“That is terrible,” I say, though the words don’t seem to be enough.
“It’s just a story,” says Cove. “But yes, heartbreaking.”
I touch her cold, solid fingers. “Why did they hide her down here?”
“King Leontes said it was too painful to see her all the time. Of course, this is all legend. For all we know, she could be someone’s lover or an object of imagination.”
If King Leontes was that pained to see the statue, then the story is real. It must be.
I give a small smile and stroke her gray, frozen arm. “I work and shape metals to be something they aren’t. The heat and force coerces them. Imagine chiseling and shaping something like this with small tools.”
“Both are equally perplexing skills,” says Cove.
“If I could learn to do it, anyone can.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.” Coves saunters toward me. He examines the statue, occasionally sliding his gaze to me and back to her again.
I lower my hand and give him my attention. “What question?”
He raises an eyebrow, and I laugh.
“About colors? What a silly thing to think about right now!”
Cove moves closer this time, so close I catch his breath and the glint in his eyes when he tilts in. “What else should I be thinking about right now?”
I stand there, trapped in his gaze. My heart climbs to my throat. I should be proper, retreat and say something about respectability. Instead, I face him, feeling his chest rising against mine.
Cove lifts his fingers and—hesitating for the briefest moment—touches my cheek. “I’m glad you came, Perdita.”
I can scarcely breathe. All my thoughts center on him, his smell, on the tips of his fingers, the charge they hold.
I long to return the touch, to discover him in some new way. Curse the wretched calluses on my own fingertips. Thoughts muddle into a pile, growing deeper and deeper as I get lost in him, in the line of his cheeks and the shape of his mouth.
“So am I,” I eventually say.
* * *
My eyes refuse to close that night. I lie in bed and stare at the thatch, imagining the sky beyond it, remembering Cove and our silent but exhilarating ride home. The way he’d kissed my hand once more and let his lips linger against my skin…
It could happen. We are old enough to marry, a future could be possible. I scarcely want to imagine it, but the thoughts crash in anyway. Cove and me, wedding beneath the same stars winking through my window. Starting a new life together, a family.
I slam my lids shut. Foolish. I barely know him. Yet how many others marry through an arrangement, with no acquaintance at all?
Warmth brews in my chest, feeding these feelings until I finally drift off to sleep with thoughts of Cove skimming the edges of my mind.
* * *
The next morning I assess my closet, wishing for the first time I had more pretty things to wear. I settle for a pink dress cinched at the waist. Argento rose early and is up the mountain, tending his sheep. I scribble him a note and leave it on the counter beside the clay flower that’d been found in my basket so long ago and now serves as a decoration.
The barn stares at me, reminding me I have Christabel’s order to finish, but I quickly saddle Ivory and ride down the mountain instead of stoking the forge.
The outskirts of town come quicker than I remember. I guide Ivory past shops, past the inn, past several of the residencies and farms, until I come to Signet Manor, property owned by Leontes, the king of Sicilia, and utilized by his men whenever they have business here in Bohemia.
“I must be crazy,” I mutter to myself, handing Ivory off to a manservant who directs me toward a wrought iron archway surrounded by trees and dripping foliage.
“He’s that way, miss.”
“Thank you,” I say, adjusting my skirts. I wish I had a mirror. Or a tonic that could slow my heart.
Gearing myself, I step onto the cobblestone. I don’t get far before I nearly collide with Cove. My senses skitter the moment I see him; my nerves ignite in little outbursts all through my body. I place a hand over my heart in attempt to slow it.
“Perdita,” he says in surprise, buttoning his jacket as though he’d dressed in a hurry. “I was just coming to see you.”
“You were?”
“What are you doing here?” he asks, all smiles and dancing eyes. He takes in my appearance, and his gaze is so approving my cheeks burn.
I glance around at the elegant courtyard, the vines climbing along columns decorating the entrance to his temporary home.
“I—I came to…” To see you.
I can’t get him out of my mind. Not him, not the statue. Riding with him beneath the stars, holding him close to me, it was the ultimate delirium. I want to make sure it was real. Doubt creeps in, seeing the grandeur surrounding him, seeing the elegance he’s used to. What am I doing here?
“…to thank you. For showing me the statue.”
He continues that silly smirk. “You did thank me. Last night. When I took you there.”
Shame boils hot and fast in my chest, building up behind my ears. I should never have come.
“Well, then. I said it once more. Farewell.” I turn heel and head straight for the stables. I should never have presumed I could simply visit him like this. Like he’s just anyone.
Cove laughs and tags behind, gravel crunching beneath his feet. “Perdita, come back.”
I pause, one hand on my stomach. After a few shallow breaths I peek at him.
“Sunlight looks well on you,” he goes on. “I’ve only seen you by moonlight and lamplight. Please, won’t you come in?”
I glance once more up at his grandiose dwelling, at its towering facets and decadent windows. “Are you sure? I should probably—Argento might need some—”
Cove takes my hand, and I inhale. The touch courses straight through me, rooting me to the spot.
“I’d like nothing more,” he says. He turns my hand over and traces along each callus with a gentle fingertip.
My mouth goes dry. I can barely speak. “I know—they’re rough.”
“They’re you,” he says, trailing a finger up from my palm to the tips of mine. Then slowly, he twines his hand with mine.
“So—” I begin, but I don’t get farther than that. My breath hasn’t caught up yet and my voice is embarrassingly weak.
Cove doesn’t miss a thing. His face is smug. In fact, he’s just plain gloating at the effect he has on me.
“Come. I’ve seen what you do all day,” he says. “Would you care to see what I do here?”
I clear my throat, willing sense to judder back into my brain. Wake up, idiot! “I’d love to.”
We enter through an elegant hallway bedecked with red carpets and painted tapestries. I do nothing but stare. I make deliveries to places like this. I never get invited to them.
Cove keeps my arm in his and leads me to a room in the back. A single desk sits in the room’s center atop a gold-trimmed rug. A large portrait depicting the countryside hangs over the fireplace between the two largest windows.
“It’s dreadfully boring,” he says, guiding me to the desk, covered in papers. “I keep track of paperwork while my father is the loyal scaleman to the king. He’s here analyzing the countryside and I’m helping him catalog the citizens, seeing the specifics of each industry and sequencing them. I take the notes and write up the reports that get sent on to King Leontes.”
“You wrote up a report on my uncle’s sheep farm? You’re right,” I say, staring down at his elegant handwriting across an open scroll. “That does sound boring.”
Cove bursts out in laughter. “Nothing as exciting as forging tools and household wares, I suppose?”
“There’s nothing as exciting as working metal with fire to create something entirely new.” Just above the scroll sits a small triangle with two entwined circles imprinted in its center. “What is this?” I ask.
Hands behind his back
, Cove steps forward and removes the small triangle from its place. He offers it to me.
“That is an emblem of Sicilia. See how the rings connect? It represents loyalty. I’ve been meaning to give it to you, actually.”
I trace the emblem’s ridges. “You—you were?”
“You have such a meticulous eye for detail and things carved by hand,” he says, inching closer.
I can’t think—can’t breathe. It’s only Cove and me. The rooms, the maps, the reports, Bohemia—all fade to ghosts.
“The truth is,” he mumbles, “I can’t get you off my mind.”
His bright blue eyes gleam like marbles. As he did the night before, Cove strokes my cheek with electric fingertips. And this time, he leans down to press his lips to mine.
The kiss is soft, enigmatic. It swirls and sways, encompassing me, bringing out parts of me I wasn’t even aware existed. The spaces between my bones, the heat beneath my skin, the bellows urging the fire in my chest higher and higher until I burn just being near him, being touched by him, his mouth, him, him, him…
His lips pull away. His hands trail down, stroking the skin at my arms, exploring their way to the small of my back.
“Perdita,” he whispers. “Isn’t this strange? I hardly know you, but from the minute we met, something in you latched onto me and won’t let me go.”
It’s too fast, too much, my brain tells me. He’s right—we don’t know each other. And yet my heart takes the reins, allowing me to roam at will.
“It’s the same for me,” I tell him, my chest swelling like a cavern flooding from a newly burst dam. I keep my eyes closed, savoring the little surges making their way along my arms, my chest, everywhere his body meets mine.
His mouth finds mine again. I should stop—we should stop. But I’m magnetized by him. Pulling away goes against every unwritten law of nature.
“How can this be happening?” I mumble, gripping his lapels, inhaling the scent of his skin. My dreams have all been of escape. Nowhere was a boy included in that, and yet here I am kissing one I hardly know and not minding in the least.
“What is this?”
Cove whirls around, arms still around me.
“Father. I was just—”
Sir Rutledge’s glare jumps between us. Graying sideburns climb down to his jaw, and an angry glower resides on his brow. The echoes of Cove’s kiss play on my lips. No doubt his father can tell what we were just doing by mere scrutiny.
Rutledge’s boots echo on the tile and he rips his son away from me.
“She is exceptionally skilled, but she is a blacksmith.”
“Father, I—”
“That’s not the life I’ve created for you! Have you forgotten Florizel?”
Among all the conflicting thoughts buzzing in my skull—worries and a protectiveness for Cove, shame at being caught kissing him, delight at having kissed him—one remains forefront. Who is Florizel?
Rutledge smacks Cove hard across the jaw. Cove staggers, but manages to stay on his feet. I grip Cove’s triangular emblem so hard it hurts.
“You’re not to see her again, is that understood?” Rutledge yells, pointing directly at me. “If you want anything from me, you’re not to see her again. Florizel is waiting. Don’t forget that.”
With a final glare at us both, he storms back into the hall, leaving us in blaring silence. Florizel is waiting. Cove nurses his jaw, but I don’t wait. I dash out, hating myself for coming here, for thinking I had any right to be with him.
“Perdita!” Cove calls, but I rush toward the stable and retrieve my horse.
I press Ivory as fast as she’ll run, then cringe when I arrive at the barn and hear hooves not far behind. Cove bridles in Ember and dismounts, making straight for me. His jaw is still red from the slap, and his dark hair is deliciously rumpled.
“Perdita,” he says, breathlessly.
I sniff, squinting into the sun, looking anywhere but at him. “Who is Florizel?”
“My bride,” he says with derision. “I’m to marry her in the spring.”
His bride.
The nearby sheep become the most interesting things in the world. I blink far too many times. “Do you want to marry her?” I finally ask.
He grips me by the shoulders and, though I fight it, forces me to face him. “Would I be here with you if I did?”
I break away. What am I, one last fling before he becomes chained to this mysterious woman? “So you are saying goodbye now. Goodbye to the sheepherder’s ward, the female blacksmith whose hands are too callused to be held by yours.”
In a frantic gesture Cove snatches my hand, clasping it in both of his. When I try to pull free he brings it to his chest. “My father doesn’t own me. He can’t control what I do, Perdita.”
“You’ll lose your inheritance,” I argue.
“Let me lose it. So long as I have you, what does a little money matter?”
“Do you hear yourself? We hardly know each other—we only met a week ago!”
And money matters. He may not understand, but I do. I stare back at my more-than-humble home. At the thatched roof I’ve helped patch, the chicken coop I’ve mucked out and the sheep grazing along the field. He doesn’t understand what this means. Not really.
“It doesn’t matter, Perdy! We’ll run away, live in the old mill. You’ll blacksmith and I’ll learn to thatch roofs and we’ll have babies and live a pleasant, simple life!”
“It could never be that simple.” I remove my hand from his grasp. A rock wedges in my chest. “Maybe we are where we should be. Christabel Attwater has promised me passage with her as soon as I finish her wares. I’ll see England, Cove. I’ll get off this infernal island.”
He steps back. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do. Especially if you are to be married. I mean to be as far from you as I can manage.”
Cove reaches for me, but I tear away from him, lifting my skirts as I run.
“Perdita!” he cries.
But I don’t turn, I don’t respond. I can’t bear for him to see the tears streaming down my cheeks.
* * *
What a fool I was to let myself become so attached in such a short time. Argento warned me about giving my heart away too soon. I’ve seen it in others who ran off in bliss and now are eternally miserable for being too hasty. Where was my head?
To my surprise, Christabel is standing in our humble living quarters. Memories flood in, memories of when Christabel had been my nanny—despite her high station, a fact I’ve often wondered about. Like always, she wears an elegant dress, its green skirts full and sweeping along the floor.
“Where has Argento gone?” I ask, sniffling and hurrying to wipe my cheeks.
She examines something in the palm of her hand. “He will be back soon. He asked me to wait here until Dion comes to tend the sheep for the night.”
Cove’s promises ring through my head, but I scuff a hand across my eyes and force my thoughts away from him. It’s senseless to center on something I can’t have, so I shift to another topic, one brought to mind again at his mention of the old mill.
“Christabel, have you heard of the story of the Queen of Sicilia? What happened to her?”
Christabel gawps at me. “Mercy me, why would you be asking about something like that?”
“You do know. Please tell me.”
Christabel sighs and sinks onto the rusty stool. I wince. Nothing in here is clean enough for her to sit on, but she doesn’t seem to care about sullying her fine skirts.
“King Leontes’ friend had been visiting them for nine months when this friend figured it was time to go home. But by this time, the queen—who was quite pregnant, ready to burst, I expect—begged and begged the friend to stay.”
“And the king didn’t like that?” I surmise.
Christabel rises again. “He grew suspicious when he heard how earnestly she begged the man to stay, and his jealousy got the better of him. Instead of trusting his wife and finding out the truth, he
banished her to prison and tried to kill his friend. The queen had her baby in prison. The friend fled.”
Cove had mentioned a few of these details as well. Talk about overreacting. “And the queen, did she die? What happened to the baby?”
“No one knows, Perdita. She was lost. The king summoned an Oracle to discover the truth, but by the time the soothsayer learned of the queen’s innocence, the poor woman had died.”
The queen died. And in prison, no less.
It was bad enough seeing that statue of her. But hearing the whole story, knowing all the sad details, is too much. No wonder the king couldn’t bear to see the replicated image of her. The memory alone is torturous.
“No one really speaks of it now, you know,” Christabel goes on. “Most people believe it’s only a legend. It’s been seventeen years, after all.”
“What was her name?” I ask quietly, petting Argento’s soft alpaca wall-hanging near the door. “The queen’s?”
Christabel hands me the item in her palm. I recognize the clay flower Argento had found in my basket so long ago and flip it over to find the H carved on the backside. I’ve wondered a thousand times what that H stands for, and I push down the rising suspicion building in my gut.
“The queen’s name was Hermione,” Christabel finally says.
* * *
In the village I slow Ivory to a stop and retrieve the lock and key I’d finally mastered. Lord Barrington had requested it weeks ago—I’m glad to get it off my hands and receive payment. The fences need repairing.
Through the past two weeks I’ve tried ramming down any and all thoughts of Cove—and that statue—but he’s everywhere I turn. In the air, the sky, the trees. Even riding Ivory is painful. I haven’t seen him since the day he kissed me. It’s just a stupid crush, I tell myself. This will pass. He can marry, and I’ll see the world. That’s that.
Several villagers pass and greet me. I nod in response, lugging the heavy lock toward the manor’s front door, when the sound of horse’s hooves approaches.
“Here you are!” says an ardent voice.
Never Be Younger: A YA Anthology Page 13
