My house arrest came to an end a week after the ball with the arrival of Marcus and his father.
Matthias Dolon was his usual charming self, greeting my mother and father with just the right amount of superiority tinged with chagrin at his son’s supposed part in my disgrace. Marcus held himself stiffly, his face impassive, but he looked a lot healthier. The atmosphere was squirmingly awkward while Anna served the tea before leaving the room.
“Now,” Matthias announced as soon as we were alone, “what are we to do with our amorous couple?”
My parents both grimaced. What excuse could they make on my behalf? It was somehow entirely my fault that we were in this situation, though I could hardly protest given that Marcus hadn’t actually been a participant. Matthias’s gaze was levelled at me, a sneer lurking at the corner of his mouth, disdain a shadow at the back of his eyes. It was a look I had seen before.
“What can we do?” my mother asked, a supplicant to the great senator.
“I think given the circumstances there is only one thing that can be done…” He held the pause for dramatic effect. Marcus had sworn he would not marry me and once the match was broken, even if he didn’t reveal my true heritage, I would be ruined. It was a fate that lit a glimmer within me. There would be nothing left for me here in Londinium if the life I had been raised for was gone, leaving me with only one option, a new path and one that increasingly felt like the truer of the two laid before me: Devyn.
“…take place immediately.”
I snapped back to realise I had lost the thread of the discussion. “Marcus has been reticent, but he has been made to see sense. It is the only way.”
What? I looked to Marcus who sat in stony silence, refusing to look my way.
“Oh, but everyone will think that they actually…” My mother’s cheeks reddened.
“Can we be sure they have not?” My father’s voice was steady. That was why he couldn’t look at me. He thought I… we had… in the Governor’s Palace of all places.
“No, no, I promise we… nothing really happened,” I stammered, helpless to stop myself defending my honour in my father’s eyes.
“I think you’ve given up your right for us to have faith in you, young lady. Thankfully Marcus has been chivalrously tight-lipped on the subject.” The light in Matthias’s eyes was calculating. “Unless you have something further to add, there’s nothing else for it.”
Why would I have anything further to add? What were we talking about? Of course, Marcus had refused to elaborate on what had actually happened. He’d been unconscious for most of it. But for the really important part, he had been totally lucid. Had Fidelma’s healing wiped his memory somehow?
“Yes, you’re right, of course,” Camilla hurried to agree. “There’s a great deal to be done in such a short space of time.”
“Indeed,” Marcus’s father said, “I’ve taken the liberty of securing The Savoy. Given the time frame involved, I wanted to be sure we had a venue before I came here today.”
I was thoroughly bewildered at this stage. What were they planning?
“Let me get my diary and we can start straight away,” my mother proposed in an alarmingly giddy voice. Camilla walked over to her armoire at the other end of the room and the two men followed. Soon all three were in deep discussion as if they had forgotten Marcus and I were still in the room.
I edged along the couch, closer to where he sat on the armchair, still studiously ignoring me.
“Marcus,” I whispered. He didn’t acknowledge me with so much as a blink.
“Marcus.”
I reached out to touch him and he pulled his arm away.
“Please, are you well?”
“Quite,” came his abrupt answer.
I winced. I’d known he would be angry with me but it was a risk I had taken, backing him into a corner where he was already so complicit that he was forced to accept Fidelma’s help and remain silent.
“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you,” I said softly. “I couldn’t think of what else to do. You were so ill and you wouldn’t have listened to me.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Are you also sorry for the life in which you have trapped us now? You and your friend.” He sneered out the reference to Devyn.
“You do remember.”
“Everything.”
Then why was this farce playing out?
“You didn’t tell them?” My fingers were on my pendant.
His green eyes flicked to our parents.
“Tell them what?” He said, his tone hard. “About me? You? Him?”
So he hadn’t said anything. But he had been so angry…
“Are you and he…?”
“No,” I didn’t want him to think I had cheated on him when we parted, and apart from a few stolen kisses I hadn’t really, not yet. “That is… nothing ever happened between us, not really.”
Marcus finally looked at me. “But you wanted it to.”
All my protestations of wanting the life laid before me – marriage to Marcus and becoming the trophy wife of a future senator – had been exposed as a complete and utter travesty as soon as Marcus had said he didn’t want me. And Devyn had said he did.
“Yes, I wanted it to,” I admitted, wincing. Marcus had shared with me how unwanted his father made him feel and that I too had shown him that he was also not my first choice would hurt. I checked our parents to make certain they weren’t listening, my fingers rubbing at the triquetra engraved on the inside of the pendant Devyn had given me. “You and I… we’re not a match. We’ll find a way out of this.”
Marcus looked at me disbelievingly.
“We will, I promise,”
He exhaled. “It’s too late now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cassandra, haven’t you been listening?” His eyes gleamed with dull resentment. “We’re stuck with each other.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, reeling from the horrible emotion I could see in his face.
“We’re to handfast imminently. Our wedding will kick off the winter season,” he smiled mockingly. “Isn’t it such good news, darling?
“What?”
“We’re locked in now,” Marcus confirmed grimly, our fate sealed by the ruse Devyn and I had staged. “What were you both thinking?”
“I don’t know, I suppose our focus was on you not getting caught for unlawful use of magic and ruining your life,” I hissed.
“Turns out it is anyway, but at least I’ll have company.”
I supposed I couldn’t blame him for resenting the idea of being bound to me. It was one thing to realise that you didn’t have the amazing connection everyone spoke of with their matched partner, but quite another to suspect that your partner would rather be with another.
Suddenly I recognised that the life I had been clinging on to, the one filled with a beautiful home and babies and a wonderful husband, had always been a cage barred by lies and false dreams. The thought of it suffocated me, and that was before I considered that my partner in that life was now looking at me with a resentment bordering on hatred; that our children would be regarded as genetic experiments was the absolute depth of all imagined levels of Hades. I had never really taken the time to think through the implications of Devyn’s claim that this was the ultimate purpose of our match and it was something I would do well to consider now. With technology and magic in the city’s arsenal…
I paused. I had been so busy refuting Devyn’s assertion, that I had never taken the time to ask who was manoeuvring us this way. Marcus’s father was powerful; there was no way that this could be happening without the full support of Senator Dolon. I no longer questioned Devyn’s assertion that my own family were complicit. There was no getting away from the truth that my father’s fortune had increased significantly after I joined the family – his payment for taking a cuckoo into his nest and raising the Wilder child. The idea caused my heart to rip a little. The father who, with infinite patience, had t
aught me to read, had played with me, treated me to little trinkets that came from far flung places on his ships. He was in on it. That my mother knew too I had no doubt. She had always been aloof and this explained why. Having to raise a Briton brat for breeding purposes would be beneath her dignity. My throat clogged up as my eyes burned.
Alone, used, betrayed, abandoned, I heard the words beating a self-pitying tattoo in my head, but I refused to let it break me. These were not my people. Outside the walls, that was where I would go. Devyn would help me; perhaps I even had family out there somewhere.
I would not stay for this. I would not allow them to do this to me. To us.
“I will not marry you, Marcus,” I said, at last, looking up. Somehow, I was still hurt by the flash of relief I saw in his face before his lips thinned. He looked over at his father.
“Much as I wish you were right, there’s no way out. My father knows there was more to the night of the ball than the official story because I didn’t return until the next morning. Your friend came back later and told me your cover story.” I noted that he still couldn’t bring himself to use Devyn’s name. “I’ve spent a week being publicly accused of taking advantage of a well-brought-up young lady whom I’ve barely even kissed. One who is in love with a spy.”
I was still holding tightly to my pendant.
“He’s not a spy,” I hissed, “you know he isn’t. You need to keep your voice down or they will hear you. We can’t speak here but I do need to explain,”
“Tell me now,” he insisted. “I don’t think we’re likely to be left alone together again, do you?”
I glanced behind me again. Matthias caught me looking and his gaze was cold. Marcus was right, he suspected more but so far I had given him no reason to think anything more was at play. He could have no idea about Devyn or Fidelma, but what if it wasn’t me he suspected? What if it was Marcus?
“Does your father know?”
Marcus raised a brow coolly, a not dissimilar look to the one I had just been on the receiving end of from his father.
“About your…?” I let the sentence hang, unwilling to say the word magic in this room, pendant or no pendant.
“No, no way.” He shook his head. “If you recall, I didn’t have any idea myself until last week.”
“You mightn’t have, but what if he does?”
Marcus sat back, giving the idea some thought. “Perhaps. He did ask a lot of questions about the night of the ball, like whether I had met any of the Briton delegates and he kept mentioning how much better I was looking. All anyone else has wanted to talk about is what you and I were doing.”
I leaned forward. “Devyn believes that the reason for our match is that they want to strengthen the magic in your line. He thinks they’re hoping that because I’m a… latent, that our children would be able to… well, I don’t exactly know why they want to do it or what they would want from any children with magic. They’ve spent so long eradicating any trace of it from the Empire. But it would certainly adjust the balance of power if the city could wield magic too.”
Marcus stared at me. I’d forgotten how outrageous it all sounded. I hadn’t believed Devyn when he told me the first time either. It was all so far-fetched.
“I see.”
“You see what? You believe me?”
Marcus shrugged. “These are strange times. I’ve been thinking a lot about it this week. Fidelma gave me some hints on how to continue to treat people without killing myself in the process and I suppose…”
But before he could complete his thought, our parents concluded their planning session and started to move towards us.
“I expect you two have a lot more to talk about, but I’m afraid it will have to wait until after the handfast.” Senator Dolon smiled his false smile at us both.
I looked at my parents in consternation. “What?”
“Matthias feels it would be better if you both keep a low profile until the big day,” my mother answered me when no one else spoke up. “It’s for the best.”
I shook my head. How were we going to get out of this mess if we couldn’t speak to each other?
Marcus didn’t protest. His father was undoubtedly holding his career in medicine over him again – he had to toe the line or give up the only thing that meant anything to him. There was no way Marcus could call his bluff, especially now he knew he was the only thing that stood between the city and the epidemic.
I realised that marrying me had probably always been part of the bargain he’d made with his father and it was unlikely he would do anything to jeopardise that. If it wasn’t me then it would be some other girl. It probably didn’t matter to him.
It mattered to me though.
My first foray back into society elicited a flurry of interest, paps popping up as I met a friend for lunch or shopped with Ginevra on Governor’s Road. Each day that passed without sight of Devyn made me increasingly anxious. Had he left with the delegation of Britons? Surely he wouldn’t leave without me..
I took to meeting my friend Alianna in a coffee shop that I knew Devyn frequented. Alianna had twin boys, so we were both glad to meet up regularly – Alianna to get out of the house for a break and I in the hope of catching a glimpse of Devyn.
Each time I left the house I watched every person that passed, waiting for him to turn up. He wouldn’t go without me. He wouldn’t. Not now.
By the end of my first week of freedom, I’d started to notice that a couple of faces were becoming vaguely familiar to me. I wouldn’t usually have noticed them but I had developed heightened powers of observation purely as a result of looking out for Devyn. I couldn’t be sure if they were friends of Devyn or friends of whoever was pulling the strings in my life.
I started to look for them whenever I went out. There was a tall, lanky man and a smaller slighter one, both dark, both usually in smart-casual clothing which allowed them to blend in for the most part. The main reason I had spotted them was, in fact, their clothing, which had stood out when I went to the basilica library in the vague hope that Devyn might have used it to leave a note for me. I had told him one coffee-shop afternoon where I had hidden his tech and he had been amused; maybe he would think of it and try to communicate with me.
There hadn’t been so much as a mote of dust disturbed on the anthropology shelf but an older guy had attracted my attention. His clothing was less overtly fashionable than the outfits of the latest set of citizenship students and a lot sharper than the academics. When I saw the same guy in the reflection of a mirror while trying on shoes a couple of days later, I paid much more attention.
I kept an eye out after that and realised there were in fact two of them. Initially, I was pretty alarmed at the thought of these two strangers watching me every time I left the apartment but if they were the reason I was allowed to leave at all, then it was something to be thankful for.
Trapped indoors as I had been that first week, there had been no chance of contacting Devyn. But if I could go out, I could find a way to contact him. All I needed was to slip my minders, who thankfully kept their distance. They had, I presumed, been instructed to avoid being seen – after all, how would anyone be able to explain to me why I was being watched? Especially since the parental policy had been reversed in the face of speculation in the gossip feeds and I was now under orders to be seen publicly on occasion with Marcus.
Occasions that wilted my soul.
Marcus had been right: we were never alone. There was no chance to talk privately as we were surrounded by people at every party we attended, every lunch. I was sure some of our friends must be under instructions to ensure we were never left alone together because it felt too deliberate to be accidental.
I cornered Ginevra about it when she insisted on going to the bathroom with me when we were out as a group for a pre-theatre dinner. I had chosen to leave the table shortly after Marcus – only because there was a break between courses. Despite my growing loneliness in a world where I couldn’t be honest with anyon
e, I wasn’t sure I wanted to speak to Marcus in private anyway; his behaviour was faultless but I could feel the antipathy radiate off him.
I was shocked when Ginevra laughed at my accusation. She confessed laughingly that they were all rallying to make sure the paps couldn’t snap anything that could be used against Marcus and me. She was surprised that I wasn’t aware of their plan – they had all assumed I was because the request had come from our parents and had been seconded by Marcus.
I had no idea why Marcus had become so active in hemming me in. Perhaps he was doing it for sheer spite because he must know I would be trying to contact Devyn, and he would have no reason to aid and abet what he considered traitorous behaviour. Not to mention the personal betrayal.
My frustration by the end of the second week must have been palpable as Alianna called me on it. Engaging and bubbly, she was also nobody’s fool.
“What’s with you, Cassandra?”
I could hardly tell her the truth. I didn’t like to lie to her either, so I felt my way to somewhere in the middle.
“I feel a bit trapped,” I admitted. “Everything has been so hectic with the handfast approaching and I feel like I never have a moment to myself.”
Alianna laughed, indicating her two boys, currently entertaining themselves with tearing open the sachets of sugar. “I know how you feel. If I have ten uninterrupted minutes in the shower, I feel grateful. My husband is a darling but as soon as they go off script he’s shouting through the door for instructions.”
I laughed as Alianna had intended I would when I was struck with a thought. Highly sophisticated it wasn’t, but they probably weren’t expecting me to try to give them the slip. As far as my shadows were aware, I didn’t even know they existed.
Secrets of the Starcrossed Page 25