CHAPTER 88: HE TOOK CONTROL

Lorraine had agreed to this portrait only to get back at him for last night’s wound to her pride. She didn’t need words to make her point.

The painter had been adjusting his easel for the better part of an hour, muttering under his breath about light and shadow. The room smelled faintly of turpentine and drying plaster, the scent mingling with the faint perfume clinging to Lorraine’s gown.

She sat in her carved chair, posture perfect, eyes lowered in the docile fashion everyone believed natural to her. A model wife. A silent, mild creature.

Only Leroy, sitting beside her in his equally stiff, throne-like seat, could see the small betrayals.

The first yawn was subtle, hidden behind the back of her gloved hand. The second was exaggerated, slow enough for the painter’s hand to falter mid-stroke.

Leroy’s jaw tensed.

The third was entirely without shame—head tilted back slightly, lips parted, lashes fluttering in feigned exhaustion.

The painter’s brush scratched across the canvas, but his expression soured.

Leroy leaned an inch closer, speaking under his breath without moving his lips.

"Are you weary already, my lady?" His tone was perfectly polite, but his eyes glinted with warning.

Lorraine did not look at him. She merely adjusted her skirts with languid care... then, without hurry, tipped her head until a stray lock of hair spilled forward, shadowing her cheek.

The painter coughed delicately. "If Her Highness would—ah—keep her face toward the window—"

She obeyed... almost. Her gaze slid away just enough that her irises vanished under her lashes. The demure trick made her look half-asleep in the artist’s sketch.

Leroy’s nostrils flared. His knuckles tightened around the carved armrest.

When the painter turned to adjust his palette, Lorraine lifted one finger toward Leroy’s side, just high enough for him to catch it from the corner of his eye. Then, with the air of a saint, she pretended to scratch at an invisible itch on her neck. The gesture was harmless... but it carried the smugness of a woman winning a silent war.

By the time the painter looked back, Leroy’s pose had shifted just enough to suggest stiffness. His lips pressed into a line.

"Your Highness," the painter murmured nervously, "if you could... perhaps relax the shoulders?"

"Oh, I am perfectly at ease," Leroy said through a smile that was anything but.

Lorraine’s lashes lowered in false innocence. She was still silent, but the curve at the corner of her mouth, which was so slight it could be imagined, was enough to tell that his little porcupine was not finished.

And he knew he couldn’t blame her for her spikes. He deserved it.

The painter was near to tearing his own hair out. His mutters had grown louder with each minute, complaints about the fickleness of daylight spilling from him like prayers from a monk with no hope of divine answer.

In the corner, Sylvia sat with her arms folded, though her lips were trembling with the effort to stifle her laughter. Now she understood perfectly why Lorraine had agreed to this portrait without her usual obstinate refusals.

Beside Sylvia, Aldric leaned ever so slightly toward her, his hand inching across the space between them as though afraid to disturb a nesting bird. He brushed one of her fingers, so lightly she might have believed she imagined it. But when she did not pull away, he allowed his hand to rest atop hers, concealing the gesture within the folds of her gown. His thumb, hidden from all but her, traced the faintest pattern against her knuckle.

Behind a half-drawn curtain at the far end of the room, Emma had taken up her own place to observe the proceedings, one hand pressed to her mouth to keep her laughter quiet. The fabric trembled with her suppressed mirth. Standing just beside her, Elias regarded the scene with the calm detachment of a man assessing a grain ledger.

"She is doing it on purpose," Emma whispered.

Elias did not blink. "Indeed. And she is very good at it."

Lorraine sat perfectly still, except for the smallest, most precise movements that threw the painter’s work into disarray. She was the very picture of composure... and quiet mutiny.

At last, Leroy lifted a hand. "Enough. We will pause here."

The painter made a noise of protest, the wounded tone of a man whose livelihood had been ambushed. "Your Highness, the light—"

"You have the sketches of our faces?" Leroy’s voice was mild, but there was steel beneath it, the kind that brooked no argument.

"I... no, Your Highness," the painter admitted, shifting uneasily.

Leroy crossed to inspect the easel, his gaze passing over the half-formed likenesses. "I do not like this."

The painter’s brows drew together. "Pardon?"

"Why is she seated so far behind me? And why is she looking away?"

"It is how such portraits are composed," the man explained with a trace of defensiveness. "The princess appears demure, while the prince—"

"Redraw it."

There was nothing left for the painter but to mutter under his breath and adjust his stance.

Lorraine, meanwhile, was growing restless. Yet surrendering the game now would feel like defeat, and she had no intention of handing him that victory. She could outlast him—oh, she could do this for days if she must.

But then his suggestions became... troubling. Does he want me to be his equal? Really?

Leroy came to stand behind her, the sound of his boots deliberate on the polished floor. His hand descended, resting lightly atop her own. From there it began an unhurried ascent over her gloved fingers, along the gentle curve of her forearm, across the slope of her shoulder. No silk, no embroidery could mute the heat of his touch.

She stilled. Was this retaliation for her antics? Was he turning her own game against her?

If so, he showed no sign of embarrassment, no flicker of self-consciousness. When his hand reached the base of her neck, it lingered, his fingers curling with the faintest pressure—enough to conjure the memory of the tower: the cloaking dark, the hush between words, the heady, breathless moment when their marriage had been sealed.

Her throat tightened. She swallowed, the motion pressing her skin subtly against his palm.

He leaned nearer, close enough that she felt his breath ghost across her cheek. The scent of him, steel, leather, and something deeper, more dangerously masculine, wound through her senses, leaving her pulse uneven.

His fingers slid upward, following the line of her throat to her jaw, tilting her chin until she had no choice but to meet his eyes. Even through the mask, the look there struck her: a want unhidden, unashamed, edged with danger.

From this angle, he seemed taller, his shadow cast entirely over her; every inch the hunter who knew his prey had nowhere to flee.

The air between them seemed to thicken. He bent toward her, slow enough to feel like a question, inevitable enough to feel like an answer. Her mind leapt to propriety, to the scandal of so many eyes upon them.

Then his nearness silenced that thought, and his mouth was on hers.

It was not a chaste kiss. Tilted, unanticipated, it stole the very air from her lungs—a heady rush of heat and memory, laced with the dangerous realization that somewhere between her first petty yawn and this very moment, the game had ceased to be hers.

She had lost this game.

The faint snap of thread cut through the air. Her pearl choker gave way, scattering its beads across the polished floor like spilled moonlight. Still, he did not break the kiss, not until she bit his lower lip, sharp enough to taste the victory of a small rebellion.

He drew back then, only far enough to meet her eyes. A faint curve touched his mouth as he licked his lip where her teeth left a faint mark, too knowing to be called a smile, too pleased to be called anything else.

Then, turning toward the painter, he said with unhurried composure, "Now that her cheeks hold some color, we may continue."

He reclaimed his seat with an ease that implied every soul in the room had merely played their part in his design. This time, her chair was set beside his, not behind it, the change as deliberate as the tilt of his hand moments ago.

Lorraine folded her hands in her lap, the picture of demure grace, though the faint heat lingering on her lips told another story. When she looked toward the painter, his hands trembled faintly over his charcoal.

The painter had never seen a man seize a moment so entirely, nor a woman recover her poise so quickly. Kaltharion princes are not as other men, he thought, swallowing.

Leroy looked at her with a thoughtful air. "Something is missing..."

His gaze shifted to Elias, who stepped forward with his customary silence and produced a sealed letter. Leroy broke the wax and held the parchment so that only she might read.

Her eyes passed over the lines... and changed. The softness of those icy-blue eyes vanished. What replaced it was sharpened steel, the kind carried in the blood of rulers: cool, calculating, absolute.

A ripple of satisfaction stirred in Leroy’s chest.

"Perfect," he said at last, his voice low, almost reverent, though the corners of his mouth curved with something far too smug to be prayer. This was the Lorraine he wanted remembered

Then, he turned to the painter: "Begin your sketch."