“That would be most kind of you. Thank you.”
“Not at all. You will be a most welcome addition to our dinner table.”
“I know it might seem like an odd question, S-Sir Charles—”
“No need for such formality. You may call me Charles. What is your question?”
“Did you say you were the commerce advisor to the Queen of Tangiers? Tangiers, as in Morocco?” Her wide eyes showed her confusion.
He shook his head. “No, I meant Tangere, the Continent. You are in the Southern Kingdom at the moment, and Regine is its queen. You must’ve come a great distance over the sea to never have heard of it.”
“Yes, quite some distance.”
“Although I am quite interested to hear more about this Morocco—”
As he spoke, the sound of female bickering and fussing filtered from above as the other ladies of the house came down the grand staircase. Charles turned with an expression of delight on his kindly face. “Ah, perfect timing. Here is the mistress of my home, my wife, Desdemona. And these are my two lovely stepdaughters, Poutina and Niebleht.”
Leandre covered a snort when Caresse’s eyebrows arched slightly and she blinked. Her thoughts were so clear he could nearly pick up what she was thinking, a sure sign of good things to come. And it was an added bonus that she had a sense of humor.
“Desdemona, Poutina, Niebleht, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” she said, managing a short bowing-bob combination.
Nice touch, funny one.
“Mmm-hmm,” Desdemona hummed in a nasal tone as she and her daughters eyed Caresse’s appearance coolly, from her shoes to her dress and her hair. Then Desdemona’s eyes settled on Leandre. “Ah…I see it’s back.” She wrinkled her nose as though someone had stuck a turd under it. “What a relief.”
Oblivious, Charles only smiled at Leandre and then at Caresse. “Yes, we are so relieved, aren’t we, my dears?”
The stepdaughters cooed in a nasal tone similar to their mother’s. With a half-hearted giggle, Niebleht said, “What a relief it wasn’t eaten by wolves,” before they continued through to the dining room, their noses stuck in the air.
Take a walk around midnight, sweet pea, and maybe you might get eaten by a wolf, although you’d probably be all gristly and tough.
Charles put Leandre down and ushered Caresse through to the dining room, placing her in a seat of honor beside him at his end of the long table. He noted the way Desdemona stared at Caresse from her position nearest the door. Her myopic squint reassured him that, while she might question Caresse’s welcome in her home, she hadn’t recognized Caresse based on any family resemblance.
Leandre trotted under the table, dodging Poutina, Niebleht, and Desdemona’s furtive kicks aimed at him, to hop into Caresse’s lap. He barely heard her slight giggle as she caressed between his ears and settled with him in her lap but out of sight.
He put his head down between his paws and listened to Desdemona’s reaction to the news that Caresse might be looking for employment.
“Hmm, a baker? I don’t know,” Desdemona murmured, and Leandre could imagine her thin lips, pursed together and turned down in judgment, as if she were contemplating what to do with a dead rodent. Maybe some hideous instinct spoke to the harridan, telling her that her just desserts had finally come. “Cook might be able to find something for her to do. Maybe. What about scrubbing floors?”
Over my dead body.
I’ll never be desperate enough to scrub your farging floors, lady.
Caresse’s thoughts were distinct enough to be audible to him, and he licked her finger when she presented him with a tidbit from her plate.
“No scrubbing floors, my love. That’s no way to show our gratitude,” Charles admonished gently. “Baking is an honored profession—if that is what Caresse seeks. For now, she is our honored guest,” Charles reminded them, and Leandre heard the faint rasp of Charles’s hand patting Caresse’s on the tabletop. “George is already arranging a guest room for her.”
“As you wish, my love.” Desdemona’s tone was as cloying as it was snotty.
“My love, now that Leandre has been found, I must leave on a business trip for the queen in the morning. Regine wishes for me to attempt another visit to the Northern Kingdom to re-establish trade and our alliance with them. The last one having not gone as we’d hoped,” he added with a grimace and a tiny shudder. “Make sure to have some warm clothing packed for me. Although surely their winter will have passed by now. It was positively beastly the last several times we’ve tried to maneuver the snow and ice on their mountain passes.”
“Mmmm, I’ll see that you’re packed and the carriage is waiting for you first thing in the morning. I hope this time you make it through, my darling,” Desdemona replied crisply, sounding a little too eager to have her husband away.
If he’d had his opposable thumbs available, he’d have snapped his fingers. He’d planned on Charles being around long enough to get to know Caresse.
Leandre could already guess at what Desdemona had planned once Charles was out of the house. She ruled the mansion with an iron fist.
“And don’t worry about Leandre. I’ll see to it that he doesn’t get away again.”
Caresse’s hands closed gently around Leandre, and she went still. She was able to pick up on Desdemona’s attitude as easily as he could. Desdemona would just as soon tie him in a weighted sack and drown him if she could trouble herself to get away with it.
On their way upstairs, with Leandre still in Caresse’s arms, Charles chuckled and said, “Leandre seems to have taken a fancy to you, my dear. He was much the same way with my wife, Ella.”
“Your late first wife,” Desdemona corrected. “Ella so adored that little mop of fur,” she quipped, using sharp fingers to pat his head just a bit too hard until Caresse eased back a step. “It’s just so wonderful that you found him and returned him home, Caresse. Well, I’ve an early morning, all. Good night.” She lifted her hem and minced up the stairs, followed by her snooty offspring.
Once they were gone from sight, Charles said, “I apologize if she seems a bit aloof, my dear. Keeping my house operating smoothly is a fulltime job for my Desdemona, and I’m sure she’s tired. Her gratitude may have seemed tepid, but I promise you, mine is most sincere. She and the girls are from a distant land, and I’m not sure they’ve ever really settled in well in Plaisir D’Or.”
“Oh, are they new to the area?”
“Oh no, they moved to the Southern Kingdom shortly before my sweet Ella passed. Desdemona and Ella were close friends before her passing. Then I was alone…and Desdemona was a widow. We seemed to suit each other, and her girls helped fill a void, as well, so…”
Charles sighed and, ever the congenial host, showed Caresse to the guest room prepared for her, at least for tonight.
“Good night, my dear. And thank you again. Ella adored this little mite. I’m glad to still have a part of something Ella loved…so much. Since…”
“Since what?” Caresse asked, sympathy in her voice as she rested a hand on his forearm. Charles blinked and looked down at it before shaking his head.
“Nothing my dear. Pleasant dreams, and keep Leandre with you if you like. He’s good company and quite mannerly. And if you are able to find employment with our cook, please know that my gratitude continues.” He closed the door as he left.
“Wow,” Caresse murmured as she gently placed Leandre on the comfy bed. “Wait. Do you have to go potty? Should I take you downstairs?”
He curled up on the comforter and gave her a doggy grin to reassure her. No worries, love. If I need a piss, I’ll see to it. Let’s get you settled.
“Between you and me, Doop-Doop, I don’t trust that squinty-eyed Desdemona or her two minions, Poutine and Niblets, not to tie you in a burlap sack and make you disappear for good. There’s something off about the way she looks at you…and me.”
Leandre agreed with her assessment.
He’d counted on Desde
mona’s poor vision to give him time to help Caresse learn of her true place in Plaisir D’Or and to know Charles better. Either he was denying what he saw when he looked upon Caresse or perhaps his eyesight had dimmed with the passing years, as well. Either way, his trip complicated things a bit.
She sighed and then sat next to him on the bed and stroked his back. “I don’t know what to do. Go out searching for the cave first thing in the morning or try to make do here until I can figure out how I got here—and exactly where here is. In any case, I can’t leave without worrying what will become of you. Niebleht is the spitting image of her mother, all the way down to that mole. What an unfortunate place to have one,” she said, pointing directly between her eyes. “Poutina would be passably pretty if she didn’t frown and stick out her bottom lip so far. They probably don’t have to sweep the floors much around here. Sorry, that’s not very nice.”
Leandre imagined that was nothing compared to the things the two ugly step-sisters were likely saying about her in their suite of rooms.
Caresse picked up the nightdress that had thoughtfully been laid out for her by one of the maids. George would’ve noticed that she didn’t have luggage and must’ve made sure one had been supplied for her, along with the hairbrush and hand mirror on the table nearby. Leandre would make sure that she had proper clothing delivered to her in the morning. For now, he settled back like a good little Doop-Doop to watch, enraptured, as his sweet princess unfastened her laces while humming a soft melody.
Don’t forget to blink.
Chapter Two
Leandre snuggled next to Caresse all night, after watching with great enjoyment as she’d gradually found her way out of the much more complicated fashions of his world. Thankfully the dress had laces on the side rather than in the back.
Her hourglass figure with full hips and breasts tapering into a taut waist was lovelier than he’d imagined. Her nipples tightened in the cool night air as she’d removed the chemise, and his heart had nearly stopped beating altogether when she turned and bent over to pick up the garment and lay it neatly over a nearby chair. The urge to shift to his natural male fae form was overridden only by the certainty that she would indeed have the “mother of all freak-outs,” like she’d mentioned earlier, if she turned and found a naked and very aroused man lying on her bed instead of her harmless and furry guardian.
Dressed in the thin sleeping gown, she’d gotten under the covers, and he’d scooted closer to her, trying to be a gentleman by staying atop the covers. It wasn’t his fault she’d gradually pulled him to her so that he was nestled against her chest.
Talking to him had helped her to wind down. While she stroked his head, she’d told him she was afraid of what was happening. Afraid to stay, yet somehow drawn to this place, in just the same way she’d been drawn to the cave. She hadn’t told her friends, but she hadn’t just been game for camping in Mt. Rainier National Park. She’d wanted to camp at that exact spot. More than a want, it was a need that she felt deep in her heart. And when they’d discovered the cave, even though she might’ve chickened out, the pull to follow the passage had been strong, but she hadn’t understood why.
Not yet, anyway.
She eventually fell asleep with him snuggled close, and he had the pleasure of breathing her scent and sharing the warmth of her lush curves all night. He wished he was in his natural human form many times but knew it was too soon, and his shifted tangere manifestation served him better as he earned her trust.
As her breathing had evened out, his thoughts had strayed to the palace. Now that Caresse had returned, Leandre could finally explain to Sebastien the details of the task Selena had given him.
Selena had been specific that nobody know about Caresse, including her intended. Sebastien was certainly capable of keeping a secret. Sometimes Leandre thought Selena just took delight in calling the shots because everyone knew about her capriciousness. The one thing that had kept him quiet was that if Regine, Sebastien’s mother, found out Caresse was alive, she wouldn’t have been pushing prospective grandbaby-mamas at him…and Desdemona would be suspicious. That they did not need.
Sleep was a long time in coming.
Early the next morning, Charles left to perform his duty for their queen, and as predicted, the mistress of the house was not long in taking action. Leandre knew that if Caresse had still been abed, she would’ve been physically ejected from it in much the same way her few belongings were shifted from the opulent—and much more appropriate—guestroom to the stuffy attic room at the end of the house.
Caresse hadn’t seemed surprised as she held him close and looked about her new environs. Desdemona had snidely informed her that she should “feel free” to take her meals in the kitchen with the rest of the servants from that point forward.
Once alone with him, she’d opened the windows. “I knew it. The air flow is probably better here than any other room of this stuffy house. And the view is probably the best in the village,” she added as she braced her hands on the window frame and leaned forward to peer out, nearly giving him a heart attack. They were on the fourth floor, and the drop would be a deadly one for her. Her breath left her in a soft sigh as she gazed at the palace above the village. Her only comment was a soft whisper. “Fantastical.”
She turned to look at him and said, “Sweetie, I don’t see how I can stay here, but I’m not sure what to do next. What if this is all a hallucination?” She looked out over the vista once more. “Maybe the cave collapsed on me and this is actually…Heaven?” She shook her head, and a slight frown furrowed her brow. “No, if that was the case, I wouldn’t be worried about your safety at the hands of those hose-beasts downstairs.”
She’d giggled on the way down to the kitchen, whispering that it was a darn good thing she’d taken a second part-time job working in a bakery during college to help pay for her tuition, so she at least understood the rudiments. Leandre wasn’t at all surprised that she was a hard worker. He’d left her in the capable hands of Marigold, the cook, and trotted off to see how his cousin fared against his doting mother’s plot to marry him off.
Spiriting away on a breeze in the empty corridor outside the basement pantry, Leandre re-materialized in his true fae form on the balcony of Sebastien’s tower suite. He grinned, wondering what Caresse would think of the view from this majestic height overlooking the city. He shuddered, thinking about her leaning over and looking down. She wasn’t at all afraid of heights, but the dark terrified her.
“Complicated.”
“What’s complicated?” Sebastien asked absently as he stepped out onto the balcony with a scroll in his hands. The wind ruffled his black hair and Leandre noticed the tension in the set of his square jaw. “You’re lucky you came this way instead of from downstairs. My mother would’ve enlisted your help in marrying me off, giving you some task like everyone else.”
Leandre chuckled. “Mountain palace. Heir to the throne. Opulent lifestyle. A kingdom full of women who all want to tear your clothes off, fuck your brains out, and have babies for you. And adore you—don’t forget the adoration. It’s a pathetic life you live.” He offered him a handkerchief, and Sebastien’s reply was a mute, obscene hand gesture. “Speaking of adoration, I have someone I want you to meet who might change your mind about your whole avoid-marriage-at-all-costs mindset.”
“You, too?” Sebastien huffed out a weary sigh as he gestured for him to come inside. “If you’re using words like ‘adoration,’ why don’t you keep her for yourself? You’re certainly of age and still a bachelor. Or is this adoration not reciprocated? If that’s the case, I’d be wondering if Selena cursed you. She has a temper, you know?”
“Yes, I know, but this is someone you’ll want to meet. And Selena loves me because I’m an awesome younger brother who knows not to piss her off, so I’m not worried. I trust Selena’s gift of sight, not because she’s my sister but because her visions always come to pass. She set these wheels in motion, not me. I’m simply the messenger.”
“She’s here for you.”
Sebastien turned bored blue eyes on him. “So are the hundreds of others that are in the audience chamber with their mamas, talking to my mother, trying to connive their way—”
“Into your pants. I know. Such hardship.”
His cousin grinned and then laughed, which had been his goal all along. “You’re a pain in the ass.”
“Fine. Be that way. I’ll bring her with me on the first night. You’ll set eyes on her and know I was right.”
Sebastien locked eyes with him, and the humor left his expression. “None of this is right. I’m a grown man being pushed into an arranged marriage by his mama. And I can’t say no to a royal decree, even if I am the next in line for the crown.”
“You’re just an empty-headed baby-making machine, you mean?”
Sebastien blinked at him and then burst into laughter. “Asshole. Bring her and I’ll prepare to be dazzled.”
“When you meet her, you’ll understand.”
“I’m almost afraid to. And be careful about letting my mother see her.”
“Why?”
Sebastien raised a dark eyebrow at him. “Walk a mile in my shoes, cousin. My mother has been throwing every debutante with a pulse in the kingdom, and several from outside it, at me non-stop for the last six months. All so I can make babies with one of them. The fact that you’re obviously in love with her yourself wouldn’t stop the matchmaking barracuda my mother has become.”
“This isn’t about me, cousin. This is all for you. And don’t forget, I have walked a mile in your shoes and experienced your mother’s tenacity—at least with the debutante flinging. I was the one who handled Niebleht Farkle for you when she was following you around the orange grove last year. Speaking of barracudas, the woman is freakishly strong.”
Midnight of the Fae Page 3
