Lucien did not turn at once.
He counted the panes of the window. The garden. The lie he still had to wear like a coat.
"Get down from the desk," he said.
Rowena laughed, soft and certain. "I am not asking you to put it in me. I am asking you to stand there and look at your future wife. That is not a crime, Lucien. Refusing me in a locked study would be. Servants talk. My father talks. Do you want them asking why the duke will not even stand in front of his princess?"
The threat sat in the room like a third person.
Lucien shut his eyes. Elian's mouth was still on his skin from the morning. The orchard wall. The belt. *Don't pull out.*
He turned.
Rowena was as she had arranged herself—skirt rucked to her hips, thighs open on his papers, wet in the morning light. Lucien's stomach lurched. He swallowed it down and walked closer because distance, now, would look like confession.
He stopped between her knees. He did not kneel. He did not touch.
