She managed a little bob of a curtsey. “I am sorry, correct me if I am wrong. You must be Skander of Capys. Am I right?”
An uncertain smile flickered around his mouth. “You are correct. Now you must forgive me, and correct me if I am wrong.”
Margaret looked up from under her brows as she hung at the curtsey’s lowest point. Her heart was in her throat.
“Are you with Rupert?”
She emerged from the curtsey with cheeks burning, head held high. From the head of the stair she was able to look down on Skander. “After a fashion.”
This took Skander by surprise, and for a few minutes the two regarded each other in silence. The horse champed placidly at its bit. The falcon scowled to itself. Finally it seemed neither of them could stand the silence, and Margaret herself was glad when Skander looked away and said, clearing his throat, “I am afraid I must go on and put up my horse. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, madam.”
“And yours.”
“Until next time.”
Margaret wondered how much Skander Rime was lying as he turned his hunter about and trotted up the avenue, disappearing from sight. She wondered how much she was lying. For a moment longer she lingered at the head of the stairs, listening as the drum of the hunter’s hooves died away. She could not be quick to make an ally of Skander Rime until she was certain of his character, but if he disliked his cousin enough to throw roadblocks in his way to power, she approved of that.
Gathering up her skirts, she hastened back along the arbour to the house. It was time to get out of this cold air. Glad for her change of dress, which was linen and not taffeta, she scuttled across the porphyry gravel, up the back steps, and entered noiselessly into the rear hall. A servant was tending to some houseplants under the windows, but otherwise she was alone at the rear of the house. With casual care she made her way to the atrium and stood in the shadows of a doorway, looking around and upward. There was as yet no sign of either Skander or Rupert.
She had nearly put her foot out of hiding, when she snatched it back again, hearing voices. The building took the sounds and threw them about deceptively. She kept perfectly still, biting her lip, waiting to see who was coming and from where.
The two of them came into view, climbing the curving stair to the upper hall. “You seem unusually jocund about it, who are so often as dour as the backside of the moon.” Skander pointed wide, his wrist bereft now of his accompanying bird. “Does this change of spirit have anything to do with the little mouse I saw on the back lawn?”
Mouse? Margaret frowned and liked Skander Rime less.
De la Mare said lightly, carelessly, “Oh, she has gone that far, has she? Precocious little chit! What do you think of her?”
They had nearly reached the head of the stair. If they looked back they would see her. She held more still than death itself, not breathing, not blinking, hoping Skander could not feel her gaze and turn, giving her away.
“I would not call her a precocious little chit,” said Capys. “I would call her a force to be reckoned with.”
De la Mare turned at the head of the stair and looked soothingly at his cousin. Margaret’s heart stopped in her chest. “You didn’t really believe that I would take you at your word, did you, sir?”
“For the love of heaven, Rupert—” burst out Skander.
But Rupert cut him off with a swiftly upraised finger held almost to the other’s lips. “For the love of what?”
Skander remained silent.
Rupert dropped his hand and crossed the upper hall to the library door. His figure was shrouded in the gloom of the hallway, and his own shadow, mingling with the others against the panelled wood and dark print of the wall, reared up like a monster above his head. “By Ivy-tide,” he went on in that same careless sort of tone, “she should be fit to come out in a social gathering like Lookinglass.” He laughed. “Black Malkin will hate her.”
“Black Malkin hates every woman: they are not man enough for her,” replied Skander dryly, and the two of them stepped out of sight into the library. The door shut behind them.
Margaret let out a heavy gasp, slumping against the column. First she was a pawn and now she was a mouse. With a shaky hand pressed to her forehead, she rallied her mind, pulling herself together. The door to the servants’ stair was nearby; fixing it with a flagging gaze she finally went to it, listened, and drew it open. There was no one on the stair that she could see. She started up, round and round, setting her feet down with care not to make a noise, until at last she came out on the first story hallway.
The library door stood directly opposite her, the expanse of open atrium in between. She wrapped the shadows around herself and moved quickly around the perimeter, feeling much like the hare in the open, anxiously hoping the hawk would not spot her.
Through the deep blue shadows she stole until she stood near the library door, her heart in her throat. She had to swallow twice to get it down properly before she could hear anything above the drum of blood in her ears. She stood at the door, fingers pressed against the wood frame to support herself, and listened with painfully straining ears to the communications inside.
“Are you thirsty?”
“Water will do to get the dust out of my throat.”
There was a distant clink and clatter of glassware. From another part of the room came the heavy thump of a book being tossed down.
“Water for you,” came Rupert’s voice, mild and sleepily panther-like in a way that made Margaret’s skin crawl. “If it is all the same to you, I’ll take a stronger draught.”
“By all means, don’t let me hamper your tastes.”
If she shut her eyes, leaning lightly, gingerly, against the doorframe, Margaret could almost see the way Rupert turned aside to look curiously at his cousin, a cool gleam playing in his eyes. Hamper them, you idiot! she thought violently. His tastes are me! But if Skander Rime caught the look, he did not speak.
A leather chair crackled as someone sank into it. One of them began talking again, but at that moment a servant shut a door down the hall and Margaret jumped, pressing herself as small as she could into the shadows as the maid padded by. She went away toward the servants’ stair and Margaret breathed again, returning to the door.
“—surprised me,” concluded Skander with a little indifferent sniff. “Bloodburn will be gratified.”
“Bloodburn,” said Rupert, “is a man who can weigh another for what he is worth and not hit far from the mark. He held by me, and I’ll not forget that. He is a good man, Bloodburn.”
Ice rattled in an emptying glass. “Ah, yes, he is a shrewd one, Lord Hol. For shrewdness I warrant he has no equal except—did I tell you the date of the gala?”
“No, only that it was Ivy-tide,” purred Rupert.
“A month from now, on the New Ivy. News are always quiet, and if I can’t have a quiet house I want a quiet countryside.”
“Poor Skander. You never liked balls and galas much, did you?”
The leather chair gave a restless creak. “They have their purpose—”
“But this one, I think, is not to your liking?”
“—but winter closes in and I am poor company in the Hollow Moons. Better I am at hunting among the hawks and hounds, or better yet beyond Murklestrath among the Carmarthen, who have a way of pestering my borders and giving me leave to keep my sword sharp.”
Rupert’s voice turned oddly hard when he answered. “Time enough for sharp swords and bright spears when the cherries put on their gala gowns. Winter is an hour of high fires and warm company.”
Margaret discovered that if she knelt, arranging her skirts with the utmost care, she could peep through the key-hole. She looked in on a white-lit scene, the two—Rupert seated and Skander having risen—framed in black the bright casement of the window. It was Skander, now, who turned a pointed look his cousin’s way and asked in a low tone, so low that she barely: “Warm company?”
Rupert’s image was all sleepy power, and
there was a light laugh in his voice when he replied. “I know full well where I stand in your heart, Skander. Did you not throw down this obstacle of a wife in front of me because of it? But though you may dislike me, take me not for a blackguard.”
“I’ll take you as you are,” said Skander coldly.
De la Mare rose up in a tower of dark splendour, looking his cousin squarely in the eye, his square jaw lifted a fraction, nostrils swelling faintly as if drawing in with a relish the scent of his cousin’s dislike. “We look forward to the gala at Lookinglass on the New Ivy. Until then, you might do well to fetch yourself your own chit. It is poor hosting to greet your guests alone.”
Skander Rime laughed mirthlessly. “Only you complain, and I know where I stand in your heart.”
“Perhaps,” said Rupert. “My man must still be tending to your horse. I will show you to your room.”
Skander waved a hand. “I know the way.”
But Rupert stopped him. “Do you? But you’ll find it occupied already. I fear I must put you up in some other place.”
She did not get to see Skander’s reaction to this news. She gathered her voluminous skirts and retreated to the disputed chamber, shutting and locking the door behind her. She listened to the heavy tread of the two men going by, then, on an impulse, unlocked the door again and peeped out. The two men, almost identical in height and bearing, though Skander was the broader of the two, stalked along the hallway, the blue shadows breaking up and slipping in behind them like mist. She shivered at the sight. They passed through another door and out of sight altogether; the sound of their feet fell into silence.
Margaret let out a heavy breath, finding that she had forgot to breathe. Despite the butterflies jerking and fluttering in her stomach, she felt better for having someone else under Marenové’s roof whom she could rely on, someone else who disliked Rupert perhaps as much as she. Skander Rime was a man in a position to know how to handle Rupert de la Mare. She wondered—though she hardly dared yet to hope—if he might be persuaded to release her.
Is this what they mean by a Godsend?
She left the door and sat at her dressing table behind the folding partition of beaten brass and silver, cut in the images of peacocks. It gave her an eerie feeling, running her eyes over the little chests and draws of veils and jewellery that littered the table. Rupert had been anticipating her, for she could not imagine such things would stand in the room while it had been Skander Rime’s especial chamber. How long had he known about her? How had he found her? Until this moment, as her eye fell on a cluster of beautiful smoky pearls, she had always thought Rupert had chosen her at random on the train. But now…now she was not so certain.
A cold shudder ran through her. She looked at the clock just as it chimed the three-quarter: it would be time for dinner soon. She could count on Rupert and Skander Rime having it together, and both of them expecting her company. She slid her first two fingers around the ivory knob of a tiny drawer and slid it silently open, digging into its depths for a comb.
I feel like a bone being pulled at by two dogs. She turned in the chair, watching her reflection as she drew the comb through her brown hair. What little light filtered in around the partition played golden on individual strands. Curse it. She put the comb down with deliberation. I am pretty. Why—why did I have to be even a little pretty? Why did I have to have wit or intelligence? What on earth—no. She set her fist down heavily on the tabletop. What did providence mean by giving me any of this?
For a long while she sat staring blindly at her reflection, willing the framing images—the cherry-wood panelling, the dark green wall-print, a silver trail of gauzy scarf—to be the images of her own bedroom in Aylesward. The clock ticked loudly in the silence. Once, across the front park, she heard a lapwing warble and yap, and another answer it faintly from far up in the fellsides. At last, slowly, she reached out and picked up the comb and pulled it through her hair again. The reflection picked up its comb and began tidying its hair too, long brown, full hair framing a face that was cold and pale.
Tick-whirrr!—clong! clong! clong! clong! clong! clong! clong! clong! clong! clong! clong! clong! The clock went off in strident measure. With inhuman punctuality, as the last clong! died away, there was a knock at the door. Margaret hesitated before calling.
The door cracked ajar and a maid stuck her head inside, fetching a glance about the room before falling on Margaret where she sat at the dressing table. “It is dinner-time, my lady. Are you ready or do you need any assistance?”
“I am not ready,” said Margaret, “but neither do I need any assistance. Tell de la Mare and Skander Rime that I will join them presently…”
“In the solarium,” offered the maid.
A quick frown pulled at Margaret’s brows, but she resisted the momentary urge to ask the way. “In the solarium. Thank you.”
“Ring if you need anything,” said the maid. She dropped a curtsey with one hand extended, and withdrew.
Margaret let out a frustrated breath as the maid’s soft footsteps were swallowed up in the heavy silence of the house. She pulled the comb violently through her hair one last time, parted it, and began rolling it up behind her head, pinning it in place. Her arms, not accustomed to such work, were sore by the time she achieved her desired effect. With a lack of hats to hand, she chose the silver gauzy scarf off the peg of the dressing table and pinned it into place over her curls. Her appearance, when she frowned into the mirror, was more suggestive of Athena than of Her Majesty the Queen, but though Rupert had prepared for her arrival, he had not afforded her the latest fashions—or even the fashions of the past few centuries. She rose with a soft rustle of black velvet, choosing at the last instant to add the smoky pearls to her neck.
I will regret this touch of vanity, she told herself, but I needn’t appear surly for Skander Rime.
She was a full half-hour late to dinner. She clipped down the marble staircase, having forgot to replace her walking boots with something softer and more formal, and, after a moment’s hesitation, made for what seemed most likely to be southward, where she thought any sensible building planner would put a solarium.
The only sounds in the building were those of her boots as she walked the tiled floor and the distant rattle of cookingware in the kitchen. The tilleul light of noon came breaking in through the tall arched windows. She passed through the south peristyle; a great wind bore down on her and sent her skirts and veil whirling. She followed the walk alongside the dancing heads of hazel-bushes with their nuts abob in the wind, alongside the bryony which was trying valiantly to take over the azalea shrubs, and alongside the roses which had shut themselves up and curled dragonwise and thorny in their beds.
At the far end of the peristyle the solarium reared its glassy head above the walled garden. As she approached the door Margaret could spy the shadowy shapes of both men seated among the hot-house plants within, the one in a folding chair of wicker-work, the other in an armchair of deep yellow velvet that was beginning to grow worn. A lamp hung from the ceiling flickered over them, drenching them in a pool of golden light while the shadows raced around them, shadows of the walls and shadows of the clouds that the high winds were scuttling across the brilliant disk of the sun.
The brass latch was cold under her hand when she turned it and stepped inside. The wind tore in past her, blowing the light wildly about and bringing round the two men to look at her. With some effort Margaret shut the door again and stood in the uneasy quiet before the door, returning their stares.
Rupert was the first to move. Skander Rime, uncertain, shifted a little in his seat, but Rupert rose up out of the massive velvet-covered armchair and stepped forward, gesturing back to it as he did so.
“So you did come,” he said lightly. “Lilith said you would, but I was not certain…”
“I was not certain either,” said Margaret in a tone to match the velvet chair. She stepped past him and took it, feeling it swell around her like warm gold sand.
&nb
sp; Rupert took a dark-stained, high-backed wooden chair, which was rigid and unmoving as he, and rested his hands on his knees. In contrast, the easy bulk of his cousin rested in a low folding camp chair, and out of it he leaned just then to offer Margaret a glass of wine. She hesitated at first, but finding herself thirsty, and guessing Skander had already partaken, she took it gratefully, careful not to meet Rupert’s eye.
“Do you like Marenové, Miss Coventry?” asked Skander, his tongue wrapping around the word with some slight difficulty.
She took the plate of tarts he offered and chose her words and her finger-food with care. “The grounds are very prettily laid out. The house is a kind of strange combination of close and open. I am not sure what it thinks it means to be.”
Skander tossed a mocking glance at his cousin and laughed heartily. “No? You have an eye for architecture. The garden there—” he pointed to the peristyle “—is the oldest part of the building. The family built up the rooms around the garden, and as the family grew larger over the years, continued to build off in wings from that. Three generations ago the massive bulk of the house was built at the height of an Overlord’s rule.” His laughter flickered away like a salamander around a stone wall, and Margaret noticed he also took care not to meet Rupert’s eye. He looked up through the light and plants and glass at the tall mass of building towering over the smoking chimneys of the kitchen wing, and his look held a dark and far-away aspect.
At last he went on. “It was built primarily to host a ball. A peace had been made with Hol, which was a thing not easily to be attained. It was a splendid gala, more splendid than the one I am scheduled to throw, but that was the last one this house has seen. Three generations ago.”
“That is a long time,” murmured she, “to not hold a ball.”
He smiled at her sidelong. “Yes, ma’am. Quite a long time.”
The long, iron-black figure of Rupert finally spoke. “You pressure me unadvisedly. Marenové’s meads are ill adjusted to many folk, and not so grand and old-fashionably splendid as Lookinglass. And, too,” he trained a level, cold gaze on Margaret, “I had no one before to entertain with me.”
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