Germaine was going to be the next Marilyn Monroe. Have you ever heard her name?”
I sucked in lungfuls of air.
No…I only knew her name because I’d worked at Crowne Hall.
“You’ll be forgotten too, Angel, because that’s what the internet does best.” He gave me a look of pity. “In a few months, something shiny will come along and everyone will forget about the Cinderella of Crowne Hall.”
I stared at the wispy, flowing grass. The sun was setting, lighting the green on fire in bursts of orange and white.
“Go to the police, and they’ll call us. Go to the media, and they’ll call us. Publish it online, and no one will see it. Yell at the top of your lungs, and no one will hear.”
A shiver raced down my spine.
“Grayson will hear,” I said softly. “Grayson will see me.”
West placed his phone beneath my eyes, already playing a video. It was the one Grayson had sent of us on his wedding night. The thing keeping us prisoner.
“I could ruin his life with the press of one fucking button, Angel. Grayson has no power. The hero you keep waiting to rescue you needs to be rescued himself. I could save you…” West sat on the cobblestone wall, spinning around until he was shoulder to shoulder. “If you let me.”
“And how would that work?” I hopped off the wall. “You would save me from yourself?” I swallowed my scoff. The only one who could save me is thousands of miles away.
I glanced at my finger…the bruise entirely faded from our secret wedding. The birdsongs echoed in the dying light of the sky, lonesome and lost.
“He won’t find it,” West said casually.
My heart hitched. “What?”
West hopped off the wall, following me. “That coin you’re looking so hard for. Grayson will never find it.”
My heart bottomed out.
As West strolled casually through the blades of Scottish grass, one thought spun through my mind, mixing with the birdsong.
He knew?
He knew.
“I…” I swallowed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He grinned, like he knew I was full of shit. “Let me jog your memory, Angel. The day of your uncle’s funeral, you told me he had been a little…out of his mind lately.”
West picked a wildflower from the grass, a picture of ease.
My brow furrowed, trying to remember. The weeks following Grayson’s wedding and leading into my uncle’s death were a blur of emotion.
“He wasn’t the same in the end. Losing his mind. Going on about coins buried beneath poetry and wishes.”
West arched a brow. “Coins?”
I fell back against the cobblestone wall, feeling like I was going to faint and be sick. Was anything without motive? None of my words were safe. All this time, while I’d been trying to stay above water, the people around me were tying anchors to my ankles.
“He was out of his mind,” I said, voice shaking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about or why you would even care.”
“I could be your savior.” West held out the wildflower he’d picked for me, like some knight courting a lady. “I want to learn how you like to be kissed, Angel.” With his free hand, he placed his pointer finger beneath my chin, dragging my eyes to his. “I want to learn what makes you moan.”
My gut clenched.
Traitor.
“You will never make me moan,” I hissed, curling my fist around the flower and smashing the petals into pieces.
“Because I raped you?” His tone was level, but the flower stem snapped. For this second, honesty existed between us. Bloody, raw, and jagged.
West stood up and hopped up to the end of the cobblestone wall, one leg dangling to the wildflowers beneath.
To my left, another servant walked by, carrying a basket of what looked like laundry. I knew I should hold my tongue.