After Transmigrating, My Husband Is an Octopus novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Lessons in Bowing

Lorcan's arms uncoiled from my wrist one at a time, and he did not look at me while they did it.

"The court matchmaker rated me when I was nineteen," he said. "It's a ceremony. You stand in front of the oldest families and a woman reads you aloud."

"What was your number?"

"Four." He laughed, short and dry. "Four, with the whole of the Brack family. They put it in the royal ledger."

"That's a terrible number."

"It's the only one I've ever had." He rubbed his bandaged arm and flinched. "And now a human in my kitchen says ninety-eight, and my skin hasn't told her to stop. I can't think what the matchmaker would say."

"You don't believe me."

"I believe you," he said. "That's the problem."

He stood and lifted the bowl of dirty water.

"Don't say it at Pearl Hall," he said. "Don't say it to Lord Tristram, or anyone at court. The Regent will use anything with a number on it."

"Why would she use a thing that makes you look good?"

"Because I'm not supposed to look good."

He went to bed.

I lay in the left room with a leaking ceiling and a wet pillow, and I thought about the wrist he had held for ten minutes without noticing.

I had never been held that carefully.

It was not an easy thought to fall asleep on.

Over the next three days, Lord Tristram Verrin came for me at nine each morning in a closed carriage, and Bess came along as chaperone.

Lorcan did not stop it.

He stood on the walkway each time with his arms folded and his sleeves down, and watched the carriage go, and said, "Be careful."

"It's an etiquette lesson," I said.

"I know what it is."

The Chancellery was a tall pale building with a courtyard of white shells.

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