When I woke up this morning," I say, "and the nurse was there and you were gone — did you already know about the rumor.
About what Hazel told that maid."
A pause. One beat too long.
"Yes," he says.
The word lands in the room and I look at him and I think about the chair beside my bed.
The coat around my shoulders. Very brave. The almost-laugh and the careful way he looked at me in the lamp light and said I meant it. I think about all of it and I think about him sitting in that chair knowing that somewhere in this palace his name was being attached to a lie and choosing not to tell me.
"You knew," I say. "And you said nothing."
"I was handling it," he says. His voice is even. The voice he uses when he has decided he is right and is not particularly interested in being challenged.
"You were handling it." I step further into the room. "My sister accused you of assault and used my name as the threat and you sat in that chair and watched me fall asleep and you said nothing."
