The Duke of Snow and Apples (18 page)

Frederick switched to the offensive. “You saw all that now, did you? While you stood there with your gob open doing nothing?”

“When Miss Charlotte took that bump on her noggin? I’ve seen you run slower to put out a potionfire in Lady Leighwood’s still-room,” Tall John countered. “You
laughed
. I’ve never heard you laugh. Not in all the ten years you’ve worked here, since, well, the mud hunt. And that was over her, too, wasn’t it?” His eyebrows flew upward. “Is
that
why you’re keeping buttoned up about the theft from your room? Did they steal something of hers? Something incriminating?”

“No!” Frederick fought down the images the innuendo awakened in his head—images both erotic and deeply embarrassing, of Charlotte tumbled upon his uneven mattress of straw and sacking, rolling around on thrice-mended sheets. “She wouldn’t do anything like that. She’s a lady. I’m a footman.”

“She doesn’t look at you like a footman. She looks at you like…like… How could you be so bloody cursed
stupid?
” As quickly as it had flared, all the anger leaked out of Tall John, leaving him drooping with tiredness. “If you’d so much as batted your eyes, half a dozen of the downstairs maids—hell, even some of the upstairs maids—could have been yours for the taking. All the blushin’ and secrets and heartsickness belowstairs, none of it took you. And I knew, I always
knew
that if you kept on bottlin’ it up, you’d end up falling for the worst sort of girl. Inevitable, I suppose.”

“This has nothing to do with me bottling up anything.”

“You don’t love her,” Tall John said. “You
can’t
love her. It’s not love.”

A dull roar sounded in Frederick’s ears. “It’s none of your damn business.”

Tall John glared at him. “You’re dallying with our employer’s grandniece, which makes it very much my business. Gelvers’s business, too. Mr. Lutter’s. Everyone belowstairs. She’s
upperfolk
. D’you think she’ll fancy livin’ in an attic? Will she stay up there darnin’ your stockings while you crouch on the back of a carriage? That’s not love, Freddy.”

Frederick kept silent. Let Tall John assume his response, for the Maiden knew Frederick couldn’t come up with a satisfactory one to save his life.
Love?
What did he know about it? What word could possibly pin down all the frantic, clawing emotions inside him?

Tall John pulled back. “Think of it this way, then. You want her to be happy, right?”

Frederick nodded.

“Would Miss Charlotte be happy as a footman’s wife? As happy as a gentleman’s wife, a lord’s wife? A duke’s wife?”

Frederick stiffened.
A duke’s wife?
He could do that. He could give her that. He could put on his ducal ring in front of everyone, throw off his wig, get down on one knee and propose. He could accept the magical Entailment of his dukedom, take Charlotte back to his ancestral seat, drape her in furs and charms and jewels.

And slowly wait for the Gray to consume all that was beautiful about her.

He wouldn’t be able to help it—even now, every glance at someone’s periwinkle curiosity or burnt-orange annoyance drew the Gray a little bit closer. He couldn’t take something without paying for it. If he made Charlotte his, eventually she’d slip through his fingers until she wasn’t his Charlotte anymore, until she wasn’t anyone’s Charlotte, until she wasn’t Charlotte at all. Just ash and smoke bound up in a human shell.

Like his mother. And Farnsby.

Besides, now his ducal ring was gone. Stolen. Frederick knew he ought to feel relieved that Charmant Park’s mystery thief had deprived him of the opportunity to make that impulsive, destructive mistake, but the brief spark of that dream was so tempting.

“You’re right, John,” he admitted numbly. “She’ll be gone in a few days. There’s no helping that.”

He would have to settle for being her Duke of Apples, for he could never return to being anything else.

…

Sylvia’s shriek startled the salamanders in the dressing room grate, causing them to leap and spark. She dropped her embroidery-hoop, and it fell to the floor with a clatter, trailing blue thread.

“
What have you done to your face?
”

Charlotte winced and took a step back, more confused than angry to find her sister in her rooms, although anger quickly started gaining. “What are you doing here?”

Sylvia wafted out of her chair, waving her arms in helpless airy circles. “Saint Ameline help us, why on today of all days did you have to fall on your face?”

Charlotte batted away her sister’s fluttering hands, already certain from the brief glances in passing mirrors that her forehead had sprouted a sizable, reddening egg. On top of that, she hardly needed her pin-perfect sister to discover she’d gone outside with her stays only half laced. “How did you get in here?”

“Oh, I summoned a maid.” Her face folded into a serious expression that looked heavy and sulky on features too dainty for any emotion stronger than mild annoyance. “I wanted to speak to you in private. Why didn’t you tell any of the Dowagers about my engagement?”

“I didn’t want to deprive you of the glory of telling them—besides, they do so love surprises.” The lies rolled off her tongue as smoothly as pearls.

Sylvia’s eyes narrowed, and she cursed a surprisingly filthy word in Kelok. The delicate bone-china teacup left on the dressing-table cracked as the liquid within it froze solid. “You’re lying, and right to my face. You don’t think I know something’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing you need worry about,” Charlotte said.

“
Worry
about? If it’s bad enough to chase you off to Charmant Park, how could I not?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sylvia wilted at the frost in Charlotte’s tone. “Y-you just never told me you were going. Or anyone. The whole household was in an uproar and—oh Charlotte, you should really look in a mirror, it’s ghastly…”

“I know what it looks like.”

“Like you got hit by a rock.”

“An apple, actually. Could we continue this some other time, Sylvia?”

“An
apple?
I—no! I want to continue this now! I didn’t come all the way here to be treated like a stranger.”

“Why
did
you come all the way here, then?”

“Well, for
you.
” Sylvia leaned in. “I know the Dowagers mean well, but I never know how to act around them. But I’m about to be married and my only sister’s not there. What was I supposed to do?”

Charlotte stiffened. What would happen if she opened her mouth and let the truth march out in all its tawdry glory?
You stole my suitor, and you still have no idea. I thought your fiancé was courting me instead. I was stupid enough to believe I was desirable and you let me believe that.
No, those truths were too large and jagged-edged. She’d never be able to say those without tearing something.

You fell in love, and you never told me
. There. A small truth, the spiny seed at the root of all her bitterness.

Since childhood, they’d traded secrets back and forth like the shuttle of a loom, weaving the threads of their stolen tarts and stolen kisses into a shared tapestry of understanding, so tight one girl couldn’t shiver without the other feeling the ripple on the other side. At some point, somewhere, Sylvia had snapped a thread, and Charlotte could feel the whole picture between them unraveling.

She chose to laugh, a hard little laugh like the sound of a pebble rattling down a well. “I’m hardly indispensable to your precious wedding. So you see? You’ve come all this way for nothing.”

Sylvia gaped, a gratifyingly ugly expression. “Nothing?”

“You’ve made it perfectly clear you didn’t come here for Aunt Hildy’s benefit.”

“That’s not fair!” Sylvia cried.

No one truly wants to be angry.
Her words to Frederick snuck into her mind, dirty and shamefaced, for now she
wanted
to be angry, to be spiteful, to strike instead of being struck. Sylvia stood before her, her face knotted in confusion, spouting the words Charlotte had always wanted to hear from someone other than herself.

It’s not fair.
If life were fair, Glenson’s bachelors would have lined up outside the Erlwood household in two straight and equal lines. If life were fair, Charlotte could have shared in Sylvia’s joys and terrors with Mr. Peever instead of being jeered at. If life were fair, Charlotte would have fallen in love with a dark-haired, gem-eyed
gentleman
who could touch her on any stairwell he chose.

Love?
That silent question echoed through the corridors of her brain, down her spine.
Love
, the answer tolled, a deep, thrumming song of nerve and sinew, of tendon and bone, all of her normally silent parts that ignored the denials of the stubborn mind.

They cared nothing for status, for position, for the white powdered wig and spotless gloves and brass buttons. Only her brain recognized the laws of society, the tenets of the Pure Blooded, and it shivered alone in a skull lined with cold reason and logic.

“Life is
perfectly
fair,” Charlotte said. “You won Mr. Peever, didn’t you?”

“
Won
him?”

“Don’t fret.” Better to wield the blade than feel it. “You and your precious, perfect Mr. Peever deserve each other.”

Sylvia opened her mouth, her bottom lip wobbling, but Charlotte cut her off. “If you don’t mind, I need to choose a suitable morning gown. I’m soaked to the skin in this one. Hardly presentable enough for polite company.”

“Yes. Yes of course.” Sylvia exhaled each word in a quiet, lifeless puff. She picked her embroidery-hoop off the floor. She paused on her way to the door, and turned stiffly around. “I might have a charm that could mask that bump on your…”

“There’s no need,” Charlotte cut in, her resolve already crumbling. She didn’t need her sister here, not for this. The warp and weft between them was already twisted, ragged, and loose—one more thread, one more blue-eyed secret would only embellish an already torn cloth. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

Sylvia nodded, two shallow jerks. The sound of the door clicking shut rang scandalously loud against the silence accumulated between them.

Chapter Nineteen

Frederick’s decision to keep the ransacking of his room a secret proved wiser in more ways than one. The Seven Dowagers considered their annual masquerade a celebration for all, staff included. Still, silverware couldn’t serve itself, so at around noon a veritable army of waiters hired especially for the occasion arrived and marched in neat, black-clad ranks toward the house steward’s office.

Mr. Lutter and Mr. Gelvers would have their hands full managing the influx of anonymous faces, providing them with proper direction, and re-warding the most valuable china, glass, and silverware with protection spells known to every self-respecting butler who valued his position. How could one stolen ducal ring compare to that in importance?

Frederick, meanwhile, kept his head bent toward his work, hauling baskets of candles and cases of glow-stones and fire-charms to decorate the Old Hall. In Charmant Park’s earliest days, the Old Hall had witnessed elaborate feasts, weddings of human and Fey, summonings and councils and celebrations of hunt and harvest. Centuries of dancing feet had worn the floor to unevenness, and over the years the wind’s teeth had gradually gnawed drafts through the older stone.

Therefore, Lady Balrumple’s grandfather-in-law had commissioned the construction of a new ballroom in a newer wing of the house. The Seven Dowagers’ guests would celebrate there, bowing the steps of the Giovonese earth-dance across smooth marble floors and sipping honey wine beside elaborate columns carved with dragons’ faces. The Seven Dowagers’ staff would content themselves with the more historical hall, which suited them just as well—so long as they finished cleaning and preparing it in time.

Frederick could only hope the masquerade demanded enough candlesticks, tablecloths, and polished silver to keep his crowding weaknesses at bay. How could he even look at Charlotte now that he recognized the hot, squirming, demanding creature growing inside of him, stretching his insides until he felt paper-thin with lust and wanting?

At the back of his mind, insistently jabbing him, was the theft of his ducal ring. Nothing else in his room had been taken. However, that could have been because the ring was the only thing of value he’d possessed, the only scrap of his old life he’d retained. The only proof that the Seven Dowagers employed a footman who possessed one of the truest-blooded lines in the kingdom.

Why did it have to happen now? With his painstakingly constructed cold place crumbling about his ears? With the new duke and his stepfather sniffing around? Panic seized the joints of his fingers, and he nearly tore the delicate garland of woven firebell stems and pine boughs clenched in his hands.
Did either of them take my ring?

“Easy,” Tall John warned. He twisted the other length of the garland around a sconce so that it hung prettily along the wall of the Old Hall. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Frederick kept his head down so that Tall John, standing on his ladder, wouldn’t see the tension contorting his features.
Does Sir Bertram know who I am? How did he recognize me? And if he knows, why would he steal my ring?
Surely the Queen Regent would have commissioned a new ducal ring when the Littiger fellow assumed the title after the river had washed away all that remained of the last one.

Still, could it only be coincidence that his ring had gone missing at the same time the new Snowmont and Sir Bertram stopped by for a visit?

Tall John slid down the ladder. “Distract yourself, Freddy. It’ll help.”

He dragged the ladder toward the next sconce, and Frederick forced himself into step behind him, carrying the remaining garlands. Sir Bertram had somehow insinuated himself into the position of Snowmont’s “particular friend.” Perhaps he feared Frederick would wish to reclaim his title, sending Sir Bertram scuttling back under whichever tastefully appointed rock he had purchased with Frederick’s mother’s settlement.

However, one would think Sir Bertram would have the common sense to realize a stepson who abandoned his title to spend the last ten years polishing boots didn’t stand a good chance of coming back. Even as powerfully as the notion tempted Frederick now.

Was it so impossible to believe he could be worthy of the dukedom again? That he could control his power now? Perhaps he simply needed greater maturity, greater self-control, and mental power, to keep the Gray at bay. However, he could just as easily be trying to convince himself so that he could have what he wanted.

Magic was language, or so the Fey had handed down to their half-human offspring, down and down the generations. Letters and glyphs and words that scorched the air, chaining the powers of the world with rolling consonants and open vowels. Children traced their first spells in the schoolroom, continuing when they went to Harribone or Lexford. Some even became magicians, linguists who studied how the ancient verbs and nouns tied elements together, conjugating new spells.

Either way, it took years to learn how to properly cast regular magic. No one in the nation of Allmarch studied other powers, and they barely acknowledged the existence of proven foreign magics. How could Frederick possibly learn what couldn’t be taught?

A squadron of lower housemaids trooped into the hall, carrying bundles of clean linen tablecloths—their upper housemaid superiors trailing behind carrying baskets of dried Maiden’s breath and lavender.

Tall John tipped his head to them, smiling shyly, and a few stopped to chat, mostly about what they planned to wear to the servants’ masquerade, the last-minute alterations to their costumes, the borrowed or copied charms they planned on casting. As usual, Frederick hung back, outside the warm circle of conversation. Stoic, reliable Freddy, the servant all upperfolk imagined servants to be like: obedient, faceless, completely bereft of personality, temperament, or thought.

The bell on his shoulder-knot jangled to life. Tall John turned to stare at him, face unreadable. Frederick shrugged in what he thought was a
what else can I do?
way and prepared to hand over his share of the garlands when, just as suddenly, the bell stilled, stifling the sound.

“Guess she changed her mind,” Tall John said.

“She sounds just as spoiled and chang’ble as I’ve heard,” said a lower housemaid, proud to admit her place in the servants’ gossipvine.

A scathing put down wriggled up out of Frederick’s throat, only to run up against the wall of his clenched teeth. “I’d better check, all the same.” He unloaded the rest of his garlands into Tall John’s stiff arms.

Tall John glowered. “Freddy…”

Frederick flicked his shoulder-bell. “She rang.”

“Be careful.”

Frederick stiffened. The weight of his cold place already crushed him—he didn’t need Tall John’s smothering concern as well. Frederick turned and prowled off in another direction, away from Tall John’s judgment and the whispers of the maids.

Irritation faded from Frederick’s mind with every step, and guilt seeped up to take its place. It was more than likely that Charlotte had, in fact, used the bell-pull only briefly before deciding he was no longer needed. It was Frederick who needed to see Charlotte.

The Seven Dowagers’ affairs of spice and song only
seemed
endless belowstairs. Eventually they came to an end and the guests all returned to their lands and estates. In a matter of days, Charlotte would leave, life would return to normal, and Frederick would let it, because he had no other choice.

That didn’t mean he had to be normal for those few days that were left. Ten years of aching bones, ten years of service, ten years without tempting the Gray—surely, a few days of precious indulgence wouldn’t undo everything he’d done.

As for Sir Bertram—burn Sir Bertram! If he wanted that precious ring he could have it, and if he valued his position in the new duke’s interests, he could keep silent as well as anyone else.

Since Charlotte’s arrival, the sturdy restraints of Frederick’s life had tightened, biting into his skin. A few more days with Charlotte would change all that. Only a few more days. He would store up the minutes like coins, a fortune of memory, enough and more to render polishing, lifting, and obeying bearable again. Could he be brave enough to take that chance?

The bell’s ringing pattern of
jangle, jangle, silence, jangle,
indicated the command had issued from the green drawing-room. He arrived, professional on the outside and rifling through excuses to get Charlotte alone on the inside. Upon the threshold, however, he swung to a halt as suddenly as if he’d run up against a wall.

Charlotte looked up with a start. She sat ramrod straight upon a sofa upholstered in apple-green silk, a large book spread open upon her lap. She’d changed into a sturdy morning gown of light blue. She wore a light scarf in the same color wrapped around her head in a makeshift turban to hide the bump on her forehead.

The Duke of Snowmont sat close, too close, inordinately close to her, his silver eel’s gaze trailing after the movement of her finger across the page, more like a bored child marking the progress of an ant than one truly interested in whatever she was reading. He gave no indication of noticing Frederick’s entrance.

Charlotte’s face pinched closed in a guilty look, but not before Frederick caught a moment of unguarded openness, an influx of color and light into her cheeks and eyes.

She dropped her gaze. “What is it, Freddy?”

The loss of that precious extra syllable struck Frederick like the loss of an arm, a moment of numb shock followed by sharp, blinding pain. “You summoned me. Miss.”

“Oh?” said Charlotte, not looking up. “I hadn’t meant to. I’m quite comfortable now. With His Grace. Reading to him, I mean. Alistair Marchford’s
The Ratcatcher
. Such a comedic play, don’t you think, Your Grace?”

“Oh, quite,” said Snowmont, unperturbed by her babbling. Unperturbed by existence in general.

A hard, heavy pulse of anger beat against Frederick’s breastbone, and tingled in the palms of his hands—hands he no longer quite knew what to do with. Snowmont must be violating at least a good dozen of society’s rules by sitting so close, his leg nearly brushing hers. Where was Charlotte’s chaperon? Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted an uncharacteristically quiet Sylvia embroidering spells close to the hearth, next to a dozing Mrs. Templebaum. Sir Bertram sat across from them, but a gothic novel apparently engrossed his attentions. Where was Charlotte’s
real
chaperon?

Snowmont shifted, bringing his leg up against the layers of muslin covering Charlotte’s. Slowly, his eyes slid up, as if noticing Frederick for the first time. An ordinary footman would have broken eye contract, lowered his face. Frederick kept his gaze insolently level and unblinking, hoping Snowmont felt discomfited. His magic coursed upward through him and beat against the back of his skull, wanting to be let out. He wrestled it back. He had no desire to see Snowmont’s greasy, pallid hues. Let him wallow in silent rudeness instead.

Charlotte’s eyes flickered back and forth, as if watching an invisible stormball match. They settled on Frederick, finally. If he hadn’t been so angry, he might have interpreted their gleam as apologetic. “You may go now, Freddy. It was a mistake.”

A mistake
. Of course. Slow-moving lizards like the new Snowmont could lounge where they pleased, but any pleasure at all with a footman was an error in judgment. The bitter tang of jealousy rose in the back of his throat.

Remember Sir Bertram
. Frederick fought for control. The man turned a page in his novel, gaze never straying toward the private drama nearby. Nevertheless, Frederick proceeded carefully.

“I’ve also been asked to pass along a message.”

“Go on, then.”

“In private,” said Frederick.

Charlotte followed him into an adjoining music room. Freddy discreetly locked the door. After a pause, her words tumbled out in a rush. “I’m sorry, Frederick, but I had to say those things. The moment I touched the bell-pull, Sylvia turned up, with His Grace and his friend and dusty old Mrs. Templebaum. What was I to do? Turn a duke away?”

“You could have if you wanted to.” Frederick eyed her improvised turban, still irrationally angry. “But maybe that apple scrambled too much of your wits.”

“And whose fault is that?” Her ferocious eyebrows slanted down, as her face reclaimed some of its natural temper.

“All mine.” Frederick lowered his voice at the words, and the extra meaning behind them.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Frederick silenced her with a sudden kiss, while sunlight slanted in through the windows to wake hidden gleams of gold in Charlotte’s hair and lashes. He enjoyed a moment of warm compliance before Charlotte broke away.

“What?” Despite his attempt to control the situation, he couldn’t quite mask the unsteadiness in his voice. Inside, he shook with the dark thrill of taking what he wanted. Each encounter with Charlotte was a leap, a gamble against the abyss. He could live on memories of this for
years
.

“You can’t…my sister…”

“I don’t want to kiss your bloody sister.”

“But I’m…”

“Repulsed?”

“That’s not…”

“Frightened?”

“Never!” she spat.

He grinned, a long, slow unfurling of his lips. His power rose with renewed fervor, and he allowed it to flow into his eyes. “Then let’s have this.”

“This
what
?” A whirl of carnival-colored confusion washed over her, a fool’s motley of puce, peach, and indigo. As Frederick watched, she struggled with embarrassment, pleasure, and longing.

Something held her back, he realized. The reasons why gaped between them like a yawning chasm, with the jagged shards of service, society’s rules, and his own tawdry past waiting below. She stood with her toes on the edge.

He peeled off his white glove. He lifted his bare hand to the side of Charlotte’s cheek, almost but not quite touching. “This time we have. It’s not much, but I want it. Do you?”

After a moment’s pause, she tilted her head the merest degree, just enough to rest her warm, flushed cheek against the curve of his hand. “Yes,” she said, indigo lightening into lavender, and then pink. “Oh, yes.” She jerked away. “But after…”