Bound to Be a Bride by Megan Mulry

aristocratic skin.
    “You find me despicable,” she whispered. “I knew it. I knew you would hate me if you knew. You think I am weak and pampered.” She collapsed onto the stool. She felt small and defeated. Then the anger she had repressed for the past seven years in the convent rose through her. Conviction—that she deserved to have at least a fighting chance at her own happiness—bubbled up then boiled over.
    She stood too fast, knocking the stool over and nearly tripping on her too-long dress. “Give it to me!” she demanded, extending her hand to him with the palm flat and open to receive it. “It belongs to me. I have worked for it—you could not possibly begin to understand how hard I have worked. To obey. To abide. To accept. To comply! You bastard!” She snapped her fingers in his face, right in front of his eyes. “Now!” She was crying, but they were tears of rage. Glorious, righteous indignation. For herself. For Anna. For her mother. For every woman who had ever had to see that look of scrutiny in a man’s eyes when he beheld her.
    Javier reached into his coat and she thought he was reaching for his sword. She took a quick step back and realized she had nowhere to maneuver. She went flush up against the grimy wall behind her. “Javier—”
    “This cross has been in my father’s family for seven generations.” He spoke like a teacher, but one explaining something that he himself was only beginning to grasp. “Only the Condesa de la Mina has ever worn it. Or ever will.”
    “ Mina —?!” Isabella felt the blood drain from her face. “No—” She took two rough swipes at her face to swat away the tears. “No—it’s not—it cannot be—”
    When Javier removed his hand from inside his jacket, he was holding a red satin pouch. He offered it to her. “I believe this belongs to you.”
    She stared at his hand, afraid to believe the truth. Her father’s crest was woven into the red satin. In impatience bordering on disgust, Isabella had watched Sol make those stitches several weeks ago, the older woman boasting all the while about what an honor it would be to serve out her life in the company of the Conde and Condesa de la Mina.
    “But I hate you,” Isabella whispered.
    “And I you.”
    “You were supposed to be mean and have fleshy, perfumed hands and think you were above everyone…”
    “And you were supposed to be rigid and weak and cold…” He was moving toward her, closing the distance between them with each slow word. Then his smile bloomed across his splendid face and Isabella felt the world shift around her. “But I think, perhaps, we may have been misinformed.”
    He grabbed her by the back of her neck. The cross was still in his hand and it dug into her flesh as he kissed her— for the third time , she thought happily—with brutal abandon. She felt like he might rip her dress off and have his way with her right there in front of the German jeweler, and that she would not mind very much if he did.
    “Javi… is that even your name?” she asked quietly when he pulled away. “Of course it is,” she continued. “Francisco Javier de la Mina y de la Lerrea… how could I have forgotten?” She pressed her forehead against his. “I love you, whoever you are.”
    “And I love you, Isabella.”
    The German cleared his throat as he sat back down at his workbench.
    Javier turned to him and smiled, then said something conciliatory in the other man’s language.
    The jeweler shrugged, put his monocle carefully into the folds of skin around his eye, and went back to repairing the pocket watch he had been working on when they had entered his shop a lifetime ago.
    Javier turned his attention back to Isabella. “I am going to make you mine tonight,” he whispered into her ear. He pulled her into a quick embrace, then led her out of the shop.
    “Let’s go quickly to catch up with the others,” Javier said as they were moving at a rapid pace toward the docks.
    “We are still