293

***

Cárcel stepped back into the hall and anxiously ran a hand down his face. The crown princess loudly expressing her concerns the whole way here, and the sight of Inés's unusual pallor had stirred whispers among the gathered nobility. Their feigned concern thinly veiled their curiosity.

But when they noticed Cárcel's hardened expression, their gazes drifted back to the paintings that adorned the walls, resuming their chatter. Even those who had thought this a good opportunity to acquaint themselves with Cárcel couldn't dare approach him. The area immediately surrounding him became quiet, and the sound of music seemed distant, as if it were coming from another world.

Love. Inés had said that she loved him.

Cárcel suppressed a gloomy sigh, biting the inside of his cheek. He had imagined countless ways their truths might be revealed to one another, but not like this, not with her love expressed as a barrier between them. It was not joy that had accompanied her words but a deep, unrelenting sorrow-a sorrow he had never seen on her face.

She had said that she couldn't let him see her because she loved him. It was a cruel irony, because he knew exactly what to tell her to grant her a modicum of peace.

He longed to tell her everything, to take her hands in his and say: Yes, Emiliano remembers you. He remembers everything you never wanted him to know. But what of it? You have done no wrong. What else could you have done? Oscar-that bastard would have killed Luca in the end. Or your father would have gotten rid of him to hide your affair. Why must you bear this torment alone, when you have done nothing wrong?

But the words remained locked within him. She had said she had loved him, so how could he say that? It would have been better for him not to hear those words. Back when he had been unaware he could ever make her look at him like that. If he hadn't known the weight of those words. If he knew nothing about what he meant to her. If that had been the case...

Cárcel thought about the necklace Emiliano had given him. He had hidden it under the floorboards under the bed in their residence. That necklace was the answer, but it was also a useless answer that would show her that the part of her she refused to show him out of love was something he already knew about. It was nothing more than hurting her in a different way by telling her that she need not agonize over this matter.

He stared at the curtains that separated her from him. He had replayed the scene of her collapsing in front of him, looking as though she might die from suffocation, thousands of times in his mind already. He never wanted to see her faint like that again.

Alicia, who had gone off somewhere for a while, returned along with a lady-in-waiting holding a cup of water. "How is Inés doing?"

Cárcel nonchalantly schooled his expression so that he seemed completely neutral before turning to look at her. "Thank you for your concern. My wife is resting by getting some fresh air."

"May I go in for a moment?"

"It would be better to just leave the cup of water with me," he said, reaching out and picking up the cup from the lady-in-waiting's tray.

Alicia looked offended at the way he swiped away the cup before she gave the lady-in-waiting a look, signaling for her to leave them alone. Then she put on a polite smile and continued, "It's just that I am worried about her. You may be her husband, but women sometimes have woes they can only discuss with other women."

"Oh." Cárcel nodded distractedly. He still stood in her way, firm and unyielding.

Alicia lowered her voice to a whisper as though she were slightly embarrassed. "Monthly cramps, for example. Or perhaps her time of the month has suddenly begun. We women must deal with such inconveniences quite often, you see."

"Do you really think I would run away embarrassed by such a remark?" he asked her, sneering.

Alicia shrugged. "I was simply suggesting the gentlemanly thing to do."

"I see. So, as a gentleman, I should leave my wife alone with the blasted wench who threatened her," Cárcel replied coldly. "Believing that such a terrible decision would be good for her."

Alicia's lips began to form a crooked smile. She stepped closer to him and quietly asked him, "So you knew already, did you? You are far too calm about this, as though you already knew that your wife had a lover before you were married."

Cárcel smirked as if to mock her. His gaze locked with hers. Alicia seemed convinced that the words she was spewing were her trump card. Her eyes glinted with malice, completely free from her usual mask. He had imagined that she might have committed suicide along with her bastard of a husband while vowing her everlasting love for him, but that hadn't been the case. It would have been too good to be true.

A mysterious smile remained on Cárcel's face as he looked up, raising his gaze away from her eyes. "I have no leg to stand on when it comes to the relations I had before our marriage."

"I really do not wish to say that the reputation of men and women is different in this day and age, but men are selfish creatures by nature, are they not?" Alicia replied. "Are you not the same? Do you not wish to drag your wicked wife home, throw her onto the floor and demand to know who she has been seeing?"

"How kind of you to worry about my violent temper. I am fine, however."

If this crazed woman actually knew about Emiliano, she wouldn't have simply called him a lover. She would have used him as bait long ago. That was how rotten she was. She had accidentally come to know about the painter through the crown prince and had been biding her time to exploit Inés's weakness at the perfect time, so that she could make Inés and her husband waver and drive them apart.

He had earthly clue as to how Alicia could have gotten her hands on Emiliano's paintings. Emiliano knew his place, and was both too timid and afraid to have ever even thought to see Inés from afar. He had simply done these paintings because he had been unable to bear the longing he felt for her, and must have hidden them away. The fool who had wasted his God-given chance as a means of penance would never have thought to sell her out like this. The one time he had mustered up some courage had been to deliver the massage that he was fine, and that she ought to forget her guilt after he had found out about it. Even among his paintings, only one even featured Inés, and only from the back. He had never dared to paint her face.

Alicia seemed unable to fathom that these scenic paintings meant anything more to Inés than simply reminding her of a lover. Oscar was the one who knew what those places signified. He was the one who knew about the painter who had seen Inés standing in that scene. The crown prince also knew what the child, whose face wasn't even visible, meant to Inés.

Cárcel forced himself to relax his jaw. He would have to send Raúl to Don Joaquín's art gallery as soon as he could get back to the manor. He needed to find out when and how those paintings had been acquired by Oscar through Alicia. If Oscar knew about Emiliano's whereabouts and had left him alone so far, it could be necessary to hide away the painter again.

Alicia gave him a doubtful look. "You really aren't affected? Even though your wife ran off in tears as soon as she recognized those paintings by her lowly lover? She looked so guilty, as though a past wrong had been exposed. She completely forgot about her dignity. And you are really all right with this? This might have gone one even after your wedding, you know. Am I the only one who recognized grief and guilt in Inés's face?"

Alicia wasn't entirely wrong in her judgment. Inés had most likely felt like she was being dragged into hell by the weight of her guilt when she saw those paintings. She had to have felt suffocated by the sins she had committed and hadn't been able to forget even in death.

"Your Highness." Cárcel's tone was sharp.

But before he could say anything else, she continued, "I know how much you have grown to love Inés. She plays the part of a happy wife quite well, but it could have all been an act to cover up her affair."

He barely held back a laugh. It was a relief that the woman before him was entirely unaware of what was actually going on as she swung her weapon, missing wildly, but he still felt the urge to tear open her mouth and silence her.

"You are in love, so you must know what it is like, Cárcel. Those emotions are completely different from the trivial relations you had with women before you were married. And the noblewomen who swarmed around you are on a completely different level from the lowly painter she shared a bed with. Did you see the painting at the far end?" Alicia gave him a pitying look. "That filthy, deluded man dared to dream that your betrothed, your wife, the most noble woman in Ortega, would one day bear his child."

Cárcel's gaze darkened as he looked down at her. He settled for imagining how easy it would be to wrap a hand around her neck and break it, since he was in no position to harm her.

"You should be relieved to have uncovered your beloved wife's secret lover," she said. "Even now, they could be-"

"My wife is as lovely as ever, thanks to you. Because the six-year-old Inés Valeztena chose me before any talks of marriage could be raised between House Escalante and House Barca, I was spared the misfortune of meeting a woman like you."

Her sinister whispers came to a halt, and her expression instantly hardened.

"I suppose your husband was unable to bear with that misfortune, Your Highness," Cárcel added before giving her a polite bow, as though acknowledging her departure before she had even decided to leave.

Alicia glared at him, her features twisted with indignation, but she said nothing more. She turned away from him in a huff and marched away at the sound of her lady-in-waiting calling her.