Chapter 3: The King's Wager
The gown of emerald silk lay across a chair like a shed skin, its severe beauty a silent accusation. Isabelle stood before her dressing table in a thin shift of cream linen, the fire behind her painting the fabric translucent. She was unpinning her hair, the strawberry blonde strands falling heavy and warm around her bare shoulders, when the door opened.
Not a knock. An entrance.
She whirled, the last pin clutched like a weapon in her fist. King Henry filled the doorway, then the room. He wore a dark tunic, no crown, his dark hair damp from the evening mist. His green eyes scanned the chamber—the gilded cage, the portraits of lost kings, her father’s stern gaze from the wall—before landing on her.
On her state of undress.
Isabelle didn’t cover herself. She straightened, her chin lifting. “Do you enjoy invading my privacy,” she asked, her voice cool, “or is this a test?”
He closed the door softly. The click of the latch was louder than a slam. “A test of what?”
“My resolve. My obedience.” She took a step toward him, the stone floor cold under her feet. “To see if I’ll scream.”
Henry considered her, his head tilted slightly. A smile, not quite reaching his eyes, touched his lips. “Would you believe me if I said I simply find you beautiful?”
“No.”
The smile widened, genuine this time, and it transformed his face. The ruthless conqueror vanished, replaced for a moment by a man who seemed amused, even charmed, by her defiance. “Good. You shouldn’t.” He walked further into the room, his movements fluid, prowling. He stopped by the emerald gown, running a finger along the beaded bodice. “The color will be perfect. But then, you knew that.”
“My sister said the same.”
“Marguerite. The painter.” He said it as a fact, not a question. He had been listening. He knew. “She’s right.” He turned from the dress and leaned back against the table, facing her. The firelight cut across the planes of his face, emphasizing the sharp line of his jaw. “I came to insure you weren’t going to throw yourself from a tower. Or poison my wine tomorrow.”
“My sisters are packing for Valois and Milan,” she said flatly. “My incentive to live is currently folding gowns and arguing over which books to take.”
He nodded, accepting the truth of it. “Practical.”
“You said I could decide their fates. I have. I expect your word to be more than air.”
“It is.” He pushed off from the table and took a single, slow step toward her. The space between them, charged and hot, seemed to shrink. “Is that the only reason you’re standing there, looking at me like you’d like to carve my heart out with that hairpin?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
He was close enough now that she could smell the scent on him—leather, winter air, something spiced like clove. It was not an unpleasant smell. That realization angered her more. Her breath hitched, a tiny, traitorous sound.
Henry saw it. His eyes, those piercing green depths, dropped to her lips, then back to her eyes. He reached out, not touching her, but gesturing toward her shoulders. “You’re cold.”
“I am.”
“The fire is inadequate.” He said it quietly, as if commenting on the weather. Then his gaze held hers, unwavering. “I am not a gentle man, Isabelle. I took your father’s throne because he was weak and the country was bleeding. I will not apologize for that. But I am not a monster in a bedtime story. I do not break things for the pleasure of it.”
“You break them for power.”
“Sometimes,” he conceded, his voice a low rumble. “But some things… some things are more valuable intact.”
His hand moved again, finally bridging the gap. The back of his knuckles brushed the skin of her arm, from her wrist to the inside of her elbow. It was the lightest touch, a whisper against her senses, but it ignited a path of fire on her skin. She flinched, but didn’t pull away. A confused, unwelcome heat pooled low in her stomach. Her sensual nature, long buried under duty and fear, stirred, awake and alert.
“What are you doing?” The question was a breath.
“Seeing if you’re real,” he murmured, his eyes on the path his hand had taken. “Or just a portrait of defiance. All paint and no pulse.”
“I have a pulse.”
“I know.” His fingers trailed up, over the curve of her shoulder, coming to rest at the base of her throat. His thumb pressed softly against the frantic beat there. “There it is.”
Isabelle was frozen. Not from fear, but from a torrent of conflicting impulses. To slap him. To step back. To lean into that warm, calloused hand. Her mind screamed of strategy, of her sisters, of survival. Her body, traitorously, thrummed with a new, terrifying awareness.
He leaned in, his mouth close to her ear. His breath was warm. “You asked if this was a test. It is. For both of us.” He withdrew his hand, leaving her skin feeling suddenly cold, exposed. “Tomorrow, you become my queen. That is politics. But tonight…” He straightened, and the mask of the king settled back over his features, though his eyes remained dark, intent. “Tonight, I am just a man looking at a woman he finds… remarkably complex.”
He turned and walked to the door. With his hand on the latch, he looked back. “Sleep well, Isabelle. Dream of green gowns and safe journeys for your sisters. Dream of anything you like. But be ready at dawn.”
He left as silently as he had come.
Isabelle stood rooted, her pulse still hammering where his thumb had been. She looked at the closed door, then at her reflection in the darkened window. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide and bright. Not just with anger. With something else.
She walked shakily to the fire and sank onto the hearthrug, pulling her knees to her chest. The embers glowed, alive and hot. She touched her throat, remembering the pressure of his touch. It had been a claim, but a curiously soft one. A promise of possession, but also of a terrifying, intimate attention.
He was not what she had prepared for. She had armored herself against a brute. This calculating, observant man who looked at her and saw her—the pulse, the defiance, the complexity—was a far more dangerous prospect.
Outside, the castle slept. Inside, Isabelle stared into the dying fire, feeling the first, deep crack in the foundation of her hatred, and the unsettling warmth of something new, and alive, beginning to grow in its place.