I Prepared For The Worst On My Wedding Night — What My Arranged Husband Demanded Shocked Me
Part 2
The words hung in the air between us, laced with an exhaustion that caught me entirely off guard.
I slowly opened my eyes.
He was sitting on the very edge of the mattress, a good four feet away from me.
He held out a glass of brandy.
The firelight caught the amber liquid, casting a warm, dancing glow on his knuckles.
“Sit up,” he said.
“Take the glass.”
I hesitated, my heart still hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
Was this a trick?
I looked at his face.
He wasn’t smiling.
He wasn’t leering.
He looked intensely serious, his pale eyes fixed on me with unnerving focus.
Slowly, agonizingly, I pushed myself up.
The sheets pulled around my waist, revealing the thin, ridiculous daisy-embroidered nightgown.
I crossed my arms over my chest, a useless shield, and reached out with a trembling hand to take the glass.
Our fingers brushed.
His were warm.
Mine were like ice.
“Drink,” he instructed.
I brought the rim to my lips and tipped it back.
The liquid burned.
It was liquid fire down my throat, making me cough violently.
My eyes watered.
I nearly dropped the glass, but he reached out and steadied my wrist.
“Slowly,” he murmured.
I gasped for air, the burn settling into a sudden spreading warmth in my hollow stomach.
Dan took a sip from his own glass, resting his elbows on his knees, staring down at the carpet.
“I spent the last hour in my study,” he began, his voice low, conversational.
“I was trying to decide if I should come up here at all.”
My breath hitched.
“Your Grace…”
He sighed, a heavy scraping sound.
“My name is Dan.”
“You will use it.”
He looked up at me, his gaze locking onto mine.
“You look as though you are waiting for an executioner.”
“When I touched your waist outside the carriage, you recoiled as if I had burned you.”
The shame roared back, hot and humiliating.
“I apologize, Dan.”
“I was startled.”
“I am ready to do my duty.”
I forced the words out, reciting the script my mother had drilled into me.
I lay back against the pillows, stiff as a board, staring at the canopy.
“You may proceed.”
Silence stretched.
It was thick, heavy, stretching so long I thought my eardrums would burst.
“Sit back up.”
His tone was sharp this time.
I flinched, scrambling back into a sitting position, clutching the sheet to my chest.
Dan set his glass down on the bedside table with a hollow thunk.
He leaned toward me, though he kept his distance.
The smell of him, woodsmoke, clean linen, and the sharp tang of the brandy, filled the space between us.
“Who told you to say that?” he asked.
His jaw was clenched so hard a muscle ticked wildly in his cheek.
“I don’t,” I stammered, deeply confused.
“It is what is expected.”
“I am your wife.”
“Who told you to lie back and stare at the ceiling like a corpse?” he demanded, his voice rising a fraction.
It vibrated with a sudden suppressed anger that made me shrink back.
“Your mother?”
I nodded once, jerky and terrified.
Dan closed his eyes.
He rubbed his hand over his face, dragging his fingers through his hair.
He let out a long, ragged breath.
When he opened his eyes again, the anger was gone, replaced by a bleak, stark honesty.
“Listen to me very carefully,” he said.
“I am a man who bought a wife because I need an heir, and because I require order in my household.”
“I am not a romantic man.”
“But I am not a monster.”
He paused, letting the harsh truth of our transaction hang in the air.
“I have no interest in climbing on top of a woman who is gritting her teeth and praying for it to be over.”
“I don’t want endurance.”
I stared at him, unable to comprehend words that contradicted everything I had been taught.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“What do you want?”
Dan leaned closer, his eyes the color of slate in the dim light.
“I want you present,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, intense register.
“If you are frightened, tell me.”
“If it hurts, tell me.”
“But do not lie to me, and do not endure me.”
The script tore right down the middle, and for the first time, I saw him not as a transaction, but as a man demanding a vulnerability I had no idea how to give.
I squeezed my eyes closed, waiting for his anger to turn on me—but what would he do now that my secret was out?
