Skander was surely coming now.
Move, Margaret!
Don’t be a fool!
It was not until there was an actual creak on the floor inside the room that she was able to move. The sound seemed to release her; running on bare feet, hands gathering her gown around her knees, she fled down the hall in a breathless rush of fabric and hid in the corner of her doorframe, not daring to open it lest it squeak on its hinges.
Skander stepped out into the hallway. Without a backward glance—what an effort that must have took!—he shut the door behind him. She expected him to go on quickly, anxious to get away from that horrible man who was his cousin, but he stayed a moment, took a step toward her room, and then stood still again. She dared not breathe. Crouched in the shadow of her door she stared back at him, lit only slightly by the thin line of light from under Rupert’s door. She knew what was happening. He, too, had taken the time to think, to reason, and on cue he turned away, the window for rashness shut perhaps forever.
When all was empty and silent again she breathed out and let herself into her room. Curiously she stood in the middle of the space, looking round on the black enclosure, and almost laughed—to keep from crying—over the insane trouble a simple fan caused. Yet her lungs turned treacherous just at the crucial moment: she hiccupped again, lost her handle on her mirth, and fell across her bed in an agony of angry sobbing. She throttled the blankets who stood proxy for Rupert and hated—hated—
hated
the immensity of everything. Most of all she hated herself. She, the victim, had been thrown into this world of crowns as a bone to be squabbled over, a pawn to be moved, a woman to be coddled, a slave to be prodded, a curse to be averted, a fate to be thwarted.
10 | A Flicker-Flame of a Party
“Aikaterine, be so kind as to find a journal and pencil for me.”
Rather lost in the mothy-coloured corner of the garret, the maid straightened and peered back at her for a moment, quizzical. “I understand the journal to be blank.”
“H’ip!” Rhea had pulled savagely on the lacings of her undergarments. Margaret glared the witching maid’s reflection in the mirror. “Yes, I would like the journal to be blank. Thank you, Aikaterine.”
Aikaterine obediently left and, as it was a long way down to anywhere from her room, Margaret expected to be alone with Rhea for some time. She found the only thing that kept her from worrying seriously about Rhea doing her bodily harm was the fact that Rupert had not told her to. She tried to keep her thoughts centred on her request for a journal and off the movements of the maid behind her.
Rhea interrupted her thoughts. “There was talk last night of hunting, and I am told the huntsman left before dawn this morning to quest for a reasonable beast. I think therefore,” she turned from the depths of the clothes-trunk, “you had better go down in your riding habit.”
Margaret looked hard at Rhea and wondered if the girl was telling the truth and whether or not it would be ridiculous to be caught walking about in a riding habit if no one intended to go riding. But as there was nothing truthful or devilish to be read in those eyes, Margaret finally put out her hand and said bluntly,
“Let’s have it, then.”
The day had dawned with a low sky over all like a grey lid, windless and chilly, though not bitingly cold. Looking down from her window Margaret had seen that snow had fallen during the night: only a light dusting, but enough to make the grounds and pine-woods turn black and foreign. The walls of Lookinglass appeared cold and bloodless under that colourless sky. As she put on her scarlet habit and sat while Rhea put up her hair, she could see her reflection in the mirror as brilliant against the pallor of the November morning.
“In that red gown she looked like a goddess.”
Having laid the preliminary bun, Rhea pulled the forefront hair from out of Margaret’s eyes, divided and twisted it, and curled it into a neat, sprigy body at the back. It was annoying, thought Margaret, but considerably neater and more becoming than anything she had managed for herself. She pressed her lips in a thin line and shot a withering glance at the door as it said, “Thump! thump!”
“Here you are,” said Aikaterine, coming at Margaret’s call with the book and pencil. She straightened and stood by as though waiting for orders. Ignoring them both, Margaret set the pencil in her lap and opened up the leather-bound book. It was plain, painfully plain, with rough-cut edges and a spine that had not been opened before. It would take some breaking in, but then Margaret felt desperately in need of something to break. Aikaterine was speaking.
“It is a very good style. Hair is something I have never quite mastered.”
The praise came stiffly, but sincerely. Rhea replied cuttingly, “No, you wouldn’t have.” Then, just as Margaret was getting ready to turn around and tell her to speak civilly, the maid added, “But I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Neither of our households is very abundant with women.”
Aikaterine wisely said nothing else. Feeling dismally hungry and rather lively for having cried things out last night and having risen to a stark white morning, Margaret got up and put the writing things away on the dressing table, and stepped from the mirror toward the door.
“Are we to dine all together, Aikaterine?”
The maid nodded. “A buffet has been laid out in the ballroom.” She watched with faintly veiled suspicion as Rhea stepped forward. “Have you further need of me?”
“No,” Margaret admitted reluctantly. She loathed having Rhea tag like a shadow at her back, but it would not do to start Rupert off with a disagreeable attitude first thing in the morning. “R-Rhea is with me. Thank you, Aikaterine.”
It would have been better, Margaret reflected, if Aikaterine could have taken her down. She would have felt more at ease going in alone: with Rhea she felt strangely naked and exposed, as if all the while the maid was making some joke of her behind her back that everyone but herself could see. She could feel the gaze of wicked, jealous scorn on the back of her neck. She wished she could understand it. She wished, above all, that she could blot it out.
A high white light was shining in the ballroom when she arrived. The winter lighting made a difference in the room: all colours were softer and paler, colder and more subdued. A pleasantly sleepy atmosphere lay over the humming room. There was no real order to things: people were standing about or sitting down, refilling their plates or lounging with a cup of coffee while having a quiet chat with friends. The pale light helped, a little, to make the crowd of them less intimidating.
Margaret caught sight of Skander. It was hard to miss him, even in that cluster of well-proportioned, handsome men. He was standing by the coffee table, one hand on the tabletop to support himself, and was deep in conversation with Woodbird Swan-neck. The conversation seemed to be going gingerly if the quirk and pull of Skander’s brow was anything to judge by, and at that moment he caught sight of her and made a sideways movement, as if he meant to break politely away from Woodbird and come greet her. But at the same moment, perhaps out of instinct or a sense of self-preservation, he looked out for Rupert and stopped himself, for at that moment Rupert, too, had caught sight of her, and was coming to her side.
Margaret’s spine shivered as Rupert stepped between two men and came toward her. He was dressed for a day outdoors, in leather and furs, and there was a dusting of snow on his boots and shoulders which suggested he had been out already. He bent deliberately for her cheek—her stomach clenched—and the cold scent of pine emanated from him. His lips, however, were warm.
“Good morning. You slept well?”
“I slept deeply.”
He searched her face and it was all she could do not to show the fear and rage she had felt last night when she had heard him speak to Skander. But he did not seem to see. He took her arm, gently but firmly, and smiled to her as he led her toward the breakfast table. “I see you got the word that we are to go hunting today. I am glad you have had a little taste of that already: you will know now what to expect.”
She marked with relief that he was in a good mood this morning. After last night she would not have gambled on his attitude being so gentle and agreeable—she wondered if it was a good mask, but did not have the courage to attempt pulling it off to see.
She caught sight of her reflection in a mirror: a sudden, startling reflection of a tall, fine-boned woman done up in red, burning bright against the mellow silver backdrop of the winter-lit room. Acute regret twisted in her middle.
I wish I were not to wear red all the time. What must they think of me! I look like—
“Is something the matter?” Rupert murmured.
“N-no,” she lied. Her eye accidentally met with Skander’s as they passed and she offered him an instinctive, forced smile. “I am ravenous.”
They stopped at the buffet and Rupert stood by while Margaret mechanically began filling a plate. “Winter does that,” he added gustily. Seeing the snow on his shoulders he began dusting it off. “It gets the blood up, and the appetite too.”
She felt his gaze slide back to her and knew that if she gave him a chance he would push her again. She could be sure he would push gently this morning, but he would push firmly, testing her mettle set square against his. It made her angry, and the weariness she felt when she realized what he was about to do frightened her. Swiftly she turned away, narrowly missing the neck of a fluted glass: but this time she was aware of turning hastily away from herself, not merely from him.
Don’t be a coward
. She dodged his hand and went on before him to a low table and chair.
Don’t lose your head nor let him get to you…But I wish he would give it a rest! It is too early to have to fight him already
.
He settled down in a chair across the table from her, one leg flung over the opposite knee, and twisted to watch the others in the room. It was uncanny to know that, though he was turned from her, he was still watching her, too. Every now and then, as she ate, Margaret looked up to see his proud dark head flung back, wall eyes squinted against the light. The hand resting lightly on his supported heel was moving unconsciously, the thumb rubbing fore and middle-finger round and round and round…as if some back part of his mind was gradually grinding down the people he watched even as he was grinding down herself.
Would there be anything left of them when he was done?
He turned his head abruptly, spotting something behind her. Turning too, she saw the blue-jay man approach Skander. Skander deftly extricated himself from Woodbird and the two men exchanged a brief word.
“It seems Gabriel has found something,” said Rupert. He put up his hand on the table; his signet flashed in the light. “I would finish that, if I were you,” he added, nodding to her plate. “Skander likes to get on the scent as soon as possible—and he likes wily game.”
“Does it run in the family?” she asked cuttingly.
He was much amused. “Very likely, wench.” He got up, fiddled a moment with a button on his jacket, and looked significantly at her. She got up in a rushy noise of scarlet cloth, paled to the colour of a hibiscus blossom in the fanned winter light, and walked with him across the room to join Skander.
Skander had just sent the blue-jay man off again and was standing with his arms folded impressively across his chest, shoulders slumped, lips twisted into a fighting gesture. He turned his head as they approached.
“Good morning,” he said gingerly.
Rupert returned lightly: “What bee has got in your bonnet?”
“Not a bee—a boar.”
Rupert made an instinctive gesture toward Margaret as if he had meant to put her behind him; it was swift and thoughtless and almost instantly quelled, but she had seen it. Furthermore, so had Skander. He dropped his eyes a moment to where Rupert’s hand had fallen back at his side. His thoughts had visibly shifted, but a heartbeat later he drew them back.
“Gabriel found a rich one,” he went on slowly, suspiciously, “between Ryland and Cheshunt. That cuts the participants nearly in twain.”
“We will come,” Rupert said firmly. Skander looked hard at him, lips pressed tightly. Margaret watched the almost overwhelming desire to speak catch and strangle in the young man’s throat, but somehow he held his peace. Having recovered from his start, Rupert smiled mockingly. “We are in need of a little sport, Margaret and I. She has seen not but fox-hunting since she has come here. Boars have no use for dodging and cunning play as the fox and hart have. If she sees naught else she is like to think us mealy folk in the chase.”
“Not like,” she heard herself say quietly.
Skander sidestepped the remark deftly and rushed on before Rupert could say anything else. With an outward flick of his hand, as though to indicate her—his ring glinting in the sunlight—he added, “Woodbird Swan-neck, I hear, comes also. So then Margaret will not be the only lady in our train.”
“Nay, but I protest she is.” Rupert’s tone was soft, but laced with that quiet, almost inaudible laughter which, when mocking, hurts the most.
Skander flung up his head, nostrils widened like an insulted stallion. His face, so often amiable, was stark-pale with rage and a quick sense of fury lashed out from him, only a moment from being clenched in both fists and made kinetic by a blow to Rupert’s cheek. They stood a moment so, both gone pale—Rupert’s left fist closed very, very slowly—and Margaret waited tensely, her heart in her throat, expecting after each throb for one of them to raise a hand. But neither moved, and after half a minute Skander said tersely,
“I go down now to the stables. You’ll find your horses there.”
He turned and stalked away. At that moment the blue-jay man had reentered, coming to fetch him, and stopped, turning in his tracks to fall into step with the young man’s angry pace. Margaret would have watched them until they disappeared, acutely sorry for the insult, when a swift blur of white movement caught her eye and she saw Woodbird come abreast of them a little distance off. The sharp, owlish eyes looked after Skander, cut to Rupert’s face with a swift, scared, accusing look…then the woman hurried on, going out after Skander and the blue-jay man.