Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to know what it would feel like to be in his arms instead of the king’s.
I curtseyed. “That was lovely,” I said.
“Thank you, milady. I could see that you enjoyed it. Your dancing was a joy to watch. It’d be my pleasure to ask you for a dance myself.” No one had asked me to dance except the king. I thought it was a rule that they couldn’t.
I looked for the king. He was drinking wine and talking to another young man. He looked at me, and I could tell he wasn’t pleased. I smiled at him faintly, as if to assure him I was doing it just to be polite.
But in fact, I was being very truthful when I said, “It is my honor for you to ask.”
I was surprised, then, when he was a little clumsy taking my hands. It seemed as if he wasn’t used to dancing. But he figured it out quickly enough, and swept me along. It was immediately different from dancing with the king. Strange to say, but it felt more honest somehow. Maybe it was the fact that he didn’t quite know how to do it. Maybe it was the way he looked at me. The king was all charm and refinement. This man had a roughness to him; even the way his hands felt.
“I’ve never seen you here before,” I said.
“No. I don’t usually come,” he said. He paused. “In fact, I had no intention of dancing until I saw you.”
“I’m nothing special,” I said. The king was one thing. The attention of two men at once was embarrassing me.
“That might be true on the face of it,” he said. “You’re just a little thing.”
I frowned. Well, I hadn’t expected him to insult me. Or was he trying to flirt? The king never talked to me except in flattery and promises of what he would give me if I stayed here forever. I didn’t know how to talk to a man at all.
“But the way you dance is unexpectedly charming,” he continued.
“Unexpectedly? What did you expect, if you’ve never met me before?”
“I’ve heard something about your kingdom,” he said.
“What have you heard?” I guessed it wouldn’t be anything good.
“Your mother is as prim and proper as they come,” he said. “And I’ve heard that you are not even allowed to attend balls in your own palace. I heard that all you do is attend church services and perhaps embroider pillows or something like that. I expected you would follow in her footsteps, with such a strict upbringing. But here I find you, dashing around like a leaf tossed on the wind.”
“You sound like you don’t entirely approve.”
“I do approve. I’m just, as I said, surprised. Do your parents know what you get up to?”
“They’re trying to figure it out…but they won’t. They tried to figure it out when my sisters used to come here. The King of the Revels protects me.” I hoped it was true, but in the end, the King of the Revels couldn’t protect me forever—unless I gave up my mask.
“I heard your father is offering your hand in marriage to anyone who figures it out. That doesn’t worry you at all?”
“No,” I said.
“Really? There isn’t some poor sot after you right now?”
His voice didn’t match his refined appearance, I thought. He had the accent of a working class man, not a faery nobleman. Not that I knew much about faeries.
And yet, I liked the sound of it. His voice was low, a little gruff, and strangely intimate in its lack of formality. My mother always urged me to be soft-spoken, if I spoke at all, and to be very polite to everyone. Other women at court followed suit because they wanted her favor. The men did most of the talking, as men do, but they never dropped their manners either.
I never knew what anyone was thinking on the inside. Not now that my sisters were gone.
“There is,” I told him. “I haven’t even laid eyes on him, though. I’m sure he’ll fail like all the rest, and my father will have him whipped, and it will be very miserable. I’ll have to watch.” Mother didn’t like that Father insisted I watch, but he was resolved. Queens ought to be able to stomach such things, he said. He was hoping to provoke me into a confession, most likely.
“Human kings,” the man scoffed. “They don’t really care about anything but themselves.”
I bristled. “What do you know about human kings?”
“I know what I hear, Princess. They send men to war, to lose life and limb, and drag themselves home with nothing to show for it. And what then? The burden and sorrow is thrown onto wives, mothers, and sisters left behind.”
“I’m sure they don’t want to send men to war.”
“Don’t they? You wouldn’t know it.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than you think.” I didn’t like some faery man speaking about my father that way. “I’m sure my father weighs the decision.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure you know any more about it than I do.”
I didn’t like how true that was either. I would have liked to have known more about the workings of the kingdom, seeing that I was to be the queen someday, but women weren’t educated that way in Ondalusia and my mother adhered to that strictly. Women are not the brains of the kingdom, Eva. Women are the hearts. The moral compass. It is not your place to understand war and taxes, but only to make sure your husband’s heart is right with the heavens.
“Never mind all that,” I said. “I thought you liked the way I danced. I didn’t know you had a critique for me.”
“It’s a bad habit of mine.” He glanced around, taking note of how everyone else was dancing, since we had sort of drifted off to the sidelines. Following the lead of the others, he raised one of my hands up over my head and slid his other hand around my waist. We were in procession, both facing the same way, our feet springing one way and then the other.
I sensed his mood lighten with the music. It would have been impossible not to feel lighter, with such a tune and all the other faeries laughing and prancing around us. My skirt fluttered side to side with the motion of my feet and hips, while his hand kept me steady.
It was strange how, even when he wasn’t speaking, and even when his appearance was not so different from the king’s, he felt so very different. I was aware of him in a way I never was with the king.
The king was watching us. When we whirled around past him, his eyes bored into mine and I felt a wash of shame, as if I was an adulteress.
But I had never promised myself to him. Never even chosen him.
My steps faltered a little as we swept by. The faery man sensed my anxiety. “You fear him, don’t you?” He sounded angry.
“Well—“
“He has no claim on you.”
“But he is the King of the Revels… You don’t fear him even a little?”
“No. I’m done with fearing kings.” He folded his arms around me, as if he was showing the king that he had as much right to woo me as anyone there.
A delightful shiver trailed down my body. My skin grew warm as he held me close before he spun me back out to face him.
“I don’t even know your name, sir,” I said, a little flustered by my physical response.
“I’ll give you my name when you give me your mask,” he said. “And you will give me your mask before the night is done, Princess. Because I know what you really want.”
Oh my heavens.
The shudder that went down my body when he said that. When the king said such things, a part of me wanted to draw away from him. When this man said it, it was…pure temptation.
And a part of me hoped he was right.
Chapter Eight
Will
I could tell immediately that I’d read the princess correctly. She was attracted to me—at least, in my perfect faery form—and she didn’t want to go home. She wanted to stay here, her feet caught by the music. Someone had been telling her what to do and think, how to dress and speak, for her entire life. She was comfortable being told what to do, but she wanted someone to tell her to do the things she had never been able to do before.
Still, time was slipping by so quickly. When
I had a moment to check my watch between dances, I saw that the night was already half over.
She wasn’t giving the king any attention any more. He had taken up with another partner, but he kept staring at us. I would have to be careful of him. I knew he must be planning something.
“What are you doing?” Princess Eva peered around my shoulder just as I was putting my watch away. “I thought time didn’t exist in the Revels.”
“It doesn’t,” I said hastily. “But back in my own kingdom, it does.”
“Where is your kingdom?”
“Over the hills.”
“Hmm. That’s vague. I’m half-inclined to think you are a well-dressed vagabond.”
I shrugged with good humor. “You might be right. You might be wrong. With any luck I can bring you home with me eventually. My sister will like you.”
“A sister? Does she live with you?”
“For now.” I nodded. I didn’t mention that Jeannie had lost her husband in the war. I suspected she might remarry if she’d stop worrying over me. I told her not to, but she wouldn’t be stopped.
“I don’t know much about faeries,” she admitted. “Except that they used to steal girls away in Ondalusia. That’s why my mother’s people are so adverse to temptations.”
“It doesn’t seem to have worked, in your case.”
She smiled a little, almost unconsciously, before looking solemn. “That’s why I’m not sure if I should really stay here forever. I wonder sometimes if my mother is right. If I’m making a horrible mistake in giving into my temptations. All my sisters did, but then they got married to proper princes and moved away. If I give away my mask…” She touched the leaves that framed her soulful green eyes.
“Are you asking me for advice?” I asked. “Because I might be biased…”
She blinked up at me. She looked so innocent and confused. “No. I know what you want. I just don’t have anyone to talk to. My sisters would tell me to be sensible, but they were never threatened with a convent.”
“A convent? Who puts a princess in a convent?”
“My mother does.”
“Well, I will tell you one thing, and this is the honest truth.”
“I know,” she said.
“You know?”
“Faeries can’t lie,” she said.
“Yes. Of course.” I suppressed a snort. “I used to do what I was told, right up until I stared death right in the face. That makes everything very clear. Life is too short not to seize a little happiness. Of course, you have to pick your battles, and make them good ones. Do right by your fellow man and all of that. You don’t want to end up on the wrong end of the hangman’s noose. But a princess shouldn’t have to worry about that. And what’s the point of sacrificing yourself to a life of unhappiness?”
She tilted her head a little. “You are a very strange faery.”
“How many faeries do you know?”
“Just you and the king.”
“Then you don’t know which one of us is really the strange faery, do you?”
She smiled a little, shaking her head. The strands of gold in her hair shimmered. “How did you almost die?” she asked.
“In battle. Fighting for the king of my realm.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “That’s why you said all those things about kings and war.”
“I said all those things because I watched my friends die. Slowly and painfully, sometimes…” I didn’t really mean to talk about it again. I shouldn’t have told her that I had come close to death myself. It wasn’t a topic conducive to wooing a girl.
But I did like how her eyes grew uncertain and searching when I spoke of it, as if she was questioning.
“My father says that war brings men glory,” she said.
“And what good is glory when you’re dead?” I snapped the word.
She recoiled. I don’t think she was used to anyone raising their voice at her. “I’m sorry…”
Idiot. I was making a total mess of being a charming prince to her. I suppose that was my problem. I wasn’t good at putting up a false front, pretending everything was all right and fine when it wasn’t. I only knew how to be my own true self.
I knew I was supposed to pretend that war did bring glory. Jeannie even said so, when I first came back. She wanted to pretend, for the sake of her own grief. “Can’t you just…try?” she asked me, when the nightmares were so fresh that I felt as if they were eating my soul alive. “Some of the townsfolk are whispering about you.”
Yes, I was supposed to pretend. That it had all meant something. That I hadn’t seen men suffer and die for no real reason.
Double idiot. You don’t need to charm her. You already have the enchanted leaves to prove where you’ve been, and then she will be yours, one way or the other. You don’t need her mask.
It wasn’t really that I had to win her. I wanted to win her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I don’t really know anything about anything.”
“It’s fine. Some wars must be fought. It’s like any other kind of fight, I suppose. Some fights have a good reason behind them, and some don’t.”
She smiled. “Oh, that I know. I do have eleven older sisters. Plenty of fighting to be had.”
We danced a few more songs, with the king watching us all the while.
“I should dance with him,” she said. “But…” She hesitated. “I must admit, I like dancing with you.”
“I like dancing with you, too, Princess. In fact, I wish I could send everyone else away and have you all to myself.” I was starting to get impatient, knowing time was short. I had to do something to impress her, and fast. How the hell did you win a girl’s heart in six hours? I’m not sure the world’s greatest rake could have done it, and I was the town cobbler, for god’s sake.
“Oh…” She breathed the word. “The king might not like it, but…apparently he can’t do anything about it. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take a walk.”
I sensed that this was a groundbreaking request from a girl of her upbringing, for her to suggest that we go off alone together.
I’ve almost got her, I thought.
Chapter Nine
Evaline
My heart was beating like a messenger’s horse as the mysterious faery man and I walked away from the revels. We didn’t walk down the dark path where I would go if I gave him my mask, but close to the river bank. He entwined my fingers with his. I felt so safe with him. I couldn’t explain it, but even in my bedroom surrounded by my guards, I had never felt as safe as this. Freedom brings its own kind of safety, I thought, with some surprise. I was safe to be myself.
The night air smelled sweet. It was warm tonight. We walked under the moon, with the forest surrounding us. It was almost too dark to see. I should have been afraid of wolves, but I got the feeling that this forest was safe. After all, sometimes I saw other faeries slipping off this way.
The mask felt heavy on my face.
Alexandra told me to never give it away…
I wondered what Alexandra really knew, anyway. She had two babies now, and a husband who bored her.
I stopped walking and looked up at the moon. “I’m scared,” I whispered. “I know I shouldn’t tell you this, but…I really am. I don’t know what to do.”
“Scared of…giving up your mask?”
“Scared of making a choice. I don’t want to disappoint my parents and never see them again. I don’t want to be the girl who everyone whispers about, the girl who ran away with the faeries. But…I have never been so happy as I am right now.”
“Only you can decide what matters,” I said. “But do you think your parents give a damn about disappointing you? They’re willing to hand you off to anyone who figures out where you are tonight.”
“That’s…true. But only because they know no one will figure it out.”
“Still quite a gamble to play with your life, isn’t it?”
“I guess you do know so
mething about that. Like your war. But at the same time, it feels so irresponsible to stay here and run away from the real world.”
He looked a little surprised. “You would make a good queen, I think, if given the chance.”
“Really? Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know anything. That’s the problem. I’ve never had a chance to experience the world and understand wars and…everything else.” I took a deep breath. “I just want to breathe like this forever. I don’t want to go back to corsets and petticoats and…sleeves.”
“That would be a crime, when you have such lovely little arms.” He slid his hands down my bare shoulders, to my hands. His touch was firm enough that his fingers didn’t just brush me, but stroked along my muscles. It felt nice, and it stirred things inside of me.
He leaned close to me. “Maybe you need a touch of experience in ‘everything else’, before you decide,” he said. And then his lips met mine.
My eyes opened with surprise. I didn’t know he was allowed to kiss me. The king said he couldn’t kiss me until I gave away my mask, that his touch would burn me until I committed myself to the revels forever. And yet, here was a warm mouth pressed to mine, tasting sweetly of desire.
I had wanted the king to kiss me, but I wanted this man to kiss me much more. This is what it’s like to fall for someone, I thought. It was more than a pretty face or a dance. It was opening my heart to him, all while I was dreaming of something like this. The push and pull of my mind, my heart, and my yearning body… Here, in this place, he could touch me so easily. He could take me in the grass like a faery girl.
I chased my mother’s scolding voice away before it could interrupt. One kiss! One kiss couldn’t hurt, especially in this land of dreams.
My lips parted easily, and before I knew it, I was kissing him just as eagerly as he was kissing me. I didn’t even know that I knew how to kiss. I had thought it was mainly an occupation of the lips, but it became clear immediately that the tongue was just as important. His tongue was inside my mouth. It was so naughty…and so delicious…feeling it push into me, the surprising muscular softness of it. Did my mother ever kiss my father like this? I could not imagine she did.
These Wicked Revels Page 5
