Curses

by Lish McBride

  Merit snorted. “His way of saying, ‘You’re not my boss.’ ”

  “Your ravens have a bad attitude,” Ellery said, crossing their arms right as the door opened.

  “We actively encourage it.” Kaiya closed the door softly behind her. “That way they accurately represent Merit.”

  “How angry is she?” Merit fiddled anxiously with her pen.

  Kaiya waffled her hand back and forth.

  Merit had to admit that she’d loved witnessing Tevin and his family handle her mother so neatly. She’d made the right choice. Hadn’t she? “Am I being foolish?”

  Ellery and Kaiya exchanged a look, but it was her guard who spoke. “I can’t see the future, Merit.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Which I’m grateful for. So while we can’t answer that question for you, I can tell you that no matter what, we’re both here if anything goes wrong.”

  “Thank you,” Merit said, feeling a little better.

  Kaiya handed her a folded piece of paper. “From your mother.”

  “Thanks, Kaiya.” Merit took a steadying breath, filling her lungs with air, missing her country home as her beastly snout filtered the scents of the city. “Tevin?”

  “In the library.” Kaiya tipped her head. “Would you like me to go with you?”

  Merit shook her head.

  “Just don’t forget to frisk him when he leaves, milady.” Ellery left the window, resuming their spot on the love seat. “Lots of valuables in there.” They picked up their pencil and notebook, flipping it back open, only to pause when Merit’s chair squeaked. “I take it back. It’s not the valuables I’m worried about. It’s you.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can manage one afternoon in a library with Tevin DuMont without losing my heart.” Merit stood up, shaking her hem out.

  Ellery’s shoulders shook as they laughed. “Heart? I was more concerned about your knickers.”

  Merit gave her friend a playful shove as she walked past. “Ellery, you’re a dear friend and I love you, but there is not a man on this soil who would try to seduce the knickers off a beast.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, milady. You never can tell what someone likes,” Ellery called from the love seat.

  “Hush, you,” Merit said before she shut the door firmly on Ellery’s laughter. Kaiya had followed her as she left, and they went downstairs, walking quickly to the library.

  Kaiya paused outside the room. “You sure you don’t want me with you?”

  Merit squeezed Kaiya’s arm. “If he so much as steps wrong, I’ll roar.”

  Kaiya nodded before disappearing down the hall, leaving Merit staring at the library door. She took a deep breath and entered, the wood cool on her paws until she stepped onto the thick rug. The library was twice the size of the sitting room, with built-in cherrywood shelves taking up every wall. Two delicate golden chandeliers cast warm light down onto the thick rugs on the floor. At one end of the room was a long table with six chairs grouped around it, their seat cushions embroidered with delicate branches and brightly colored birds. At the other end, a large fireplace was surrounded by a love seat and two overstuffed chairs. Long windows cut into one wall between the shelves, the heavy drapes framing them held back by thick golden cords. Merit loved natural light, but it wasn’t always good for the books. It was a warm, inviting room that smelled like beeswax, leather, and old paper.

  Tevin stood with his back to the door, his hands loosely clasped. He was wearing one of the new suits, though he’d left the jacket draped across one of the chairs. As Merit watched, he reached out and selected a red leather volume off a bookshelf, examined the cover, and slid it back.

  “That’s wise,” Merit said.

  “Not your favorite poet, then?” Tevin asked without turning.

  “He only discusses women in their relationship to men or to himself, so no, not my favorite.”

  Tevin took the volume back out, flipping through the pages before settling on one in the middle. “ ‘Her heaving bosom draws my unwanted eye, lily white, thrusting—’ ” Tevin slammed the book shut. “Well, that’s rubbish. Why do you still have it?”

  “Sometimes I need a coaster.” Merit made to sit at the table, pausing as Tevin gracefully came over and pulled her chair out for her. “That’s unnecessary.”

  “More like awkward. My sister always complains about the chair banging her knees. It is, however, the sort of asinine thing you need to get used to if you’re venturing out into the courting scene. Courting is strange. Courting at your particular level of society is a farce.” He took the seat across from her, pulling out a worn leather notebook and a pencil.

  Merit watched him as he flipped to a clean page, and wondered again at her choices. She had to admit he was better-looking than Jasper had been, but he seemed less . . . slick. Did that mean he was being honest with her, or was Tevin a more talented con man?

  Tevin caught her watching and stilled. Merit wasn’t sure what he saw, but he put everything down, closing his notebook. He leaned back in his chair. “Out with it, then.”

  “What?” Her question was a squeak. She hadn’t been doing anything wrong by staring at him, but felt caught out nonetheless. Which irritated her and made her want to growl. This was a drawback of the beast. Her emotions were closer to the surface, harder to control. It was also the upside of the beast, which made sense to Merit only when she looked at it from an angle.

  “Merit, for this to work, to work well, we need to be on the same side.” He grimaced. “Which I recognize isn’t going to be easy. Your trust has been violated.” He stood, coming over to her side of the table. Tevin grabbed the chair next to her, pulling it out so he could face her. “May I see your wrist?”

  She placed it on the table.

  He took it, fingers slipping through fur to find the skin fluttering over her pulse. “This would be easier without your fur coat.” He smiled faintly and caught her eyes again. “What I need to do is help you get your confidence back, so you can trust your gut. Take back what Jasper took away. First lesson. How do you know someone is lying to you?”

  Merit frowned, thinking. “They fidget? Sweat?” She gestured to the wrist he had trapped. “Their heart beats harder?”

  Tevin didn’t answer but kept his gaze steady on hers. “Tell me three things and make one of them a lie.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Anything.” He waved his free hand in the air. “Any small detail or big truth. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I had an orange with my breakfast,” she said. “I’m gifted at sketching. I love living in the country.”

  “The first two were lies.” Tevin huffed a laugh. “You cheated.”

  “You said make one of them a lie, not that I couldn’t make two of them.” Merit tugged against his hold.

  “Agree to disagree.” Tevin let go of her wrist, grabbing her hand, carefully avoiding her claws as he uncurled her first two fingers and placed them on his own pulse. “I can’t dance. I hate horses. I’ve never been arrested.”

  Merit frowned at his wrist. “I didn’t feel a change.”

  “That’s because lying doesn’t bother me. Your pulse kicked up because it bothers you.” Tevin leaned back in his chair, pulling his wrist free from her hand. “People fidget even when they’re telling the truth. Some talk too much.” He straightened, crossing his legs so that one of his feet was dangling. “It’s easiest to read someone you know well—because you know how they normally sound or move. For everyone else, there are other things you can check.” He jiggled his foot, pointing at it. “Look at anchor points—feet, butt, whatever connects to a surface. Look at these the second someone answers you—that’s when someone is going to give themselves away.”

  He stopped bouncing his foot. “People will groom themselves—check their watch, fix their hair, straighten their skirts, touch their face.” He rested his elbo
ws on his knees. “Listen to their response, how they’re saying it. They might get overly aggressive, or talk a lot without actually answering the question. If they do two or more of the behaviors mentioned—that’s important, too. If they scratch their nose but don’t do anything else, it’s just an itch.”

  “The behaviors have to be clustered?” Merit clarified.

  He nodded. “We’ll work on it. I’ll point out examples. That’s what you’ll be getting with me at your side, Merit. An education.” He tapped his thumb against the table. “I can accompany you anywhere. I know every dance, custom, and social grace. Take me to any dinner party, ball, or picnic, and I will seamlessly blend in. I can recite the lineage of any fairyborn aristocrat with accuracy to at least four generations. If you like someone, I have the contacts that will let you know what their vices are, their history, their bank accounts down to the half copper. I’m charming and funny, and I can help you shine.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “This time, you’ll be the bait. Not the trick.”

  “You’re not fairyborn. How are you going to blend?”

  “Trust me, Merit. I may not look like one of you, but I can guarantee that no one will care.”

  Merit considered what he’d said. She might have decided in the jail to trust him, but it wasn’t really the sort of thing one could easily decide to do. She wasn’t sure she wanted to trust him. It made her feel wobbly. “If our roles were reversed, what would you do? Would you trust so easily?”

  “I would not.” He went quiet for a while, then rubbed a hand over his face, clearly having decided something. “When you met my mother, did you trust her?”

  “No.”

  Tevin tapped his forehead. “When we meet people, we’re bombarded by information. The way they speak, their tone, the way their body moves; all of it is collected by the animal part of our brain. We read what they aren’t saying without realizing we’re taking it in, and when people ask, we say we had a ‘gut reaction.’ ” He rested his elbows on the top of the table. “Only, it’s not our gut at all, but our mind.” His focus narrowed, his eyes glinting emerald green in the light. “Your curse—what does that do to your senses? Better? Same?”

  “Better,” Merit said. “My hearing and sense of smell are improved. My sight is the same, except I can see better in the dark.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  “What does this have to do with me trusting myself, exactly?”

  “I’m charming.” He eased back into his chair. “That’s not always a positive thing. I’m charming because of my gift, and because I’ve been trained to be. It’s something I’ve actively worked on.” He grinned, and Merit’s stomach fluttered. “I’m also stunningly handsome.”

  She grunted. “And cocky.”

  “Yes,” he said. The grin faltered. “Merit, I have to be cocky. I’m not saying I secretly think I’m a hideous troll.” He waved a hand in front of his face. “This is a commodity, and in my business, you have to know what your strengths are. When I say I have to be cocky, I mean it—people are more likely to believe what you’re selling if you act like you believe in it, too.” He leaned his head against his fist. “What I meant is, my charm, my charisma, it can be overwhelming. Only it doesn’t influence you the way it does other people. Because of your history, it makes you trust me less. We’ll work to get you to the point that you trust your gut again, okay? Is that enough to work with me for now?”

  Merit nodded. “I think so.”

  He gestured to his notebook. “Would you mind if I took notes?”

  “Not at all.”

  He moved back to the other side of the table and opened his notebook, flipping to an empty page. “According to Kaiya, you have your mother’s list, along with the social engagements she’d like you to attend.” He looked at her. “We can discuss the pluses and minuses of the events, but the decision about whether to attend will always remain yours. Okay?”

  “We’ll also have to decide which ones I want to be me at.”

  He paused, his pencil over the page. “How do you mean?”

  Merit filled him in on her episodes and how Ellery had warned about overdoing it on her doses of tincture.

  His brows dipped in concern. “Should you be taking it at all, then? Is it safe?”

  “As long as I don’t take it too frequently.”

  Tevin’s expression didn’t ease—if anything, his brows dipped lower—but he continued on. “I also need you to think about anything in particular you do or don’t want in a partner, and what you have to offer.”

  “I hate this.” Merit slumped in her chair. “It’s very difficult not to feel like a prize heifer up for auction.”

  Tevin’s green eyes met hers. “That goes both ways, you know. You’re buying as much as they are.”

  Merit perked up a little. “I just wish it felt less mercenary.”

  “It feels mercenary because it is.” Those jewel-green eyes of his assessed her. “You were hoping for love?”

  Merit could tell by the careful way he said it that he thought she was naive to hope for such things. “No, of course not.” Wanting and hoping weren’t the same thing, so she wasn’t really lying. She wanted love, but she didn’t dare hope for it.

  He went back to his journal. “It would be nice, though, wouldn’t it?” The words were soft, almost like he was speaking to himself.

  “Yes, it would.”

  He held out a hand. “Your mother’s list.”

  Merit handed over the list, careful not to tear the paper with her claws.

  “Have you looked at it?”

  Merit shook her head. “I received it right before I came here.”

  “Well, let’s take a gander.” He plucked the list out of her claws and studied it. Frowned. Reread it. Frowned harder. Finally he looked up at Merit. “Did you tick your mother off recently? A lot?”

  “Always.” Merit tilted her head, her horns catching the light. She waved a hand at herself. “I give you exhibit A.”

  “Right, yes, cursed. Wait, your mother cursed you?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  “You’re going to have to talk about it a little.” He shook the list at her. “Because you clearly have some unresolved issues.”

  She leaned closer, trying to peer at the paper. “How can you get all that from a list of names?”

  Tevin lifted the paper. “Marshall and Tanner Muldavi, the heir and spare, respectively, of the Muldavi barony. I believe Val once referred to them as ‘depraved layabouts,’ and it didn’t sound like a compliment when she said it. Val respects a bit of depravity, but it sounds like they take it too far.”

  “Next, please.”

  “A Mr. Wainsborough.”

  Merit frowned. “I don’t know him.”

  “That’s probably because he’s twenty years older than you and, since he doesn’t have two coppers to rub together, probably doesn’t run in your circles. He lost all his lands to gambling debts. Solid bloodline, though.”

  “You’re right. This is a terrible list,” Merit groaned. “His wealth isn’t an issue. We have plenty, but I don’t want anyone twice my age. Cross him off.”

  “Maybe she made the first ones intentionally horrible, so you’d give the others a chance?”

  Merit rested her head against the table, the wood cool against her fur. “It’s possible. Please tell me the next one has some redeeming qualities.”

  “Suitor number four is Cedric Fedorova. He’s not bad. Well-mannered, if memory serves.”

  “Cedric?” Merit tipped her face up. “He thinks of himself as an old-fashioned knight. Lots of chivalry. I will get miladyed to death. He will probably try to serenade me.”

  “Is he any good?”

  “By all accounts, his music could be used to scare cattle.” Merit gently thumped her head against the table. “B
ut compared with the others, he’s a possibility. Leave his name.”

  Tevin read the next name. “Frederick Dowerglen, second son of the House of Dowerglen.” He tapped the pencil against the table. “His family’s okay. They’re well-off. I seem to remember Val saying he’s especially enthusiastic about riding and hunting.”

  “Oh no,” Merit said. “Not Freddie.”

  “Why not Freddie? He’s your age, which is good.”

  “He decorates his residence with antlers, skins, and stuffed prizes,” Merit said. “And when he isn’t hunting, he’s drinking.”

  Tevin tapped his pencil against Merit’s horns. “I wouldn’t go off with him unescorted, then. Just in case.”

  Merit fixed him with a glower.

  “I’m simply looking out for you,” he said, his expression all that was innocence. “You don’t want to be stuffed and mounted, do you?”

  “I’m going to stuff and mount you in a minute.”

  “No need to be filthy, Merit.” He used his pencil to make a note on the paper. “We’ll leave him as a maybe.”

  Merit wanted to claw the furniture in despair. “Don’t even tell me anything bad about the next one. No, tell me. Otherwise I’ll just make up something really terrible like he eats babies or hates puppies.”

  Tevin contemplated the name, trying to pull up everything he remembered about the family. “Actually, I don’t think I have anything bad to say about Padraig Emer. All I can remember is that he’s shy and that his family’s barony is small. A little shabby, but respectable.”

  Merit leaned against the desk. “That’s my best option so far? The man you can’t remember anything specifically terrible about?”

  “You told me not to sugarcoat things.” He made another note. “I’ll have Val put some feelers out, see what she can learn about him.”

  Tevin moved his pencil down the list quickly. “I’m not even going to read you the next three. Trust me on this. Which leaves us with our final prospect, Eric Latimer, crown prince of Huldre.” Tevin tossed the paper onto the desk.