“I know I will,” she said cheerfully. “I always did like rain.”
It was a testament to the king’s fondness (a dubious honour), that I was not kept waiting the requisite two hours for the privilege of seeing him. When I entered the receiving room, he was wandering from painting to painting looking vaguely disturbed; but when he saw me he sat down on a plump green settee and patted the seat beside him.
I gave him the requisite curtsey, which he waved away, and settled myself gracefully beside him.
“Good afternoon, your majesty. Lovely day!”
“It is, isn’t it?” said the king, narrowing his eyes just a little. “And the weather is fine, the roads are clear, the merger proceeding exactly as planned. Now that we have the humdrum out of the way, suppose you tell me what you and the Earl of Horn found to talk about?”
“Really, you’re as bad as Lord Pecus!” I complained. “How ever did you find out about that!”
“I have spies everywhere,” he said satirically, but I thought rather ruefully that it wasn’t far from the truth. “I heard there was a meeting scheduled, and knowing you as I do, I was certain that it would occur.”
“It did,” I said pleasantly, giving in to the inevitable. I had meant to broach the subject in any case: the Earl’s testimony and evidence would still be very useful in legally clearing my father of any involvement in the murders, despite the fact that Lord Topher had been caught in the act. Besides, I had given my word that I would speak on the earl’s behalf, after all.
“The earl has evidence to offer in the case against my father: evidence that will clear him finally of all charges. In return, he wished me-”
“To speak for him,” nodded the king. “I expected nothing less of him. What terms did he offer?”
“An immediate cessation of all action that could be construed as treason to crown and country, as well as the relinquishment of his seat in parliament.”
The king smiled sourly. “Which is his by birthright in any case.”
“Exactly so. I did warn him that the fact would not escape your notice. He indicated that he would take his chances. If it makes a difference, I believe he’ll be as good as his word: he does seem to care very greatly for his wife and daughter, and his concern is all for them. I believe he wants the position more for their sake than his own.”
“Well, well.” The king leaned back, meditatively tapping his fingers on his rounded stomach with the air of a well fed cat. “After all, he can’t cause any more trouble; and he’s my most amusing chess partner. I think a royal pardon could be arranged. There is an old saying, Lady Farrah: ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’. I like to have mine where I can keep an eye on them. Moreover, it seems wise to root out the rest of Charles Black before they have the sense to know that it’s all over. Can you get a message to the Earl?”
I allowed myself a small smile. “Of course.”
“Do so. I’d like him back under my eye as soon as possible. Now then, I hear that I’m to welcome you as a permanent citizen, Lady Farrah?”
“As I said to Susan earlier, it’s a work in progress.”
“Ah yes,” remarked his majesty suavely. “These love curses can be a trial, can’t they? I do sympathise most heartily, I assure you.”
“Yes, so does everyone,” I said. “Most often with a smirk. I have the distinct feeling that they all think it couldn’t have happened to a better person.”
“However,” pursued the king, again regarding one of the portraits with distinct disfavour; “I have to admit to a certain satisfaction in the situation. I may have a job pitched to exactly suit your particular talents, Lady Farrah.”
I bit my tongue on a satirical ‘Of course you do!’ and likewise resisted asking him just how long the idea had been under his consideration, the answering of which question might have left me considerably startled.
Instead, I merely asked: “Indeed? I would say that I’m flattered, but the truth is that I find myself more apprehensive than flattered.”
“Odd. People always seem to like the little jobs I find for them. I was having a chat with Melchior the other day, and he mentioned that we might have a similar problem with informational leaks that seem to be making their way to the Triumvirate.”
I restrained myself from nodding knowledgeably and uttering the magic words ‘Black Velvet’, since the king was one of the few people who would take me up on the comment and I knew very little besides the name.
“I know that some rather sensitive information from certain sensitive groups has been finding its way to Lacuna in particular, and that Melchior is worried about the rest of the Triumvirate as well. What exactly is it that you want me to do?”
“Investigate. Make a nuisance of yourself,” suggested the King. “Poke a few bears, as it were. I know you have your ways: particularly effective ones, if I may say so.”
“Alexander is not going to like this,” I said thoughtfully.
“That’s one of the perks of ruling a country, Lady Farrah,” said the king, his voice growing a little distant. Oh dear, he had gone head-masterly. “I’m at leisure to command my subjects without unduly concerning myself with their feelings upon the matter.”
“Perhaps so,” I replied, adding a touch of chill to my own voice to dispel the feeling that I was treading on slightly shaky ground; “But as it happens, I am not currently one of your subjects, and may in fact never be so.”
To my surprise, he chuckled. It was a fat, rich sound; and one which, to the best of my knowledge, I had not before heard from the king. How worrisome!
“Very well, Lady Farrah,” he said, but I was under no illusions that the matter had been closed. With all the affability in the world, he added: “We will discuss the matter again if and when you become a naturalized citizen. Until then your sister Susan, a young lady of great enterprise, is making a few discreet inquiries. Do give her my best wishes, won’t you?”
He rose as he spoke, and taking the words as a dismissal, I curtseyed myself out. I found myself somewhat amusedly wry. He was threatening to use Susan if I didn’t capitulate!
Well, the idea was after all, an attractive one: espionage at such a high level was bound to be an exciting, if dangerous, past-time. Alexander would not like it, but as the king pointed out, it was not necessary for his subjects to approve of all his actions.
I was still smiling when I rejoined Susan in the foyer.
She raised one brow and said: “He has that effect on me, too. Conscripted you, has he? Something juicy, I hope?”
“The juiciest I could hope for,” I nodded, and signalled to the footman to have the curricle brought around. “Contingent upon my being a citizen, of course.”
“Which we’re working on,” said Susan serenely. “Well, I’m glad to hear that you won’t be bored, Belle. The Beast Lord is all very well, but you don’t want to have a dull marriage, do you?”
“If I did, I’m afraid I’m destined to disappointment. Oh well, as the old Trenthams adage says, ‘Don’t put on your boots if you’re not expecting to step in the manure’.”
“I thought it was ‘Always be prepared’,” Susan said, grinning.
“Officially, perhaps,” I allowed. “Annabel and I found it to be somewhat lacking, however, so we changed it. I asked one of the mucky little brats what the motto was just last year, and she grinned at me with her two front teeth missing, and recited it with great glee.”
“It’s nice to see that your corrupting influence hasn’t waned with the years,” she remarked. “Oh, here’s the curricle. Where to, Belle?”
I found myself at a loss.
“How vexatious! I’ve no idea! How very dull it is to be an ordinary citizen!”
“You’d better tell the king you’ll do it, then,” advised Susan, pausing to allow me to arrange myself comfortably before she let the horse have its head. Fortunately, having its head in this case meant a gentle plod, no doubt with the soft, glowing thought of dinner warming its equine
mind.
“Perhaps I shall,” I said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I shall.”
A strange horse was being led to the stables when we trotted around the turning circle before the front entrance.
Susan cocked an eyebrow at me and said: “It’s not horselord: too big. I think your Beast Lord might have come to see you, Belle.”
I felt an odd little tickle of apprehension mixed with excitement and tried to quell it. After all, I was no longer a schoolgirl.
“Yes, I think perhaps he might have done so. Good heavens, is that Emmett, skulking in the archway? You have told him that he’s not required for guard duty any longer, haven’t you?”
“Well, I got sort of used to having him around,” explained Susan. “Besides, we’re all going to be spending a lot of time together in the near future, so what’s a few more days?”
“Possibly a question best put to Emmett,” I told her dryly, climbing down with great care. If it was Lord Pecus that had come to call, I would prefer not to be smudged during the interview.
It might in fact be possible to quickly slip upstairs and change my dress, I thought, weighing the opposing merits of expediency and neatness. Unfortunately the matter was decided for me. The footman informed me, in a louder than necessary tone, that Lord Pecus awaited me in the Blue Room; whereupon, no doubt hearing the announcement, Lord Pecus himself opened the door to the Blue Room and saw me.
“Oh, there you are,” he said, for all the world as if I had kept him waiting an excessive amount of time.
I couldn’t help smiling despite myself: it was surprisingly good to see him again. I would have refused to admit it even to Susan, but this last week I had felt as though I was walking through a world that had a huge, broad-shouldered hole in it.
I nodded to him. “Alexander. How nice of you to call on me at last!”
The porcelain lips of his mask twisted a little, and I found myself wondering if the mask was his remembrance of his own face. It was nothing like his real one.
“I suppose it’s impossible to discuss this inside the room?”
I sailed past him with my nose in the air. “Certainly we can discuss it in the room. I was merely surprised. I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
I heard the door shut behind me, and found myself picked up – actually picked up! – and hugged to a huge, pleasantly warm body.
“No, you didn’t,” Alexander said, and put me down again gently. “You can’t have. No woman could think a man who proposes to her three times has forgotten her.”
He crossed to the fireplace (purely a stalling tactic, since it was not lit) and leant one arm along it, propping one boot against the grate and observing the tip of it. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was bashful.
But I did know better, so I fixed him with a wrathful look, and said grimly: “Alexander, if you do not propose to me soon, I shall break down and cry!”
“Very well,” Lord Pecus said, looking up from the boot with a gleam to his eye: “But I’ll have it known that you entrapped me. Well?”
I looked up at him innocently, getting my own back. “Well, what?”
This time it was Lord Pecus’ voice that was grim. “I want an answer, Isabella.”
“But you haven’t asked me a question!” I protested, unable to prevent my lips from curling at the corners. Lord Pecus correctly took this as encouragement and abandoned the fireplace altogether to draw me to a sofa big enough to hold the both of us.
“Very well,” I said, with a fair attempt at sternness. “I will marry you. However, the mask must come off.”
Perhaps he was growing used to my odd demands, or perhaps he simply trusted me – a pleasant thought – for he removed it without question.
I studied his face carefully until I could see it again: the clear outlines of his human face, growing firmer and more certain while his beast-face grew shadowy.
“Oh, there you are!” I said, smiling tenderly at him. “Do please sit still, Alexander.”
I slipped my hands around his face, feeling warm human ears with the tips of my fingers instead of fur, and he must have been able to tell the difference, because he looked startled.
I drew his face closer in order to kiss him, and he resisted instinctively.
“Isabella-”
I ignored the protest, rising to my knees upon the couch to follow him, and slipped past the beast-face, now only a shadowy cobweb to be torn away.
“I’ve always been partial to dimples,” I said, tracing the line in his cheek with my thumb: and kissed him.
Alexander has never been slow to catch on. Some time later, I found myself, in the most elegant way imaginable, no longer kneeling on the couch but sitting on Alexander’s lap. Since this seemed indecorous to say the least, I attempted to put some distance between myself and him, and succeeded only in wriggling back onto the couch before Alexander’s firm arm prevented me from going any further.
“Oh, no you don’t!” he said. “I’ve spent far too much time wanting to kiss you to let you get away now. Besides, I want to know how you broke the curse.”
“It was the easiest thing imaginable! Love curses are all alike, after all: the catch, the kiss, and so on. The catch was obviously that someone had to love you, beast face and all. Once I knew that, it was evident that I couldn’t agree to marry you while I was under your roof, since that would technically be considered force. Love curses are always about free will and love winning out over ridiculous odds: quite honestly, it’s embarrassing.”
Lord Pecus’ eyes held a mixture of wonder and tenderness.
“This affair has taken too much time from us,” he said. “We’ll be married tomorrow, Isabella.”
“We will do nothing of the sort!” I said, as firmly.
We were still engaged in debating the point when Melchior sauntered in.
“What a pity!” he said affably, grinning. “I’ve missed the juicy part! Oh well, Annabel will be happy: she’s been pumping me for information every time we commlink. When’s the wedding?”
“Tomorrow,” said Lord Pecus.
“Sorry, not possible,” Melchior said. “Annabel would kill me, and she’s significantly more frightening than you are.”
Since Alexander seemed inclined to debate the point with him, it was perhaps as well that we were at that point summoned for dinner by a polite footman who showed no signs of leaving until orders had been complied with. Dinner, in Delysia’s opinion, was the bedrock upon which a household fell or stood, and since it seemed doubtful that even my engagement to the mysterious Lord Pecus would qualify as an excuse, we found it wise to comply with a good grace.
*
Among many miscellaneous things that one feels bound to mention is the fact that the Book of Interesting Excerpts has disappeared. I’ve lost count of how many tricks this makes, and since I’m tolerably certain that the circular bookshop will have likewise disappeared, I haven’t tried to get it back. No doubt someone will find it again when it’s needed.
I find that married life quite suits me. After all, it’s nice waking up in the morning to find yourself snuggled in a warm embrace that tends to become somewhat more than warm when the provider of it wakes up to discover himself similarly pleased with his armful.
Alexander is resigned to my role as the king’s chief pot-stirrer; but could not by any means be said to be happy with it, which tends to lead to some rather heated arguments. By and large I find that we agree very well indeed. So well, in fact, that our first child will be due in six months: a boy to begin with, or so Alexander tells me.
Perhaps I shall call him Raoul.
Finis
Wolfskin
W.R. Gingell
‘If you want adventure, you have to march right up to it and kick it in the shins . . .’
At fourteen, barefoot and running wild, Rose is delighted to be apprenticed to Akiva, the witch of the forest. She thinks it will be all enchantment and excitement, and not so much fuss about baths. The r
eality is much more sober and practical- that is, until she meets a mysterious wolf in the forest and is tricked into stepping off the path . . .
In young, naive Rose, Bastian sees a way of escape. Cursed to remain in the shape of a wolf after running afoul of a powerful enchantress, he has lived many decades under a spell, and now he is both desperate and ruthless. But by breaking part of Bastian’s curse, Rose has caught the attention of Cassandra, the enchantress who cursed him: and Cassandra is by no means ready to forgive and forget.
Meanwhile, wardens have been disappearing from the forest, one by one. Rose is certain that Cassandra is behind the disappearances, but can she and Bastian get to the bottom of the matter before Akiva disappears as well? And are Bastian’s motives entirely to be trusted?
Sometimes the little girl in the red hood doesn’t get eaten, and sometimes the wolf isn’t the most frightening thing in the forest.
Wolfskin will be available May 1st, 2015.
Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence) Page 34
