Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [70]
I tried very, very hard not to hate her.
Elua, it was unfair! Unfair to me, and unfair to her most of all. Dorelei was a nice young woman, good-hearted and sweet. It was no fault of hers that nice wasn't what I'd desired. And unfortunately, she was perceptive enough to sense my withdrawal and struggle as the days passed.
For a mercy, Dorelei attributed it to the travails I'd undergone. It was yet another piece of irony. Although I'd been the one to plant the thought in her head, for once in my life, my turmoil had nothing to do with Daršanga, nothing to do with old wounds. I wasn't wrestling with cravings I despised. For once in my young, tumultuous life, I knew perfectly well what I wanted.
I wanted Sidonie.
And I couldn't have her.
It drove me mad to be under the same roof with her, albeit a very large roof. I hated living in the Palace, surrounded by people—guards, peers, delegates, supplicants. Someone was always watching. When Firdha the ollamh departed for Alba, Drustan shuffled his men around and assigned her honor guard to attend Dorelei and me. It made her happy—Kinadius, the youngest, was a childhood friend. It made me feel more trapped than ever. I watched them laugh and jest together, remembering how he'd entertained thoughts of courting her.
I wished he would. I wished he'd seduce her and take her off my hands. Albans weren't D'Angeline, but they were easy enough in matters of marital fidelity. Oh, but no! Not in this instance, not with the damnable succession at stake.
Betimes I thought the nights were the hardest. A year ago, I wouldn't have thought so. It wasn't long before Dorelei lost most of her shyness in the bedchamber. She was like the Siovalese country girls Eamonn and I had bedded that summer in Montrève, earnest and simple in her ardor. Phèdre was right. If Dorelei mab Breidaia ever gazed into the dark mirror of her own desires, nothing would have gazed back at her.
A year ago, I would have been glad, even if it left me with a vague melancholy yearning for more. I would have accepted it with resolve.
But everything was different now.
It made me angry and unreasonable. It made me want to be cruel; to hurt her, to force her past her boundaries. It would have been heresy and I didn't. But betimes the desire showed in my face or in a careless gesture, when I gripped her flesh hard enough to bruise. And then I would see the fear surface in her eyes and I would apologize to her and hate myself. Worst of all, Dorelei would apologize in turn and try to soothe me, gentle and understanding. It only made me hate myself more.
Still, when all was said and done, I think the days were worse; at least the days when I saw Sidonie.
Elua! Why does love come with such deep barbs? It hurt, more than I knew it could. I tried to tell myself that a year was not a very long time, that things would be different in Alba, that Sidonie was my seventeen-year-old cousin whom I had never much liked anyway.
None of it did any good.
Once you cross a threshold, there is no turning back.
I thought, in those days, about my mother's letters; about what she'd written of Phèdre. I will tell you this, my son: I knew her. Better than anyone; better than anyone else. I hadn't understood those words when I read them, not truly. I understood them better now. For better or for worse, I knew Sidonie. We had bared a portion of our souls to one another, and found, against all odds, an unexpected fit.
Or at least I had.
I wished I could be sure, absolutely sure of her. Sure that her feelings wouldn't change, sure that this was more than a passing fancy. At times, I was sure. And then doubt would creep in and I would wonder. It would all be so much easier to bear if there was no doubt. Easier to be kind and gentle, easier to let the days pass in the certain knowledge of the reward that lay in wait. Instead, I was tormented, swinging wildly from doubt to surety.
All in all, it made me unbearable.
I wanted to see her, to hold her, to pin her down and make savage love to her. But if anything, Sidonie was