Chương 37

Angelique's room had already been prepared for the lie. A second robe hung in the bathroom. A folded blanket and sheet lay on the sofa in the sitting area. The security officer closed the door behind them. Angelique crossed the room first. She set her evening bag on the console beneath the mirror and removed her pearl earrings. She placed them beside the bag, then pulled the pins from her hair. Her dark hair fell down her back over the purple dress.

Louis remained near the door, his right hand beginning to throb again. Angelique looked at him through the mirror.

"Are you going to stand there all night?" He stepped farther into the room. She turned to face him. Her mouth was set, and she held her shoulders rigid.

"They made their decision quickly," she said. He nodded.

"Too quickly for me to follow."

"You think I'm surprised? They have been planning this since I was born. You were just a little late noticing." He stopped near the end of the bed.

"I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't. Why would they tell you? It wasn't your decision to make." Louis looked at her and hated that his mistake had given their parents the excuse to decide what the two of them would become.

"I'm sorry," he said. She watched him for a moment, then shook her head.

"Don't. Not now. It's too easy." He stayed where he was. She passed him, went to the window, and pulled one curtain farther open.

"When I was fifteen," she said, still looking outward, "my mother told me that in families like ours there are only ever two questions. Not whether a thing will be asked of you. Only when. And in what form." Louis said nothing. Angelique turned back toward him.

"So no. I'm not surprised there was an arrangement. I would have been stupid to be surprised." Her voice remained level.

"What I am surprised by is how quickly they decided to use it. How quickly all of us became a response strategy." Louis looked around the prepared room, then back at her.

"Do you want me to call them? Tell them I won't—""Don't be a fool." She cut him off.

"If we back out now, we will both be humiliated. The story they put out won't change. We will just be weak as well as dishonest." He sat down on the edge of the bed. His hand throbbed with each heartbeat.

"So what do we do?"

"We do what they told us." She crossed her arms.

"We stay here. We look like we belong here. And we don't make it worse." He looked up at her.

"Is that what you want?" She held his gaze.

"What I want hasn't mattered since we got into this room." For several seconds, neither spoke. Then Louis said, "I know I made it worse."

"Yes." She answered at once.

"You did." He did not argue. He took off his jacket at last and laid it over the arm of a chair.

"Look," he said quietly, "if there's a way to fix this, I'll do it." She watched him.

"Fix what, Louis? Do you think if you play the perfect fiancé tonight, everything will go back to normal?"

"No," he admitted.

"But it's all I have to offer." She was silent for a while. Then she uncrossed her arms, walked to the bar, and poured herself a glass of water. She drank half of it before speaking again.

"Did you like hitting him?" It took Louis a moment to understand the question.

"I don't know," he said.

"At the time I wasn't thinking about liking it." She refilled her glass.

"But it felt good." His face went hot.

"Briefly." She nodded.

"I hated it." He looked up.

"Why?"

"Because it was ugly. Because it made me look like a thing to be fought over. Because I didn't ask to be defended, and I didn't need to be." Her voice stayed even.

"And because I was actually talking to him, Louis. I was enjoying myself. And you ruined that." He stood.

"You were enjoying him."

"Yes. Is that so hard to believe?" He had known it, but hearing her say yes still hurt.

"No," he said.

"That's why I did it." She held his gaze.

"So you hit him because he was better at making me happy than you are. Is that it?" He swallowed.

"Something like that." Angelique looked at him for a long moment. Then she exhaled.

"Oh, Louis," she said quietly.

"You really are still such a boy." He almost asked her what she meant. Then he stopped himself. She drank the rest of her water.

"Go to bed," she said.

"I'm going to change." He hesitated.

"Where will you sleep?" She gestured toward the bed.

"It's not like anyone's going to believe we're being chaste in here." He did not move.

"I can take the sofa." Stolen novel; please report.

"Don't be stupid. This whole night is a performance. We might as well be comfortable." She went to the wardrobe, took out her robe, and set it on the bed. She reached behind herself for the zipper. Louis watched her pull it down. She did not look at him. She stepped out of the dress and left it on the floor. She stood with her back to him in her bra and panties, the line of her spine visible above the waistband. He did not realize he was still staring until she said, "Don't stare at me like a stranger, Louis.

Either get in bed or go stand in the hall." He obeyed. He took off his shoes, left his shirt over the chair, and got under the covers. She unhooked her bra and draped it over the back of a chair. Louis had thought about her body many times since the night at Austin. Now the sight of it made him feel more ashamed than aroused. She pulled on the robe, tied it loosely, and walked into the bathroom. The door closed behind her. Louis lay still and stared at the ceiling. Water began running behind the bathroom door.

Now and then he heard something set down on the counter. His right hand throbbed against the sheet. He did not expect to sleep. When the door finally opened, Angelique came out in the loosely tied robe. She had washed her face, and most of the makeup was gone. She crossed to her side of the bed and turned off the wall lamp. Only the light from the river remained.

"Move over," she said. He did. The mattress dipped as she slid in beside him. She pulled up the sheet, adjusted the pillow, and lay on her back with her hands over her stomach. She spoke without turning toward him.

"Tomorrow you stay near me." He turned his head toward her.

"Alright."

"Don't speak to the press. Don't answer anything. Don't explain." Her voice remained level.

"Just be there. And look like you're not sorry." He closed his eyes.

"Is that what you'll do?"

"Yes." They lay like that for a long time. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe evenly. His hand hurt. His face felt hot in the dark. He thought of the clip already moving through screens. He thought of his father saying the impulse had not been wrong. He thought of Angelique beside him, one arm's length away and farther than she had ever been when they were together by choice.

Then he thought, with a sudden bright shame that went clean through him, of Gladice under him, her mouth on his, the sureness of her hands, the way she had let him take her without asking anything of him and without pretending it was anything but what it was. He turned his face into the pillow as if he could smother the thought before it finished forming. It did not help. Gladice's mouth. Gladice's hands.

Gladice's easy certainty, the lack of shame in her body, the worse lack of shame in his own while he had been with her. He had gone to her. He had wanted her. And now he lay in Angelique's bed with his father's version of their future already moving through the world faster than either of them could stop it. He counted his breaths and tried to think of nothing. Angelique lay motionless beside him. He could not forgive himself for being reckless, for being weak, for being a public embarrassment.

But the worst of it was that he could not forgive himself for being the one who had made the future she had not wanted come looking for her, only to find he had already spent the afternoon in someone else's bed. He put the heel of his good hand against his eyes. A tear ran across his temple and into his hair. He did not move, but more followed. He had spent the entire night trying to control what everyone saw. Now he could no longer control himself.

He pressed his face deeper into the pillow and cried without making a sound. Beside him, Angelique did not move at once. For one foolish moment, he thought she had not noticed. Then she spoke in a low voice, without the formal restraint she had used all evening.

"Louis." He swallowed and answered at once.

"It's nothing." Angelique was silent.

"Are you crying?" He did not answer. He pressed his face farther into the pillow, ashamed that she had heard him and ashamed of everything the tears exposed. He tried to keep quiet, but his shoulders began to shake. Then she moved. She shifted onto her side, her hand reaching for his arm. He stiffened, expecting to be told to stop, to control himself, to remember who and where he was. Instead, she pulled him against her. She wrapped one arm around his shoulders and cradled the back of his head with her other hand.

Her fingers rested in his hair. He went still. She did not let go.

"Come here," she said softly.

"It's alright." He turned toward her, buried his face against her neck, and began to sob. He wrapped an arm around her waist and held on. Angelique did not pull away. She kept one hand at the back of his head and the other on his shoulder. His tears soaked into the collar of her robe. His breathing caught against her throat. He was not crying only because of the punch, the ballroom, or the announcement their parents had released. He had lost control hours ago and spent the rest of the night hiding it.

Now he could no longer hide it from her. Angelique closed her eyes. Her hand stopped in his hair. She drew an uneven breath. Louis stiffened when he heard it. Then he felt a tear fall into his hair. He pulled back and looked at her. The room was dark, but in the river light, he could see the tear beneath one eye and the way she pressed her lips together.

"Angelique," he said, his voice hoarse from crying.

"Are you—" She shook her head. Another tear ran toward her temple before she turned her face away.

"Don't," she whispered. Louis stared at her. He tightened his arm around her waist. She drew a sharp breath, then another. Her breathing lost its rhythm, and he felt her begin to shake against him. She pressed her forehead against his and began to cry openly. He raised his injured right hand and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. He wished he had shown her the same care before deciding what she needed. She caught his wrist and held his hand against her cheek.

"I hate them for this," she said at last, her voice breaking on the last word.

"I hate that they made it real like this." He swallowed.

"I know."

"No," she said, and the tears came harder for a moment, helpless now that they had begun.

"You don't. You don't know what it is to feel them looking at your life and deciding it can be moved forward because the timing suits them." He shut his eyes.

"I'm sorry." She shook her head again without lifting her forehead from his.

"It's not your fault. It's theirs. And now we have to live in it." He held her closer. She held him in return. Under the sheet, her leg moved against his as she drew closer.

"Angelique," he whispered. Her name came out like a plea. She answered with a quiet sob and pressed closer. They stayed that way for a long time, holding each other while their breathing gradually slowed. Louis pressed his face into her hair. Angelique pressed closer and gripped his bare shoulder. For the moment, he stopped trying to separate his guilt from her pain. When the tears slowed, neither of them moved away. They remained together beneath the covers. Neither spoke. Louis was afraid to say anything.

He did not know whether the closeness between them would survive an explanation. Angelique shifted first. She turned until her forehead rested against his. He felt her breath against his lips. Louis did not move. He was afraid she would pull away if he did. Then she kissed him. It was soft and hesitant, as if rediscovering the shape of him after the night had tried to rewrite it. Her lips were damp from crying, and he was still trembling. It was the first thing that night that felt chosen rather than arranged.

He tasted salt on her lips and could not tell whose tears it came from. She tightened her hand in his hair. She kissed him again and lingered longer. Louis answered with the same quiet care, one hand sliding up to cup the side of her face, thumb brushing away the last tear at the corner of her eye. She made a small, broken sound against his lips and pressed closer beneath the sheets. Their legs tangled further.

Her robe had loosened; the silk slipped off one shoulder, and Louis felt the warmth of her breasts against his chest. He didn't push further. He simply kissed her deeper, letting the kiss carry everything he couldn't say. Angelique slid her hand from his hair to the back of his neck, then traced her fingertips down his spine. She kissed him more urgently, though her mouth still trembled. She parted her lips, and he felt her tongue meet his. Neither of them hurried. Louis groaned into her mouth.

He shifted until she lay partly beneath him, keeping most of his weight off her. He kissed her again. Her tongue met his, and she drew a quick breath when he caught her lower lip gently between his teeth. Angelique hooked one leg over his hip and pulled him closer, but kept her hands on his neck and shoulder. She held him there and kept kissing him. When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Angelique rested her forehead against his again. Her eyes were still wet. She looked exhausted.

"I'm still mad at you," she whispered against his lips.

"I know," he breathed.

"But I don't want to be alone tonight."

"Neither do I." She kissed him once more, briefly and gently, then turned in his arms until her back rested against his chest. Louis settled behind her. She rested her head on one of his arms, and he wrapped the other around her waist beneath the loosened robe. He buried his face in her hair and felt her release a long, unsteady breath. They lay quietly together. Nothing about the forced betrothal had changed, but neither of them spoke about it again. Louis closed his eyes and listened as her breathing slowed.

Her fingers found his injured hand in the dark and held it gently, careful of the swelling. Neither of them let go until sleep finally took them.