Traitor's Masque (10 page)

“If,” Malisse continued, “these rumors prove to be true, and
if
there is any indication that the king intends to hasten the matter of a royal wedding, we will need to be prepared.”

“For what?” For a moment, everyone paused, wondering who had spoken, and no one was more surprised than Trystan to realize it had been her.

“I beg your pardon?” Malisse responded with false politeness. “Was that a real question, or were you just pretending to be provincial and ignorant? It can be so very difficult to tell.”

Trystan held her breath for a slow-count of five and imagined the consequences should she actually permit her head to explode at the dinner table. It would be messy. Especially during the soup course.

“My question was a genuine one, Stepmother.” Her smile was as false and saccharin as Malisse’s. “I have never before been privy to the details of a royal wedding. How might one hope to be chosen for such an honor?”

Malisse laughed, a bright tinkling sound in the over-large dining room. “Well, I’m not sure I understand why you need to know, but one must be a member of the nobility to be considered, possess substantial wealth to enrich the royal coffers, and, I need not add, be blessed with such personal advantages, beauty and breeding for example, as may be sufficient to attract the notice and secure the affection of His Royal Highness. None of which,” she added silkily, “need concern you in the slightest.”

“Only my regrettable curiosity, Stepmother,” Trystan responded in a deadly sweet voice that made even Hoskins stiffen where he stood in the corner. “I was merely wondering how likely it was that I might soon be celebrating the nuptials of one of my dear sisters.”

Anya snickered.

“And I,” Malisse continued in a glacial tone, “trust that you will do everything in your power to assure me that you have your sisters’ best interests at heart.”

“Why, Stepmother,” Trystan breathed innocently, “of course!” If only she had stopped there. For some reason, her mouth just kept moving. “But I sincerely doubt they will require my assistance,” she continued brightly. “After all, it sounds as if the prince is shopping for a horse, rather than a wife, and I’m quite certain they will prove convincing in the role.”

A frozen silence descended, in which suffocating atmosphere only Trystan could be heard, defiantly slurping her soup as Malisse’s chest heaved in speechless fury.

“Room!” It seemed the only word Malisse was capable of uttering. She punctuated this dictum by snapping to her feet and slamming her dainty hands to the table. Trystan looked up innocently as the silver rattled with the force of the impact. Somewhere on the inside she was rather appalled at her own audacity, but not appalled enough to stop an outburst that had probably been building for years.

“Whatever do you mean, Stepmother?” She enunciated each word, clearly and precisely, looking Malisse in the eye as she did so. Trystan felt vaguely terrified, but exhilarated at the same time. Fascinated by the feeling of standing up to her tormentor, knowing full well it wouldn’t last. Realizing she would regret it, but unable to care even a little.

For the second time that day, Trystan felt strangely, startlingly alive.

“NOW!” Malisse’s wrath erupted in a most unladylike bellow, in response to which Trystan slowly, calmly, removed her napkin from her lap, pushed back her chair, and curtsied elegantly. A precise turn on her slippered foot left her back exposed to the full force of Malisse’s wrath and her stepsisters’ offended outrage, but somehow Trystan managed to mince demurely from the room, her head held high. At least until she was on the other side of the door. The footman just outside was nearly forced to catch her as her knees threatened to buckle.

She wobbled, but managed to stay upright. Lovely. Her courage
would
fail her before she could even get up the stairs. Then she happened to catch the footman’s eye.

He winked.

Neither of them said a word. They stared at each other, both a little shocked, until Trystan could no longer stop herself. She grinned. And winked back.

The footman returned swiftly to his inscrutable, uniformed self, but the damage was done. She had seen him, not as a “footman” but as a person, with clear and decisive opinions of his own. Opinions that were obviously not sympathetic to Malisse.

Trystan was briefly ashamed by the few moments it took her to remember the footman’s name. Farley. Some distant relation of Vianne’s, hired by Lord Percival a few months before his second marriage. Farley probably remembered, as Trystan did, the comfortably informal household that had been so thoroughly overset by the new Lady Colbourne’s ideas of what was due her own self-consequence. But Trystan was stunned by the fact that Farley had allowed her to see his sympathy. Was this, like Vianne’s plotting, simply an acknowledgement of what Trystan had lost? Or had something changed in the household? Worse yet, was it possible that Trystan was only now beginning to see something that had been there all along?

It was an intriguing thought, but as Trystan reluctantly mounted the stairs, she found that it offered little in the way of comfort. Farley’s show of support wasn’t likely to make her punishment any easier to bear. The last time Trystan proved intractable, her stepmother had forbidden her to read, play or draw for a month. After four weeks of sitting silently in the drawing room listening to her sisters’ insipid conversation while embroidering various useless objects, Trystan’s patience had felt nearly as abused as her fingers. Her sense of ill-usage had not been improved by the fact that Malisse knew very well how deeply her stepdaughter despised the needle.

Whatever punishment Malisse chose this time, it was certain to be far worse than the last.

The next afternoon found Trystan in the midst of the gardens, gleefully contemplating her filthy hands. There was actual dirt under her nails, and the state of her clothes was simply not to be mentioned.

Malisse’s wrath had indeed been terrible, her vengeance extreme. She had sentenced her recalcitrant stepdaughter to
work
, saying that if the child would speak as vulgarly as the servants, then she could work like them too. Even if it was only during those times of day when no one was likely to see her.

Trystan was not about to admit how great a relief it was to have something to
do
. Even gardening seemed like bliss after the endless days of silent decorum she was expected to suffer through inside the house.

The head gardener, Millson, was a taciturn man who grunted and pointed more than he spoke, but who seemed willing enough to trust Trystan with digging, weeding and trimming. She followed his instructions, clumsily at first, taking care to watch for the occasional surveillance of her stepmother and sisters. Trystan reasoned that if they believed her to be suffering they would continue to inflict such “punishment” and felt she could do worse than be forced to enjoy the warm spring days from the relatively uninterrupted peace of the garden. So whenever they found it necessary to promenade past the windows to check on her progress, she made certain to rub her back, look pitifully at her nails, or limp, which produced satisfied smiles on the faces of her oppressors.

In this way, life proceeded, rather peacefully for a change. Perhaps the only point of discomfort was Trystan’s inability to settle what she felt were her debts, of a sort. When she approached Vianne on the topic of her excuse for Trystan’s day-long absence, the dour old woman actually smiled fleetingly, before resuming her usual forbidding mien. But no matter how Trystan pressed her, the cook offered no explanation and appeared disgruntled by all expressions of appreciation.

Trystan likewise took advantage of her chance to disappear one afternoon while Malisse and the girls were out on a call, and visited the stables, where she attempted to thank the brothers for their gift. But when she asked whether they knew the history of the tiny horse and why they had chosen to give it up, both Andrei and Alexei seemed curiously devoid of expression and refused to discuss the matter.

It was frustrating, but Trystan managed to quell both her curiosity and the desire to immediately erase her indebtedness. It was strange and unsettling, that feeling of obligation, but continuing to pursue the matter could only bring trouble—for all of them—should her efforts happen to come to Malisse’s attention. All she could do was wait, and hope that she could find some acceptable way to express the uncomfortable new sensation of gratitude.

Trystan’s next opportunity for a morning ride presented itself sooner than she expected. About a month after her punishment commenced, one of the Colbourne’s neighbors, Lady Isaura Westerby, a childless widow who nonetheless managed an impressive estate, threw a party in honor of Darya’s birthday. Everyone with any pretense to importance had been invited and, like all fashionable parties, it ended very little before dawn.

Malisse and her daughters stumbled happily, and perhaps a bit tipsily, into their beds just as the sun was coming up. As soon as they were safely snoring, Trystan took her bag of lunch from a straight-faced Vianne and disappeared to the stables, not planning to be back until at least tea-time.

Trystan had no specific plan when she first cantered away from the manor. Without any real intention to do so, she found herself approaching the eaves of the Kingswood as the sun rose over the trees. A bit perturbed by this subconscious betrayal of her resolution
not
to think about her last ride, she nonetheless rode under the trees at a more sedate pace, agreeing with herself to simply enjoy the shade for a few moments before leaving. But an hour or more of enjoying passed before she realized how thoroughly she was betraying her own intentions, when Theron emerged from the trees and trotted up a steep hill. They reached the top, giving her a strangely familiar view of rolling downs, and Trystan had no choice but to laugh at whatever forces seemed to have conspired against her. It was better not to fight such forces.

With the aid of a much improved sense of direction, they cantered lazily across the fields to the now-convenient stone wall, where Trystan slid happily out of the saddle to sit on its welcoming top and soak up memories along with sunshine. Feeling oddly content, she took off her hat, unbraided her hair, and let it fall loose down her back as she sat, legs dangling into the tall grass. The sun made her feel sleepy, so, not without feeling a bit silly, she stretched out along the top of the wall, put her hat over her face, and took a nap.

She woke abruptly some time later, rested, but not quite sure what had startled her until she felt warm breath on her face. Sitting up with a yawn, she pushed half-heartedly at the soft nose that had been snuffling curiously in her hair. Too late she realized that Theron was grazing peacefully a short distance away and that the nose she had shoved was brown, rather than gray.

Trystan turned, looked up and decided she was still dreaming when her sun-dazzled eyes finally made out the enigmatic face of her strange companion from several weeks past.

For a few moments they only stared at each other. Trystan, at least, felt oddly unsure of herself, but bizarrely relieved by the sudden thought that at least he had not been just a dream.

“I was beginning to wonder if I had only dreamed you.” The man’s voice startled her. Had she spoken her thought out loud? His dismount was a tired, awkward motion that made her frown, just a little. He appeared as though he had barely slept since they parted company at the Tree.

“You look awful.” The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them. Aghast, she put her face in her hands and groaned. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” she muttered into her palms.

The man only laughed, and the sound was as wonderful as her memories of it. “The truth can be a terrible thing,” he agreed complacently. “I probably look even worse than that. You, however, look much the same as I remember, aside from…” He stopped, and looked a bit embarrassed. “Your hair,” he said finally. “It’s beautiful.”

Trystan blushed in horror and jumped to her feet as she remembered her unbound hair, and hastily began to plait its reddish-brown strands back into her customary braid. “I forgot,” she apologized. “I hadn’t really thought I would meet anyone out here today.”