She found him in the east wing, sitting on the floor.
Not on the bed she had ordered made up for him. Not in the chair by the window. On the floor, with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up and his head tipped back against the stone, staring at the ceiling with the particular vacancy of a person who has been told to wait and has no idea what he is waiting for.
He was wearing the shirt she had torn off him three hours ago. He had buttoned it wrong. The collar was crooked, the hem untucked on one side, and there was still a faint smear of her lipstain on the fabric just below his jaw, a bruise-coloured crescent that made her chest tighten in a way she refused to name.
He looked up when she entered. His green eyes found hers, and the expression on his face — open, hopeful, a little dazed, the expression of a boy who had just been made love to on a desk and was still floating somewhere above the ground — made what she was about to do feel like swallowing broken glass.
