//CLARA//

The entire dinner was a circus of tension and gawking eyes.

I maintained my best efforts to entertain Prince Felipe, not because I was told to, but I genuinely enjoyed his company. Around me, he didn’t perform his royal station. He talked about his travels and the absurdity of American wealth like any regular man might.

He even circled back to the jellyfish, making a joke so dryly hilarious that I actually laughed. Not a refined, lady-like titter, either. It was a full-blown snort.

That act was practically a social felony, but Felipe didn’t look horrified. He looked delighted. As if I was the first real thing he’d encountered in a room full of waxwork figures.

Then, around the second course, Bartholomew walked through the door with Adelaide Chase on his arm. They apologized for their tardiness, but Barty’s eyes found mine immediately, that familiar smirk playing at his lips.

Aunt Cornelia’s gaze lanced through my skull, miming at me when she thought no one was watching.

"Smile, Eleanor." Her eyes darted to Felipe. "Keep the Prince entertained."

I tried not to roll my eyes—it literally hurt my eyeballs—and smiled through every barbed comment disguised as pleasant conversation.

Felipe remained oblivious, continuing our discussion about Portuguese man-o’-wars while at my periphery, Casimir’s knuckles whitened against his wine glass. He sat there in stony silence, casually ignoring Adelaide’s simpering efforts to catch his eye.

When the ladies finally rose to withdraw, Aunt Cornelia’s hand clamped around my arm like a manacle. She talked about how to position myself, what to say, and when to laugh the entire climb up the stairs. I heard none of it.

The adjoining door between my room and Aunt Cornelia’s had no lock. She’d made certain of that. I lay in the dark for hours, listening to her witch-like snoring through the thin wall—wet, rattling sounds that made the skin crawl.

Below, the ocean crashed against the cliffs, insistently calling me down.

I sat up, groaning. I was exhausted, but sleep was a ghost I couldn’t catch. The moon hung bright and swollen above the water. I slipped from the bed and turned the handle of the adjoining door by degrees, millimeter by millimeter, until the latch released.

She was sprawled across her bed like a beached whale. I closed the door silently and found my robe. Just a thin silk against my bare skin. The servants’ stairs were empty, the kitchen a cavern of shadows. I unlatched a side door and stepped into the night.

The sand was warm between my toes, still holding the day’s heat in its depths. The limestone mansion loomed above me, a monument to a world I didn’t belong to. I didn’t look back.

The water shocked my feet, then my calves, then my thighs. I untied the robe and let it fall like shedding a skin. The sea closed around me, cold enough to steal my breath. I dove under, coming up gasping, hair plastered to my skull and salt stinging my lips.

I never imagined I’d be skinny-dipping at Newport in 1879. And for a moment, everything ceased to exist. Just moonlight and the vast ocean.

Then a shadow appeared on the shoreline while I was floating on my back, staring at the stars. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Even from the distance, I recognized his silhouette. I expected him to shout. To order me out of the water and admonish me for wandering off at night.

Instead, he started to unbutton his shirt, dropping it on the sand. His trousers followed. He stood naked in the moonlight for a moment, and then he walked into the surf without hesitation.

I didn’t move. He swam to me with strong, economical strokes, stopping just beyond arm’s reach. His hair was already dark with water, his eyes reflecting the moon like an animal’s, dangerous and hungry.

"You’re going to catch your death," he said.

"Probably," I replied, my teeth chattering as the adrenaline began to dip. "How did you even know I was out here?"

Sometimes I think he has the blood of a hunting hound. The man could track me through a damn hurricane. It is irritating. It is also the only reason I am still alive.

"I went to your room. You were not there."

Of course he went there. "So you checked the beach?"

"I checked the garden first. Then the cliffs." He waded closer, the water swirling at his chest. "But I suspected you would be here. You’ve been talking about the ocean since we left New York."

"You know me too well."

"Not well enough. How do you know how to swim?"

I tilted my head and gave him a lopsided smile, my mind flashing to summer pool parties, a life he couldn’t possibly imagine.

"I’m full of surprises, Casimir. Maybe I just have a natural talent for staying afloat when things get deep."

"You have a talent for making me lose my goddamn mind," he countered.

He was upset. I could see it in the way he held himself, muscles tight and barely leashed violence. And I knew damn well why.

"Dad," I lied, trying to soften the heavy pressure between us. "He taught me a lot of things."

He thought I was talking about his brother. That slowed the storm in his eyes.

"Alistair loved the ocean," he murmured, the name a reverence. "He loved you. You and your mother were the only things that mattered to him."

I swallowed hard. "I know."

I wasn’t the daughter Alistair had raised. I was a stranger wearing her skin. But I understood how he loved his step-daughter. Based on Eleanor’s diary, he was a devoted father to her since she was about two years old.

The waves pushed us closer, then apart, our bodies barely touching but shared the frantic heat.

"How did you manage it?" he asked finally.

"Manage what?"

"The prince." His voice was flat, controlled, but I heard the edge beneath it. "You had him eating from your hand. Laughing at your jokes. Using your Christian name before the entire table."

And just like that, the rage was back. The monster finally snapped.

"I didn’t manage anything. We talked about jellyfish, Casimir. Marine biology. He finds the American obsession with European royalty amusing, and I find—" I laughed at him. "I find him normal. He doesn’t perform for me. He just... talks."

"Normal." The word came out twisted. "He’s third in line for the Spanish throne. He’s been bred for diplomacy since birth. Everything he does is performance."

"Then he’s very good at it." I was treading water, trying to enjoy the serene waves. "He wasn’t flirting with me. He was being friendly. Decent. Something you might try sometime."

Gone with serenity. Casimir was already closing the gap. The disturbance of his body in the water changed the current around me.

"Friendly," he repeated. "He touched your hand. Three times. He leaned close enough to smell your perfume. He made certain every person at that table knew he found you lovely."

His hand found my waist, fingers digging as he pulled me flush against him.

"That wasn’t friendship, Clara. That was marking territory."

"And you would know." I shoved at his chest, but he was a mountain. "You’re the expert at possession. At deciding who I speak to, whose hands I—"

His mouth cut off my words. It wasn’t a kiss. It was anger given form, teeth clicking against mine, his hand fisting in my wet hair to angle my head exactly where he wanted it.

I bit his lip and he growled, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine.

We were moving. I didn’t know who propelled us, only that my back found rough rock, barnacles scraping my shoulder blades, and his body pinned the full length of mine.

The water surged around us, hiding everything below and exposing everything above.

"You’re a liar," he breathed against my mouth. "You enjoyed it. His attention. The way they all looked at you."

"And you’re jealous." I grabbed his hair, yanking his head back to meet his eyes. "Pathetically, obviously jealous. Of a man who doesn’t even—"

His mouth slammed into mine again with brutal force that tasted of salt and rage. He used his tongue like a weapon, shoving deep into my throat until I was gagging on him.

I felt his cock, impossibly hard, hammering against my thigh with every surge of the tide. The evidence of his jealousy and his want equally undeniable. My legs snapped around his waist, ankles locking tight as I dragged him closer.

"Say it," I demanded. "Say you’re a jealous dick. Say you wanted to kill him for looking at me."

His hand found my breast, thumb dragging across my nipple hard enough to make me arch.

"I wanted to burn the house down." He let out a vicious, guttural groan into my mouth, a primitive hunger that made my own blood boil. "With him in it. All of them."

I ground my pelvis against his, feeling the pulse of his cock.

"No, Casimir," I snarled. "You’re just my fucking dog on a leash, and the only reason you haven’t killed everyone in that stupid mansion is because I haven’t told you to."