Page 34

Chapter 34

Kat

“Katherine Eleanor Vandermore, I should have you beaten!” Agatha, earrings shaking, skin reddened to the hue of a cherry, looks nothing like her normal self. “I should have you horsewhipped! Anthony—”

“She mustn’t be touched, my lady,” Mary interrupts, bobbing a curtsy. “Lord Rahk made it clear he won’t have her if she is damaged.”

I sit in the parlor, huddled in Rahk’s cloak, shaking with wrath I can barely contain.

Bridget hangs beyond the door, a hand over her mouth. She watches the spectacle, but ducks out of view whenever Agatha turns around. Edith came when she heard the shouting, muttered, “No, thank you,” and left again. I wish I could have fled with her.

Agatha rounds on Mary. “You were part of this, weren’t you?”

“I had no role in the matter,” she replies, clearing out the tea dishes.

“If you are lying, Mary, you will share Katherine’s punishment with her.”

Mary curtsies. “Yes, ma’am.”

“She didn’t do anything!” I cry, finally finding my voice. “It was all me. You must not punish her for my wrongdoing!”

“So, you admit it was wrong of you to run away, disguised like a common servant boy, to avoid your duty of marrying Lord Boreham?” Agatha sticks a shaking finger in my face.

I try not to look at Mary as she makes her escape. I breathe easier once she is gone. Swallowing my pride and stubbornness, I take the route of placation and nod.

“Then you will submit to whatever punishment I deem appropriate?”

The blood drains from my face. I do not reply.

“Since I cannot have you beaten, you will watch as Mary takes your punishment. Do twenty lashes sound appropriate?”

I’ve never seen Agatha like this. I never liked her, but part of me always believed if the circumstances of our sharing a family had been different, we might have loved each other. Now I cannot believe I ever thought such a thing. I jump to my feet. “You will not lay a hand on any members of this staff! Not to punish them, and certainly not to punish me. If you do, I will take every cent of my fortune and apply it to your ruin!”

Agatha raises her hand to strike me across the face. I flinch, bracing myself, but the blow doesn’t come. Instead, she barks to her favored servant: “Sylva! The slippers.”

Sylva comes silently, bearing the once-pink velvet box. Cold fingers close around my heart. I watch as she hands the box to my stepmother. Agatha takes the lid off and moves aside the fabric to take one of the slippers.

“Agatha—” I plead.

She smashes the slipper to the floor.

“No!” I scream, diving for it. I’m not fast enough. The slipper shatters.

Except—it doesn’t.

The slipper lies there on the hard floor, not even slightly cracked.

In a rage, Agatha grabs both slippers and flings them into the burning fireplace. “Your mother is dead, and she isn’t coming back. Is the crushing of your little fairytale enough punishment?”

Matthew knocks quietly on the doorframe and announces, “Lord Rahk’s servant is here to inspect Lady Katherine.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes when he says the words, and the moment he finishes, he shuffles away. My whole body burns as Mary sweeps in and ushers me upstairs to my room. I think I might prefer Agatha’s rage to what I’m about to experience.

Charity is the one waiting in my room. I blink when I see her, and then a cord of tension inside me dissolves.

“Everything is going to be alright,” she says by way of greeting.

My shoulders drop. Before I can start arguing with Charity that everything will not, in fact, be alright, Mary shuts the door and brings me a robe. Always focused and efficient.

“Turn around, Mrs. Finch. I will help her undress,” Mary orders.

Charity does as requested, and I change into the robe. Once I’m ready, she silently and quickly conducts her inspection of every inch of my body, moving aside the robe as necessary. There is nothing I can do to hide my poorly stitched wound from either her or Mary, and Mary shoots me a look.

“Look what you’ve done to yourself!” that look says.

I dread the moment Charity bids me to lie down—but it never comes. Instead, she finishes quickly and gives me a pitying smile. It is the sort of smile that I would normally despise, but today I want to be pitied.

“Please,” I plead, keeping my voice no louder than a whisper, “you must ask Lord Rahk to hire Mary. My stepmother has threatened to punish her on my behalf, and I—”

Charity nods once. “I understand. I will tell him. Tomorrow morning, at dawn, I shall be back.”

She leaves me alone with Mary.

“Oh, my little sister,” Mary whispers, and then wraps me up in her tight embrace. I sob into her shoulder.

“This is so much worse than I could have imagined. I’ve failed at staying single until my twenty-first birthday. Lord Rahk will have all my fortune.”

She gives a choked laugh. “That is your first concern? Not marrying a fae? A fae with a death wish for you?”

My nose is sniffly, my cheeks wet. “Oh Mary, what am I to do?”

“I don’t know.” She combs her fingers through my short hair. “I don’t know.”

My wedding day dawns with heavy rainclouds that threaten a thunderstorm. I did not sleep a single wink—and that wasn’t even due to my tumultuous mind. Agatha ordered me to a different room without a window and locked the door so I wouldn’t escape during the night. I spend hours staring at the dark outline of that lock, wishing I’d learned how to pick it. Faerieland locks doors with spells, and human blood is an easy bypass. I haven’t had to learn to properly lock pick. It sure would have come in handy tonight though.

Charity returns. I bristle slightly, drawing my robe tighter around myself when she enters. But the cook only lifts one hand. “I don’t need to check you again. If no one has touched you since yesterday.”

I shake my head numbly.

Instead, she aids Mary’s effort to dress me in one of my nicest gowns. I am to commit the heinous social crime of re-wearing a gown, made even more odious by the fact that the event is my wedding.

“Word of your sudden nuptials have reached the queen,” Agatha says briskly, sweeping into the room as thunder rattles the walls. She holds up a piece of paper. “She has ordered that the wedding take place at the palace.”

“At the palace?” I blurt, just as Mary cinches my stays. “Wh— why ?”

“Who understands the whim of a queen?” Agatha asks, throwing up her hands. “She favors you, certainly, but she does not trust or like that fae.”

Maybe the queen doesn’t believe the rumor that I would marry a fae unless she sees it unfold before her. I don’t believe it myself.

So now the small, intimate ceremony Agatha had arranged at the cathedral will no longer happen. It’ll be an event at the palace. I would normally care. I’d probably throw a fit about it.

At this point, however, what is the use of fighting it all? I have fought hard to stop this from happening, and yet here we are. Maybe my wedding is a prophecy that I’ve fulfilled in my attempts to avoid it.

I’m just not marrying Lord Boreham.

I’m marrying Prince Rahk of the Nothril Court—the prince and fae warrior sent to kill me.

Why did he agree to marry me? He certainly doesn’t want to. Our unusual friendship will be gone, replaced by something neither of us desired.

The thought of marrying someone who does not want me makes me sick.

The gown is heavy and very, very wide . Are gowns always this heavy and wide? It’s been so long since I’ve had to remember the size of my skirts before I go through a door. While I prefer the familiarity of stays over the rib-digging discomfort of the chest binding, the rest of the ensemble is vastly less preferred to trousers and collared tunic.

“This is my nightmare,” Mary grumbles, fussing with my hair. “Having to arrange someone’s hair for their wedding when it’s been recently chopped against the scalp!”

I wave my hand. “Just leave it. No one cares.”

She shoots me a look of such venom, it actually makes me crack a smile. “And what are these scars on your forehead? You know what—I don’t want to know!”

I shake my head. “No, you don’t.”

Once I’m ready and we are unexpectedly alone, Mary says, “By the way, I have a wedding present for you. It’s from the staff.”

That perks my interest at once.

Mary holds up her palm to stay my hope. “It’s not Bartholomew.”

I shrug, trying not to give away the pang in my chest. Mary produces a parcel wrapped in unassuming brown paper. She places it in my lap. Curious, I open it quickly.

My mouth drops open.

Inside the box, carefully protected by cloth and paper, are a pair of soot-darkened glass slippers. My mother’s slippers!

“We managed to rescue them when her ladyship was occupied,” Mary says, smiling. “It was quite the feat to convince her they’d melted in the fire. Charles went all the way to the glassblower with a pair of glass vases to have melted versions made that we returned to the fire.”

A laugh bubbles free of my lips. “You were betting a lot on my stepfamily knowing nothing about glass!”

“They are wise in other ways,” says Mary with a wink. “They don’t look pretty as they are now, but between your fortune and that fae’s, they shouldn’t take much to restore.”

“You are so good to me!” I cry, flinging my arms around her neck.

She pats my back affectionately. “Aren’t I? I’ll give them to Charity to take to Lord Rahk’s estate.”

When I’m finally ready, my dress feels even heavier and more claustrophobic when the footmen hand me into the carriage. I considered making a mad bolt for freedom when I stepped outside, but I cannot get far in this dress. Agatha sits across from me in the carriage, silent and statuesque.

I curse the queen the entire ride to the palace gates. Why must this be at the palace? If I must marry in disgrace, why must I do it in front of my sovereign and probably the entire gentry of Harbright?

There is a chapel inside the palace. A unit of guards meet us at the palace entrance and escort us there. Bridget is already seated inside, and apparently Edith is to play the organ as I walk down the aisle. Agatha shows not a stitch of emotion on her face as we come to the arched doors.

It’s happening so fast. I have no means of processing it all. It’s like I’m a ghost trapped in someone else’s body, watching through her eyes as the doors swing open into a thunder of sustained organ chords. Agatha steps backward, leaving my side. I never thought I would miss her absence, but I miss it now as my feet root to the spot before the full pews lining the chapel on either side. I cast a helpless glance at her. Her mouth is drawn in a thin line as she jerks her head, motioning for me to move.

I am supposed to walk down the aisle by myself?

The organ drones loudly, filling my entire skull, as I face the chapel.

The first thing I see is Rahk. He stands at the end of the aisle, beside the priest. His back is straight, his form tall. His hands are clasped behind him, his jaw set forward. He wears a formal doublet with creamy lace at the throat, dark breeches, and tall boots. His long hair is half pulled back the way I did it just yesterday, revealing his long, pointed ears. Despite the human fashion of his clothes, he has an otherworldly beauty that I usually try to ignore. I cannot ignore it now. He takes my breath away.

I barely remember to move my feet forward.

I’m marrying Rahk.

The sentence doesn’t even make proper sense in my mind. There is no space for fear or gladness. Only a dull sense of disbelief dictates my feelings.

It is heightened by the fact that he isn’t looking at me. His gaze, which sweeps over me in a split second as the doors open, fixes just above the fake bun and pearls Mary worked into my hair.

I feel like a mouse in a roomful of predators. The silent onlookers who ask a hundred questions with their disapproving gazes. The queen, who sits to the right in an elevated throne, is a vision of regal beauty. The sting of Agatha’s attention burning at my back. Rahk suddenly becomes the only comfort in the entire room. I silently beg him to look at me, to communicate even the tiniest shade of emotion or thought. Instead, he stands like a veritable pillar of night lit by the moon-white of his hair.

I used to be able to read him. I used to make him laugh. We used to be . . . friends.

Now he won’t even acknowledge my presence.

When I reach the front, Rahk steps down to me and without looking, offers his hand. I take it, and he draws me up the steps to the priest.

I don’t hear a word of the ceremony. It passes in agonizing slowness, and yet I wish it would slow down even more. Maybe if the priest talks for forever, he will never get to the part where he says—

“You are now man—er, fae—and wife,” stumbles the priest. “Lord Rahk, you may kiss your bride.”

I forgot about the kiss. How did I forget about the kiss?

He isn’t going to kiss me. I look up at him, at the attention he fixes squares on my forehead, and I do not believe for one moment that he will kiss me. What are we to do, then? Stand here awkwardly until the priest says we can leave without kissing?

Nothing will announce more clearly to everyone present that Rahk has no regard for me.

I usually do not care about creating spectacles. I’ve been rude at balls often—though always in retribution—but this humiliation burns sharper than anything I’ve ever felt before. Rahk doesn’t want me, and he will reveal that fact to everyone.

He startles me when he steps close to me. I swallow a gasp. His eyes finally, unexpectedly, meet mine. I drown in those black depths. He catches the bottom of my jaw with his right hand and prompts me to tilt my chin.

Wait—surely, he isn’t—he won’t—

He ducks his head toward mine.

“Rahk,” I whisper.

He holds my gaze, and then his eyes close. Mine flutter shut in reply. My heart flies away from my chest. I wait for his lips to land on mine.

They never do.

His breath touches my mouth, his hand on the side of my face, but he does not kiss me. I open my eyes to find his still closed, a slight gather between his brows.

He’s using his glamour to create the illusion of a kiss.

He senses my movement and pulls back. I stare up at him, blinking. Our eyes lock for just one moment. Then his return to my forehead and I am left to think bitterly: I knew he wasn’t going to kiss me.

But at least he didn’t publicly disgrace me.

The chapel is quieter than a graveyard. My feet lock in place. I cast around, searching for some indication of what comes next. The many seated people give none, and neither does Rahk or the priest.

It is the queen, finally, who relieves my misery.

She rises from her throne and claps her hands once. “The celebration will continue in the feasting hall with drink and dance.”

There is a celebration after? Why? We were supposed to leave and immediately return to Rahk’s estate. I could groan, my misery renewed. The last thing I want to do is paste a smile on my face for the next many hours and dance on my bad leg.

Rahk bows to the queen. “You are far too generous.”

She lifts her chin in reply, but there is something sparking in her expression as she glances between the two of us. Curiosity.

I’m supposed to act like I’m in love with Rahk, aren’t I?

Maybe I will take one of his moves and, instead of looking at his face, fix my gaze just between his eyebrows. Somehow, that makes it easier to force my own smile. I slip my arm in Rahk’s, and the pipe organ resumes as we retrace our steps down the aisle.

We make it out of the chapel. Several armed guards take up places surrounding us. There are more now than when they escorted me through the palace. Rahk watches them with an unreadable expression. They, in turn, watch him back.

And I’m caught in the middle of it all.

I want to say something. I want Rahk to look down at me, wink, and whisper, “Isn’t all of this ridiculous?” I want this to be a shared joke between us. Maybe then I could make sense of it. Maybe then I would be comforted that, if nothing else, I married a friend and ally.

Instead, it feels as though I have wed a stranger.

Somehow, when we arrive in the banquet hall, cleared of tables to leave room for dancing, the queen is already there. She sits on another throne, on a dais. There is no sign of her son.

“Lord Rahk,” she says, her clear voice carrying across the space, mingling with the sounds of the stringed quartet tuning their instruments. “You have won the favor of the illustrious Lady Vandermore, it seems.”

Rahk releases me and bows low while I curtsy deeply. “Lady Vandermore is gracious to offer it.”

This is the part where I do not behave like a trapped bride. I swallow, trying to find my tongue, willing it to work properly. I struggle to find something to say and then decide on the most honest thing I can offer. “He has been kind to me, Your Majesty.”

Queen Vivienne regards me shrewdly. “What is the reason behind the sudden marriage?”

Rahk, being a fae, cannot lie. That leaves the job up to me.

“We have been secretly engaged, Majesty,” I say, “but there have been . . . complications with the matter of my fortune. You know that I have been the object of unwanted advances because of it. It reached a point where I needed to be wed for my own protection. Lord Rahk was generous enough to move the wedding sooner.”

“Your protection?” repeats the queen, lifting one elegant eyebrow. “Which suitors drove you to the point of needing protection ?”

I give a nervous chuckle. “There has not been a singular person, but rather the many.”

That one eyebrow does not relax. People stream through the open doors, however, and the quartet begins a lilting rhythm. Rahk takes my arm lightly and leads me to the dance floor, away from the queen’s interrogation.

She watches us as our hands clasp, as though to read the things we aren’t saying in the press of our palms and the way he slides his fingers beneath my shoulder blade. She must think ours a marriage of convenience rather than a love match, and I suppose that is the case.

The dance begins. It is a waltz. This is a ridiculous parody of our dance practice in his study only two days ago. I do not purposefully mess things up this time, but dance proficiently. Rahk himself, to my surprise, has notable improvement. Did he fake his own uncertainty?

Well, he knew I was a woman. His little comments return to me in a new light.

“You make such an excellent womanly partner.”

“The number of strong opinions you hold as a twelve-year-old continues to amaze me.”

He has known this entire time .

We sweep across the polished floor, moving in time to the music. To anyone watching, it appears as though we stare into each other’s eyes. I try to read the inch of space between his eyebrows to even a sliver of emotion, but I could be staring at a sculpted stone for all the life in his expression.

We are surrounded by curious members of the court. The atmosphere has shifted from silent to musing, pleasantries and quiet talk being exchanged around us. I wish everyone was gone. I wish we didn’t have to be here at all.

I cannot bear the silence any longer. “Lord Rahk—”

“Please be silent, Lady Vandermore. We will speak later.”

I’m Lady Vandermore now? I clamp my jaw shut and grind my teeth, but don’t reply. He spins me. Our eyes meet briefly, but his flee as he pulls me close again. He physically holds me further away than he ever did when we danced in his study.

After several dances, Rahk abruptly comes to a stop. “This is enough. We are leaving.”

And leave, at last, we do.