The preparations for the Gala meant the house was buzzing with staff, increasing the risk of discovery. Victoria entered the Master Suite with a bowl of hot water and a straight razor.
“You look like a hermit,” she told Alistair, setting the bowl on the nightstand. “If Cross comes in here to check on you, he needs to see a man recovering, not a prisoner rotting away.”
She lathered his face with shaving soap. Alistair watched the razor glint in the light. In the past, he would have feared she might slip–accidentally or on purpose. He had given her plenty of reasons to want him dead.
But Victoria’s hands were steady. She tilted his chin up, scraping the blade gently along his jawline. It was an act of profound intimacy, a vulnerability he had never allowed anyone, not even Beatrice.
“There,” she whispered, wiping the remaining foam away with a hot towel. “You look like yourself again.”
Alistair looked at her. The contempt that had fueled him for decades was gone, replaced by a strange, foreign feeling in his chest. Gratitude.
*Blink. Blink.*