Page 42 of Christmas in the King's Bed
Calista was anything but. “I’ve been so wrapped up in what was going on here.” In sex, she thought, ashamed of herself. Inglowing. “I should have known that they would make their move. I’m surprised they haven’t done it already.”
Calista wanted to tear down the walls. Shatter all the mirrors—but she was still trapped in her damned fairy-tale dress.
“Melody—” she began, her voice hot with guilt and shame.
But she stopped herself, because the door swung open.
And instead of the officious seamstresses who liked to stream in and out, issuing instructions, measuring things, and clucking around as if they really were all that wildlife in a Cinderella film, a man stood there.
Calista’s heart kicked at her, but it wasn’t Orion.
Why did she want it to be Orion?
In her chair, Melody shifted in that way she always did, instinctively hiding the truth about herself. Not the fact that she couldn’t see, but that she wasn’t helpless. She was good at it. She instantly looked smaller. Fragile and pathetic, even.
“Prince Griffin,” Calista said, and it cost her something to sound calm. To pretend that she wasn’t about to explode into pieces, right where she stood.
“Lady Calista,” Griffin replied in that smooth way of his that Calista normally objected to, on principle. It was too pat. Too practiced. But he was shifting, looking over to where Melody made a pretty little picture of a damsel in distress in the corner.
It would have been laughable, really, if any of this had been something to laugh about.
“Your Royal Highness,” Calista said, because she knew her etiquette now, backward and forward, whether she wanted to or not, “may I present to you my sister, Lady Melody.”
Melody did not rise from her chair and sink into the appropriate curtsy, but she did bow her head in such a way that she gave the impression of doing it.
While Calista watched her soon-to-be brother-in-law as he did a set of rapid calculations, clearly recalling that this was the so-called “imperfect” Skyros sister.
“I am enchanted,” he murmured, executing a perfect bow that Melody couldn’t see. Though she likely heard it.
“Have you come to aid with the dress fitting?” Calista asked, glaring at him, because she could see him just fine. “In all the tales of your exploits, I’ve never heard anyone mention that you were good at dressing women. More the opposite.”
“Not at all,” Griffin said, and when he shifted that gaze of his back to her, Calista straightened. Because he looked lazy enough, with that half smile and the languid way he held himself. But that dark look in his eyes was anything but. “I came to warn you.”
“Warn me?” Calista asked lightly.
She watched her sister in the mirrors. Melody was basically a parody of herself at this point, managing to look like the Little Match Girl. When she was perched on a brocaded chair that might as well have been a throne, here in the middle of the palace. Not out in a cold gutter.
It was quite a performance. It always was.
“The standard warning, really,” Griffin said, sounding jovial. “We are all of us adults. And we understand the ways of our world, I assume. But I must tell you that if you wound my brother in any way,hewill be the least of your concerns.”
He sounded so polite. Almost apologetic. It took a moment for the words to penetrate.
“I can’t wait for Melody to warn off the king in the same fashion,” Calista replied.
“That’s between your sister and the king.” Griffin smiled wider. “If she wishes to threaten him, that is. Most people might avoid taking that route. As it is against the law.”
“No need to worry about what I might do,” Melody said, in a frail, tremulous sort of voice that made that tight vise around Calista’s chest lighten a bit and she fought to keep herself from laughing. “I would never dare speak in the exalted presence of His Majesty.”
Calista expected Griffin to smile in that strained, pitying way people usually did. To fail to see Melody as anything more than a bit of furniture, and more drab than the average chair.
This was Idylla’s Playboy Prince, who was spared the hatred aimed at his father because he was always so charming. Not because he was any different.
But instead of dismissing and demeaning the version of herself Melody was offering him, Griffin...changed. He stood a little straighter. He stopped smirking. He looked at Melody, tiny and pathetic, and the expression on his face was almost...
Surely not, Calista thought.
“He is only a man,” he said. “Flesh and blood, Lady Melody. No more and no less, no matter what manner of crown adorns his head.”