Delilah glared at her, the ice in her eyes growing colder.
“It was an accident,” Fleur continued, tears beginning to prick the corners of her eyes. Her entire body trembled, her bottom lip quivering as she tried to keep herself from crying.
“How can you possibly say that any of this was an accident?” Delilah snarled.
Fleur sucked in a deep breath, knowing that now was the time to come clean about everything.
“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you everything,” Fleur gasped, unable to take the pain any longer. “Just please, let go of me.”
The pressure built on her arm for a moment and then she sucked in a deep breath of relief when Delilah finally released her with a small shove.
“Sit,” Delilah ordered and even had she not wished to obey, Fleur had no choice. The backs of her knees hit the edge of the chair that Delilah had shoved her towards and she was forced down onto the cushions. “Explain.”
Fleur closed her eyes for just a moment in an attempt to steel herself for all that she was about to say. Then she began to explain everything that had happened, beginning with the night at the lake and ending with their encounter on the beach. She left nothing out, only struggling with some of the details. Yet Delilah remained utterly silent throughout.
When Fleur finally looked up from where she had been staring at her clasped hands, she found that Delilah’s face had gone deathly pale. Her blue eyes were impossible to read.
Silence fell in the room and Fleur struggled not to fidget, growing more and more uncomfortable.
“So this has been going on under my nose for months?” Delilah asked when she finally broke the silence.
“What? No! After the kiss, King Theo disappeared from court and I thought it was over. I told you, I thought it was a trick. I thought he had used pixie dust or something like the rumors of the other nobles,” Fleur blurted, the words tumbling out of her mouth.
“It didn’t take long for you to pick up where you left off,” Delilah pointed out, her perfectly shaped brow rising suspiciously. “You disappeared almost as soon as we arrived here.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” Fleur protested, remembering how the guards had come to grab her as soon as they left the throne room. Had Delilah forgotten about that or was she choosing not to remember how things had occurred?
“What do you want from me? What do you want me to say to fix this? We’ve been friends since we were children. I never wanted to hurt you like this,” Fleur ranted, hoping that eventually she might have said enough for Delilah to realize just how sorry she was.
When Delilah began to laugh it was so grating to Fleur’s ears that she struggled not to cover them.
“Are you kidding me?” the lady demanded. “You believe we are friends?”
Fleur gripped the arms of her chair, her knuckles turning white with the effort.
“You’ve said it yourself a hundred times,” Fleur pointed out, remembering the nights when they had shared a bed when they were children, braiding each other’s hair and promising that they would be friends always.
Delilah covered her mouth with both her hands, her ice blue eyes lighting with such amusement that it made Fleur feel sick.
“You actually believed that? You thought that we were friends?” She laughed outrageously, throwing her head back to illustrate just how amused she was. The bile that was rising in the back of Fleur’s throat threatened to make her vomit. “Is that what you tell yourself to make yourself feel better about all of this? I see now why you were so eager to come on this trip.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Fleur shook her head. She remembered all the nights she had spent lying awake, unable to stop herself from thinking of their trip and how she would have done anything to avoid it. “I dreaded the thought of it but how could I not have come? I’m your companion.”
“Oh, so you are my friend and my companion?” Delilah said scornfully. “Is that what you and the king talked about while you led him to your bed?”
Fleur’s cheeks had been bright red with embarrassment but in that moment she felt all the color drain from her face.
Delilah’s face dropped then and she stopped laughing. The room fell eerily silent once more and the lady glared at her for a long time before asking, “Fleur, why did you come here?”
Her voice lacked emotion and it made Fleur feel even worse. This wasn’t the Lady Delilah that she knew. The Delilah that she knew was kind and caring and perhaps a little over the top but she was not cold and unfeeling.
“I came here because you came here,” Fleur responded, choosing her words carefully. “I have been by your side since we were children. I came here to see you married, to see you happy.”
Even as she said the words, she realized how wrong she had been. Deep down she had known all along that her reasons for coming to the Summer Isle had nothing to do with Delilah. If she had wanted to she could have found a way to remain on the mainland. She could have convinced Delilah that she wished to stay because she had met someone and helped her to find a lady companion who could replace her. She could have done everything she could to stay away from Theo. But the truth was she hadn’t wanted to. It had been as if there was a magnet inside her, pulling her ever closer to the Summer Isle, closer to him.
“And how is that working out for you?” Delilah’s brow furrowed, her eyes never leaving Fleur’s. She placed her hands on her hips, awaiting Fleur’s answer. When she remained silent, Delilah added, “If that was true, why wouldn’t you just stay away from the king?”
How was I supposed to do that when he locked me away in here and he was basically my only company? Fleur thought but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud. She could already imagine how her mistress would react. She would believe she was making up excuses. Instead, she said, “I never meant for any of this to happen.”