did not marry a monster,” I retorted.
Though when I thought of the count and that expression of his that suggested he had never encountered a scent he did not abhor and never would, I wondered if the term monster might not have a variety of applications.
That smile of hers, if possible, grew ever more smug and made that shuddering thing in me all the more intense.
“He is not like anyone you have met, Imogen. It is impossible to prepare for the impact of him, really.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
Again, that tinkling laugh. “I must remind myself you are so young. Sheltered. Untouched, in every possible way.”
“You were younger when you got married. And presumably, equally untouched and sheltered.”
But the way she looked at me then made my heart stutter in my chest. Because if her sly, faintly pitying expression was to be believed, my half sister was not at all who I had believed her to be all this time.
And if Celeste was not Celeste...it was almost as if I forgot who I was, too.
The truth was, I didn’t know what to make of it. I shoved it aside, thinking I’d take it out and look at it again when I could breathe normally again. Sometime in the dim future when I was married and settled and had somehow survived the monster who was already in this house, waiting for me.
“I feel sorry for you,” Celeste murmured, after a moment, though her tone did not strike me as the sort one would use if that was true. “Truly, it isn’t fair. How can a naive little thing like you be expected to handle a man like Javier Dos Santos?”
Even his name struck dread through the center of me. I told myself it had to be dread, that thick and too-hot sensation. It hit me in the chest, then spiraled down until it lodged itself low in my belly.
That, I told myself, was a measure of how much I loathed and feared him.
“I thought you hated him,” I reminded my sister. “After what he did to you...”
I remembered the shouting. My father’s deep voice echoing through the house. I remembered Celeste’s sobs. Until now, it had been the only example I’d ever seen of something less than perfection in my half sister—and I had blamed the man who was the cause of it. I had held him responsible for the commotion. The jagged tear in the smooth inevitability that was our life here, so securely beneath our father’s thumb.
More than this, I remembered the one glimpse I’d had of Javier Dos Santos in person. After another bout of screams and sobs and the sort of fighting I’d been taught Fitzalans were above, I had plastered myself to the window over the grand front entrance where I could hide myself in the drapery, and I had gazed down at this monster who had threatened to tear my family apart.
It had been years ago, but my memories remained as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.
He was dark like sin. A stain against the stones. His hair was glossy and black, so dark it looked nearly blue and reminded me of nothing so much as a raven’s wing. His face was cruel and hard, so harsh it took my breath away. He had been made of muscle, hard and dangerous, a striking counterpoint to the genteel men I had been raised with. He was not elegant. He was not graceful.
He had no right to my beautiful sister, I had thought fiercely.
A sentiment my father had echoed in no uncertain terms. Celeste, he had bellowed throughout the manor house, was meant for better.
But it seemed Javier Dos Santos was good enough for me.
“Of course I do not hate him,” Celeste said now, with more of that laughter that seemed to suggest I was very young and foolish. I didn’t care for it, but I couldn’t work out how to ask her to stop. “Where do you get such ideas?”
“From you. When you screamed that you hated him, and would hate him forever, and would never cheapen yourself by succumbing to the kind of dime-store forgiveness—”
“Here is what I can tell you about Javier,” Celeste said, cutting me off. And pronouncing his name as if it was a meal. “He is not like other men. You should know this, going in. Throw out any preconceptions you might have.”
“The only man I know is Father. A handful of priests. And your husband.”
I had not meant to say those words the way I did. Your husband. As if I was pronouncing some kind of judgment.
But Celeste settled farther back against the settee as if she was relaxing. As if this was the moment she could finally retreat from her usual strict perfection and render herself boneless. “Javier is virile. Animalistic, even. He will take what he wants, and worse, you will happily debase yourself to give it to him.”
I frowned. “I have no intention of debasing myself. Much less happily.”
Celeste waved a hand. “You will. He will demean you, insult you, and likely make you cry. And you will thank him for it.”
My heart was pounding so hard it made me feel dizzy. My throat was dry, and my tongue felt thick in my mouth. And that dread seemed to pulse in me, hotter and wilder by the second.
“Why are you telling me these things? The day before I must marry him?”
If Celeste was abashed, she didn’t look it. At all. “I am merely trying to prepare you, Imogen.”
“I already think he is a monster. I’m not certain why you think talk of debasement and insults would improve the situation.”
“You will have to watch that tongue of yours, of course,” she said, almost sadly. “He won’t put up with it. Or the way you run about heedlessly as if you are one of those common women on a treadmill somewhere, sweaty and red-faced.”
Because she was naturally slim and beautiful, of course. She assumed that anyone who had to work for perfection didn’t deserve it.
It had somehow never occurred to me before that this description might apply to me, too.
“You are very lucky, then, that you were spared this,” I said softly. “That I am here to carry this burden for you. For the family.”
I had never seen her look as she did then. Her face flushed with what I could only call some kind of temper. Her chin rose. And her eyes glittered. “Indeed. I count myself lucky daily.”
I found my hands on the hem of my pajama top, fiddling with the fine cotton as if I could worry it into threads. Betraying my anxiety, I knew.
And as strangely as my sister was behaving today, she was still my sister. The only person who had never punished me for asking questions.
This was why I dared to ask the one thing that had worried me the most since my father had announced my engagement to me over Christmas dinner.
“Do you think...?” I cleared my throat. “Will he hurt me?”
For a long moment, Celeste did not speak. And when she did, there was a hard look in her eyes, her lips twisted, and she no longer looked the least bit relaxed.
“You
