My Wife, My Rules – 30. chapter

He woke to a strange silence. Not unnatural. Something like the stillness before rain. His eyes adjusted slowly to the morning gloom, but from the first second he knew that something was wrong. Too much space at his back. The cover too smooth. He reached out. A cold pillow.

He lay still for a moment. He did not fully open his eyes. He listened. No rustle of sheets. No breath. No faint movement of a body that had become ordinary to him. He had grown used to it so completely that its absence was louder than any sound.

He sat up. Slowly. He looked around. The bedding beside him was neatly arranged. Not hurried. Not nervous. As if someone had risen before dawn and did not wish to be seen. He frowned. She was usually curled against him, half sunk into his shoulder, sometimes with her palm still resting on his chest even in sleep. She was always there.

He moved around the bed. The door to the antechamber was closed. When she only slipped out for a moment and did not want to wake him, she always left it ajar.

A book lay on the table. He went to the chair by the window. Her cloak was usually draped there. The one she never wore. She always claimed it was too heavy. Yet she always took it when he insisted or when it was truly cold outside. It was not cold. And the cloak was gone.

He stopped. A sense settled in him that something in the room was missing. Not clothing. Not shoes. Something else. Something specific, though hard to name. He moved faster. He opened the chest. Looked into a drawer. Most things seemed untouched, but he noticed the small balm Tess used for her lips was gone. And the clasp she used to fasten her cloak.

He remained standing. Tension gathered in his shoulders, not sharp, but uncertain. He sat down slowly. Time began to take shape in his mind. How long he had slept. What time it had been when she had last woken him by moving. He usually woke before her. Not today. Today she had let him sleep.

He left the chamber. In the corridor he met Viktoria.

“Have you seen Tess?” he asked.

A triumphant smile flickered across Viktoria’s face before she suppressed it.

“No.”

If he had told himself until that moment that he was needlessly anxious, that stifled smile convinced him otherwise. Again.

“When did you see her?”

“Last night. When you went to bed.”

He set off quickly for the kitchen.

“Mary? Have you seen my wife?”

“Very early this morning, before sunrise. She must have gone on an outing. She took food with her. Quite a lot of food.”

He froze. That was unlike her. It was strange.

“About how much?”

“Dried meat. Fruit. Pastries. More than she eats in two weeks. I know exactly how little she eats.”

Could she have left?! What had happened this time?!

He walked slowly into the salon. Viktoria sat by the window, a book in her hand that she was clearly only holding. She had been expecting him. A smile already rested on her lips. The kind used at condolences, not in sincerity.

“The horses are in place,” he said. He was not asking. “No one saw her leave.”

Viktoria raised her brows and tilted her head. “Then perhaps she simply wished to be alone.”

He did not move. He did not look away.

“You think this is my fault?” she asked softly, with a quiet laugh. “That I drove her off? You know she has a tendency toward… uncertainty. Perhaps it was only a moment of weakness. She will come back again.”

“No,” he said with certainty. “She will not simply return.”

He crossed the room slowly and stopped before her. He leaned slightly closer. She did not avert her gaze.

“And if she does not return…” he asked quietly, “what do you gain?”

Viktoria smiled. This time with less restraint.

“It is not about what I gain. It is about what you do not have.”

“Where is she?!”

He growled it. Low. Precise. Like a man who had stopped asking and begun measuring punishment.

“I don’t know!”

He fell silent. The silence in the room was dense. Suffocating.

Then he said, “If I confirm you had anything to do with this, be certain of one thing. Nothing will protect you.”

“And from what would I need protection?” she whispered.

His voice was quiet. Unshakable.

“From what I am when someone touches what is mine.”

He spent the evening in his chamber, seated in a chair. He told himself that nothing might yet be wrong. That perhaps she would simply return before sunset.

But she did not.

The embers crackled in the hearth, but he felt no warmth. Only that unpleasant, cold silence piling around him.

The door to his room opened without knocking.

“Do you have a moment?” Viktoria’s voice was gentle. Carefully colored.

He did not answer. He only looked at her. She entered slowly, confidently, like someone who did not feel like a guest.

“You have not come to me since morning,” she remarked as she closed the door.

He lifted a brow. “And why should I?”

“Well. I could make the time more pleasant for you.” She leaned against the frame and tilted her head. “I look like her. I sound like her. Actually, it is hard to explain to the servants why you call me Viktoria when, to them, I am clearly Tess.”

He rose slowly.

“You share nothing with my wife except her face. And even that only when you don’t move or speak.”

“But that is something only you know…” she whispered. “If you insist that I am not your wife, I can turn it around. Everyone believes I am Tess. And you. Lord of this house. Aristocrat. Too proud. Too distant. You began claiming your wife is no longer your wife. That she has changed. That you don’t recognize her.”

She met his eyes.

“A few testimonies. A little acting. And everyone will believe me when I say you have lost your mind.”

The silence between them shifted.

Aiden drew a slow breath. Then stepped closer. He stood before her so close that she had to lift her head to look at him.

“It is late at night, and you are still my wife’s sister,” he said calmly. “So tonight I will behave as a gentleman. But tomorrow at first light you will leave my house. For your own good, manage it yourself. So that I don’t have to drag you out personally.”

Viktoria did not move.

But the color drained from her face.