A Betrothal to Buy Time

"I hadn't realized His Majesty the Emperor took such an interest in the marriages of his nobles. Had I known sooner, I would have been rather more careful."

Ervan made no effort to disguise his displeasure. In truth, he had been in a foul mood ever since leaving the Imperial Palace the day before.

That he had developed feelings for Laila was an undeniable fact. He had supposed that if things deepened between them, a day might come when he would call on the Grand Duke's drawing room as he did now — but never, under any circumstances, had he wanted it to happen like this.

Moreover, what the Emperor wanted ran far deeper than anything Ervan himself had envisioned.

'Consider it well. Imagine how much good that power could do the Empire, were it turned to Our service.'

The Emperor's arrogance had overestimated Ervan's loyalty. He had no intention whatsoever of letting himself be moved about like a game piece on the Emperor's board.

The Grand Duke spoke quietly.

"Now that His Majesty's stern command has been laid upon us, there is no defying it. All that remains is to hope his heart changes."

Regret shadowed the Grand Duke's eyes as he regarded the brash young nobleman.

"That will not be easy either."

Ervan looked down at the scar-riddled hands resting on his knees. To him, the life of a nobleman was a suffocating shackle. As a boy, when he had still been a commoner, he had believed nobles could do anything. But the noble life Ervan had actually come to know could not have been more different — bound by protocol, living in submission to the Emperor's every command, it was stifling beyond words.

"You're right, Father. Since His Majesty arranged this marriage himself, it is, in effect, a state union. Still — we might manage to buy a little time."

Laila's smile was as flawless as a painting. As if to grant Ervan not the slightest crack to slip through, she wore the full armor of the Grand Duchess.

"What if we were to become formally engaged before the wedding?"

At Laila's suggestion, the Grand Duke deliberated a moment before nodding.

"An engagement... yes, that would work. It is the customary form in marriages arranged between houses; even His Majesty would have to accept it."

Ervan nodded as well.

"Then in the meantime, I will search for a way to dissolve this marriage."

At so matter-of-fact an answer, Laila's expression dimmed for an instant. But she gathered herself quickly and smiled.

"During the engagement, we will each attend to our duties, Viscount."

"Of course."

"Then I shall report to His Majesty that all our wishes align."

With that, as if there were nothing more to discuss, the Grand Duke rose from his seat. The Grand Duchess rose with him, and Laila and Ervan likewise got to their feet to see the two off.

"Laila, see the Viscount out."

"Yes, Mother."

"And Viscount Ervan."

At the Grand Duchess's voice, Ervan stopped in his tracks and waited for what would come next. She who had sat beside her husband in silence through the entire discussion, merely listening, was the one calling to him. A face strikingly reminiscent of Laila's was fixed on him, and Ervan felt an unexpected tightness in his chest.

"I..."

The Grand Duchess hesitated, her lips parting and closing.

"I want only my child's happiness, Viscount. That is all."

The instant she finished, the first gaze to find her was the Grand Duke's. She who never put herself forward, who had always kept her place at his side as though she were barely there at all — and yet she, of all people, had spoken.

'Happiness.' The Grand Duke turned his wife's words over in his mind. They could be read in more ways than one.

"I shall bear that in mind, Your Grace."

The young viscount before her was clever enough not to ask what she meant.

"Then that is enough."

The Grand Duchess turned and followed her husband out.

The drawing room they left behind filled with a strange, weighted silence. When Ervan sat, Laila flusteredly lowered herself into the chair across from him. Then, dodging his eyes, she fixed her gaze on the teacup in front of her.

"Viscount, I will have a carriage standing by to take you home."

It was the very moment Laila opened her mouth to call for Mary.

"How is your hand, Grand Duchess?" Ervan asked, his face far more at ease than it had been.

"Does that... matter?"

Laila's fingers closed tight around her not-yet-healed hand. The palm resting on the skirt of her dress went white.

"It worries me."

"And is that worry a duty you owe your fiancée?"

Laila knew she was being emotional. But she could not bear to swallow it any longer. An anger with no name and no target surged to the crown of her head. So she resolved to pour out every last feeling, here and now.

'I can always turn back time. But right now, I have to say this.'

"Was this your design from the very beginning, when you first approached me? Praising me at the Imperial Hunting Contest, asking me to go hunting with you, dressing my wound at the palace — was all of it part of the scheme?"

"Grand Duchess."

Ervan said her title in a low voice. He had never once imagined Laila capable of thinking such a thing, and it had thrown him considerably. After a moment of blank stillness, a laugh broke from him — and at the sight, something in Laila's chest lurched, and she raised her voice.

"I must have been hilarious to you. Blushing like a fool, with no idea what you and His Majesty the Emperor were really after!"

"It made me happy. Because it seemed the Grand Duchess had me on her mind."

For a moment, Laila had no answer at all.

"You don't know me very well yet, Grand Duchess. I am not a man who lives by such meticulous calculation."

Ervan lifted his head and met her eyes squarely. Those unshaking golden eyes took in the whole of her.

"I don't understand," Laila murmured, as if unmoored.

"Then I will explain everything."

After her hesitation, Laila finally spoke.

"Is it true that you do not want this marriage?"

"I do not."

Ervan's answer was crisp and clear. His voice was courteous; the weight of what it carried was not. Before disappointment could so much as cross Laila's face, he added, "Because I know His Majesty the Emperor has other intentions."

The 'other intentions' Ervan spoke of concerned Laila's supernatural gift — though there was no way she could have known it.

"How arrogant, Viscount. Whatever His Majesty's designs, this marriage works to your advantage more than anyone's."

"I cannot take part in anything that might do you harm, Grand Duchess."

Laila could only stare at him.

"Then are your feelings for me sincere? Why did you ask me to meet you that evening?"

"If you ask whether I feel something for you — yes, I do. I find you endlessly curious, Grand Duchess. You are never far from my thoughts. I should like us to grow closer."

Ervan kept his promise to explain everything. Every word out of his mouth came unhesitating, as though it were all simple truth.

Struck dumb by his answer, Laila took a long while to find her voice.

"Do feelings like that even matter, for people like us? If there is to be no marriage, what good are they?"

"Is marriage what you want, Grand Duchess?"

"...I've never thought about it."

Ervan's lips curved into a soft arc.

"I do not want marriage. But setting that aside, it is true that I want to know you better. And it seems to me the same is true of you."

Laila nodded, if reluctantly.

"For now, that will do."

While Laila was trading words with Ervan in the drawing room, the Grand Duchess went looking for Kyle. Kyle, halfway through preparing to go out, received his mother with beaming delight.

"So he means to find a way to annul the marriage. I don't like it one bit."

"But Mother, only yesterday you came to me in tears, saying you were not yet ready to let Laila go. Wouldn't an annulment be a good thing for you?" Kyle asked, smiling sweetly, as though testing the waters.

"It's his attitude that offends me. How dare that upstart even dream of marrying our Laila? He ought to be flat on the ground, begging for the honor — and even that would be more than he deserves. The sheer gall of the man."

"He was disrespectful, I'll grant," Kyle said, as though in agreement. In his head, however, the calculations were already finished.

A man his mother had already taken against. Common-born, with a blemished pedigree — and no great fondness for Kyle's younger sister, by the look of him. For leaving a stain on Laila's reputation, he could not have been a more perfect instrument.

"But a man being a touch insolent is hardly a flaw. If anything, it might pass for boldness."

"You should have seen Viscount Ervan for yourself. No — had you come to the drawing room as well, our family would have been a laughingstock. The entire household assembled to debate calling off a wedding!"

Kyle drew his seething mother into a light embrace. Held against her steady son's chest, the Grand Duchess slowly calmed.

"His Majesty the Emperor has already decided the matter, so breaking the engagement will not be easy. Besides — who can say? This marriage may yet bring our family some profit."

But on the face of the son who soothed his mother with such level-headed words hung a smile, sly and venomous.