by P. J. Fox
In his own eyes, Peregrine Cavendish was a paragon of virtue. He saw himself, not as a wreck of a man with few years left and whom no one would mourn, but a gift to the world. A selfless victim of the world, too, who’d never done anything except his duty. Who’d spent his life trying to help others by educating them on what they should be doing, a noble son who had so much potential. Potential that was crushed by those around him, a thousand leeches who’d used him and sucked him dry. Deprived him, with their carelessness, of the creative energy and leadership potential that were his divine right of ancestry.
Hard work, in the earl’s mind, didn’t make a man; his ancestors did. A man’s fate was decided in his forebears; that the earl had been cheated of his rightful glory was a canker that had eaten him from the inside out until there was nothing left but the stumbling, gap-toothed man before her. A man whose breath could knock a mule back ten paces. A man who, but for his fine if threadbare raiment, would be mistaken for the village idiot.
He resented other men, even his own son, for—again in his mind—being given what he should have been given. That they’d worked hard for what little they’d gained had never even occurred to the earl. Admitting even that much would have been too at odds with his own worldview. Nor could he bring himself to feel happiness on his son’s behalf. He was too jealous. He’d never been able to see that his bastard son earning some measure of respect as a man at arms was no threat to him.
Neither could he see that his daughter was no threat to him. Which was why, even as he’d had her do his work for him all these years, he resented her for it. He couldn’t understand why their retainers respected her, instead of him. The earl, who was the rightful repository for their affections. He’d neither understood nor cared that what she’d done on his behalf, she’d done out of love; and that she was no more in control of how others responded to her than he was.
Which was why, ultimately, he’d tried to have her killed.
With Isla, and the other unfortunate obstacles gone, he’d finally receive the due of which they’d been cheating him.
He looked in her direction, and looked away.
Isla, finally understanding him now, felt nothing.
Understanding—for all of them—had come too late.
The courtyard was an almost perfect rectangle save for the far right-hand corner, which was dominated by a set of stone steps that came down from the second floor. That, Isla knew, was yet another defense measure. The principal rooms in all great houses were above ground level. The door, which extended out from the second floor colonnade, had a small square tower of its own that appeared to act as some sort of ante-chamber. But even this tower, as small as it appeared in comparison to its surroundings, would have comprised fully half of Enzie Hall’s main structure.
The stairs marched down the colonnade on one side, and were guarded by a stone rail on the other. A stone rail that, like the rest of Caer Addanc, was beautifully carved. And while Caer Addanc was old, far older than Enzie Hall, meticulous maintenance made the place seem new. The quatrefoils beneath the windows could have been carved yesterday.
At the top of the steps, which were broad enough that two or even three fully armored men might walk down side by side, an iron banded door mimicked the same arched shape that repeated throughout the courtyard. Callas led them toward it.
Coming as she was, from an angle, Isla saw that beneath the staircase was another series of arches. “What’s down there?” she asked Callas, imagining as she did so that the semi-enclosed space must serve yet another defensive purpose. As heart-stopping—and as terrifying—as Caer Addanc was, the decorations were a distraction. This place had clearly been designed for a single purpose, and one that had nothing to do with beauty.
“That,” Callas replied, “is the entrance to the duke’s personal dungeon. Also to the cellars,” he added as an afterthought. “The additional cellars, where our long-term storage is.” He went on to describe an elaborate system of harvesting and storing against crops that sometimes failed and winters that sometimes didn’t end. He also spoke of great, vaulted chambers where brandy was stored while it aged. But Isla wasn’t listening; he’d lost her at the word dungeon.
“Who’s down there?” she found herself asking. The words were out of her mouth before she’d realized that she’d spoken them.
Callas paused and, turning, regarded her oddly. She stared back, meeting his cold gaze. His eyes were pale. Too pale, like watery ice. His face was, as always, perfectly expressionless. Even when he laughed, Isla got the sense that he was putting on an act. She couldn’t fathom what Hart saw in the man. If a man was even what he was.
“Political prisoners,” he said. He was polite. He was always polite.
“But—there are people down there, right now?” In the dark?
“Yes.”
Isla was about to say something else when she realized that Apple had sidled up to her and was listening in. She shut her mouth abruptly, and turned back to the stairs. She was not a little discomfited by this revelation, although she supposed that she shouldn’t be. All manner of men kept prisoners; certainly all dukes did. What was she, a child of five? Imagining that Prince Charming was just that, a bard’s sketch of a perfect man in unmarked mail and a shining white tabard?
She turned back toward the stairs and walked on, Callas still at her side. Eir and Hart came behind her and her family brought up the rear, some paces behind. They clung together in a clump, as though for protection. Like sheep.
She wasn’t, either, she’d realized, as alone in the courtyard as she’d first thought. Other men, apart from the bowyer’s journeyman, came and went. A fat, cheerful-looking woman in an apron bustled across the courtyard as well, a group of what appeared to be apprentices in tow. By her smell—a yeasty aroma of hops that reminded Isla of freshly baked bread—Isla judged her to be the brewer. In the North, or so she’d heard, beer was considered a woman’s art. As was weaving, and women dominated those guilds.
Soldiers patrolled the colonnades, almost invisible in the gloom, and looking up Isla saw that there were more on the walls. Just as there were, no doubt, eyes peering down at her from the sun-blank windows. Already, though the shadows had begun to lengthen. Night fell quickly in the North, a fact she’d both heard beforehand and now learned for herself, and soon the windows would once again be simple glass.
She didn’t think she could bear the carvings, though, in the darkness.
And what, she wondered, must the castle look like on the inside?
Distracted by these thoughts, she was shocked to realize that she’d reached the bottom step.
The door seemed very high above her, and very intimidating.
And then it opened.
FORTY-SIX
They regarded each other in silence, the rest of the world forgotten.
He stood on the steps, his pale figure as silent and unmoving as death. He was garbed from head to toe in midnight blue, the luxurious wool draping his form in graceful folds. A high-collared cape and beneath that, a belted tunic that hit just above his knee. His posture was straight, as always, managing to convey the feigned relaxation of a snake. His elegant, long-fingered hands rested at his sides. His penetrating, night-black gaze bored into her, pinning her down like a moth to a board.
He took a step forward, and then another.
The effect was mesmerizing.
As always, the fact of seeing him move came as a shock. He possessed no life, in those limbs. When he paused, he was as inert as a statue. His skin, too, was like marble. One knew that, when one touched him, he would not be warm. Nothing about him seemed human and she wondered, now, how she’d ever believed for a second that he was.
She remembered that first night, how he’d inspired in her the same instinctive revulsion as would a corpse. How terrified she’d been to approach him but, at the same time, how—even though she’d refused to admit this, even to herself—she’d known exactly where he’d be. How she hadn’t been able to
stop herself from thinking about what it would be like to touch him. To feel his hands on her skin, cool against warm.
He’d been exactly what she’d expected, that first night: aloof and caustic. But then after, he’d been so thoughtful. So courtly. Solicitous, even. He’d thrown her—and kept her—completely off balance. His disdain, she could handle. A lifetime of rejection had helped her grow inured to such things. But his interest…that had been her undoing.
He’d treated her, from the following morning, as a gentleman might a lady in whom he showed interest. Whom he’d chosen to court. Even as there’d been a faint hint of mockery in his treatment of her, it had never wavered. Although there were times when he’d suggested—more than suggested—that he was putting on an act. When he’d told her, essentially, that things would go easier on her if she chose to believe the lie.
And yet, against her better judgment, she’d fallen in love.
What had seemed so magical at Enzie Hall had begun to seem unnerving; oppressive, even, on the journey north. She’d asked herself, time and time again, if what she’d fallen in love with hadn’t been the idea of escape. If Tristan hadn’t seemed so wonderful simply because he was from somewhere else. And because he, unlike her father, wasn’t intimidated by men like Father Justin. A life with Tristan represented a life free of the kinds of fears that had dominated her life thus far.
Compared to the years of virtual servitude she’d endured at the manor, almost any kind of alternate situation seemed like a release. It was only once he’d left, and she’d left, that she began to consider the issue more concretely. With less emotion and more logic.
Stripped of the desperation, the need, what had her thought process been? Or had she simply acted on those feelings, making one kneejerk decision after another and with no more consideration than a pig trapped in a slaughter pen? Shrieking its despair of what was to come as it ran blindly from corner to corner, bumping against the wooden slats?
She’d sat in front of the entrance to her tent, more nights than she cared to admit, staring into the pitch-black night and wondering what she’d done. If her feelings for this man—this man who wasn’t a man—were real. Or if, first blinded by love of her sister and then blinded by her need to go somewhere, anywhere, she had in truth made a devil’s bargain. Whether if, seeing him again, she’d still feel the same or feel, as she had on that first night, repulsed. Or even if she did feel the same, whether she’d finally see now that he felt nothing for her; and whether, knowing that, his touch would be abhorrent.
He’d told her as much, that he felt nothing. That he was capable of feeling nothing, only of aping the lesser creatures he’d chosen to live among. He’d told her, too, that he cared for her after his own fashion; but she’d known, even as he’d said the words, that he was saying them for her benefit. That however he acted, inside him was a great sucking void.
She swallowed.
Here he was, before her, and she still didn’t know how she felt.
What she wanted.
She was suddenly, acutely aware again of how filthy she was. How disgusting. How repulsed he must be, seeing her like this. And yet his expression gave away nothing; it never did. Reaching her, he paused again. He inclined his head slightly, the gesture both polite and aloof. She nodded in return, uncertain of what to do. Or, indeed, of how to interpret his reception. There was none of the fire, in his greeting, that she’d felt when he’d last kissed her. Indeed she might as well have been a complete stranger.
Which perhaps she was.
Callas, beside her, dropped to one knee. All of his usual swagger was gone; his eyes downcast, he acted like he was in the presence of godhood. Isla felt discomfited again. Whatever was wrong with Callas, and she had her guesses, he clearly worshipped Tristan. Perhaps even in the literal sense. She swallowed again, her throat uncomfortably dry. Tristan raised Callas to his feet and spoke some words to him, too low for Isla to hear.
Callas nodded once and, turning on his heel, was gone.
And then Isla and Tristan were alone.
Eir, of course, had once again disappeared without anyone noticing.
Her family had hung back so far, a tight little knot of worried eyes. Their bravado, too, had evaporated in the chill silence of Caer Addanc. Perhaps realizing, too late, that they’d put themselves in the hands of a man they’d decried as a devil worshipper and worse. A man whom the earl, by allying himself with Father Justin, had declared an enemy. The earl blinked, his eyes gummed from sleep and drink. Apple, beside him, looked uncharacteristically pale. Rowena sniffed, and said nothing. Only Hart seemed unaffected although he, like Callas, seemed to consider himself in the presence of greatness.
Tristan had ignored her family thus far, acknowledging only her and then Callas, as his vassal. But now he raised his gaze from hers and greeted them politely. “Welcome to Caer Addanc,” he said, his cultured voice like dry leaves on stone. “May you be safe and well under this roof.” The traditional greeting of the North: an offer of hospitality that, once accepted, created a kind of sacred contract. The promise of the host not to kill, or otherwise do harm, to his guest.
Isla was struck again by how completely in his power they were.
“Ah, thank you,” the earl said, summing himself up. Traditionally, in the North, a guest also brought a gift. Isla knew this because Eir had told her. The earl had brought no gift, evidently viewing his presence—or Isla—as gift enough.
He didn’t give the ritual response; might not have known it. That the etiquette on which he prided himself might have required him to learn such a thing should never have occurred to the earl. His common refrain, that he hated rudeness, applied only to rudeness in others. He, being born of noble stock, was—apparently alone of all his peers—incapable of being rude. The duke, Isla was certain, should have learned whatever customs the earl felt appropriate. Including, but not limited to, how to best compliment the earl.
Tristan said nothing. But where he’d bowed his head to Isla, to the earl he inclined it only the merest fraction of an inch. His eyes, too, never left the earl’s. Standing slightly to the side, Isla chewed on her lip. There was a current of tension here, and one she—foolishly—hadn’t expected. She wondered, briefly, if her father would survive his stay here and found herself unexpectedly distressed at the thought that he might not.
It was usual on these occasions, at least in the South, for greetings of this nature to include as much pomp and circumstance as one’s budget would allow. Gatherings of courtiers, even parades weren’t unheard of. Even in the rustic Highlands, usually some show was made when guests arrived. But this courtyard meeting was strangely muted; apart from Tristan and the small envoy from Enzie, the only people present were the guards. And they, in their black and green tabards, were well-trained and silent.
Almost too silent. Ghost-like, staring straight ahead with fixed expressions, their eyes flickering left and right. Almost as much like statues as Tristan. Not like the guards at Enzie, who were all of them easy. So, easy, in fact, that one could scarcely tell the difference between those off duty and on. They joshed each other, and laughed, and diced. They were, on the whole, a cheerful lot. But these men…a discipline had been bred into them that existed nowhere in the Highlands.
If Hart stayed here, Isla realized, he’d become one of them. Isla wasn’t sure she wanted that. She preferred the laughing, rough-hewn man that her brother had always been; she didn’t know what to make of the increasingly brooding, serious man that he’d become since leaving home. The brother she’d grown up with would never have burned Rowena’s book, nor castigated her for having been offered greater advantages. He’d been sympathetic, always, to her challenges: both in dealing with the burden placed on her by their father and in having been born a woman. The brother she’d grown up with would never have even considered devil worship.
Apple’s somewhat nasal voice jarred her out of her reverie. Her stepmother was asking, somewhat plaintively, where everyone was. “Did yo
u expect us on a different day, my lord?”
Tristan said nothing.
Apple, unaware that she was making a fool of herself, soldiered on. “That is,” she said, “I think the only explanation. That perhaps—perhaps you expected us tomorrow? And that is why our welcome isn’t prepared?” When Tristan still said nothing, her voice grew shrill. “Because this—this is really quite embarrassing. For you, I mean. That no proper welcome has been provided for the earl and his consort. I was under the impression that a rider went on ahead; surely you could have, in the hour or so since his arrival, put something together. Really.” She sniffed. “Such an insult cannot be borne.”
“You mean,” he corrected smoothly, “such an insult to my bride?”
Apple sniffed again. “Her too,” she allowed.
“Madam.” Tristan regarded the other woman coolly. She was older than he, or so Isla believed; Apple was notoriously close-lipped about her true age. Yet in this instance, Tristan possessed a gravitas that made him appear far older. “My bride has received all the welcome she requires, in the form of her waiting groom. And you,” he continued, “have received all the welcome that you deserve.”
Apple was silent while she worked this out. Then she colored.
Tristan returned his gaze to Isla, who shivered. The lengthening shadows had abruptly become a pervasive gloom, the strong afternoon sun metamorphosing in minutes to twilight. Knowing that night came quickly in the North was one thing; getting used to the situation quite another. What meager warmth the air had possessed was quickly dissipating in a thin, chill wind that had begun to blow through the courtyard. And in the midst of this, her lover’s eyes flickered.
“You must be exhausted,” he said.
She nodded shyly, coloring. “And filthy,” she added, dropping her gaze.
“Do you need to rest, first,” he asked, “or would you like something to eat?”
At the words something to eat, Isla realized that she was ravenous. Tristan must have seen the answer in her eyes because, without further comment, he offered her his arm. She remembered the courtly gesture from their time at Enzie, almost distant in its formality.
