by K. M. Shea
Jock just about oinked in thankfulness, and after a minute he and Elle continued on their walk.
When the pair finished their fourth lap and Elle gave Jock his customary piece of jerky after taking a piece of pineapple from the bowl Severin offered, Elle paused. She looked from Jock to Severin to the bowl of fruit. “Am I being rewarded for walking?” she asked.
“Yes,” Severin said.
“Like a pet?”
“Yes.”
Severin looked up when Elle asked nothing further and was amused to see Elle’s puzzled expression. “Are you upset?” he asked.
“I’m trying to decide that,” Elle said. “Shamefully I don’t believe I am.”
Severin chuffed—the noise Elle learned to identify as his laugh. “I see,” he said when he recovered.
“If you do see I should get another piece of pineapple for my sweet, forgiving nature.”
Severin held up the bowl again. “How could I argue with such logic?”
“Thank you, I thought so too. But this negates the good that walking does me.”
“Hardly. Your weight is not yet a problem. It is the weakness of your muscles.”
“You certainly know how to reassure a lady.”
“You’re welcome.”
A few days later Severin and Elle once again made the pilgrimage through the blustery courtyard to the horse stables.
“You would think it is the middle of the winter, based on the temperature,” Elle said, grateful that Emele had insisted she wear a fur lined cape.
After the wind almost ripped the door from his grip, Severin barred the stable door behind them. “Ours is a cooler climate,” he grunted.
“Are you going to brush Fidele?” Elle asked.
“Yes, but that is not why we are here.”
“Oh?”
Severin pointed down the stable aisle. The draft horses had already retreated to the back of their stalls, and the carriage horses were snarling, but in the stall next to Fidele’s was a fuzzy, pony.
He was the size of a small horse, but thicker with a soft, round body. He was chestnut colored with a white star on his forehead. When Severin approached he did not shy away, but instead watched the cursed prince with bright eyes.
“You bought a pony,” Elle said, joining Severin at the pony’s stall. The pony was clearly ready for winter with a coat as thick and furry as a bear’s.
“Yes, a gelding—although his name his questionable.”
“What is it?”
“Rosemerry.”
Elle grinned at the sour looking Severin. “He sounds sweet. I am impressed he is calm with you.”
“He should be. I have given him so many apples Oliver fears he would grow ill if he is given many more,” Severin dryly said. “And he is not mine. He is yours.”
Elle, in the middle of scratching Rosemerry’s forehead for him, froze. “Pardon?”
“I bought him for your use.”
“Severin, I’m staying for a mere two more days. You shouldn’t have bothered.”
“You misunderstand. He is leaving with you,” Severin said. The wooden stall wall protested when he leaned his weight against it. “He will stay with you at Noyers. The hostlers expect your arrival, and his feeding and lodging has already been arranged.”
Elle shook her head. “I can’t.”
“I thought you said you liked horses?” Severin asked.
“I do,” Elle said. “It’s just…”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Elle was at a loss for words. When the pony leaned into her touch her face tightened and she narrowed her eyes. It took Severin a few moments to realize she was forcibly keeping herself from crying.
“It’s too much,” Elle finally said, turning to face Severin. “You’ve housed me and fed me for weeks, Severin, and you had an entirely new wardrobe made for me. You’ve already given me too much, I can never repay you.”
Severin tilted his head, his cat ears quizzically flicking. “You aren’t meant to. That’s what a gift means.”
“People don’t give me gifts,” Elle said. “I can take care of myself and my family without aid or assistance.”
“I don’t mean to imply you are incapable by giving you a gift. It is precisely the opposite,” Severin said. “Hasn’t anyone given one to you before?”
Elle looked at Rosemerry. “Not like this.”
“You alone carry your family’s financial burden?”
“Yes.”
Severin nodded. “I thought as much. You have a savior complex.”
“I do not!” Elle sputtered.
Severin cracked a feline smile at her. “You do. And you are nearly as proud as I am. I bought the pony only with the motivation of bringing you joy. You seem happier around animals. You told me yourself that you find animals soothing. I would send Jock home with you if I could, but Heloise loves the mongrel too much. You said you didn’t have a horse,” Severin trailed off with a shrug.
“But the dresses—.”
Severin sighed, which sounded more like an impatient growl. “Although I am pleased you are not greedy for more, I find your estimation of my wealth deplorable. The price of the dresses and Rosemerry are miniscule in comparison to my income. I—and my household—will feel no pain on behalf of these purchases. They will not even be noticed.”
Elle was silent for a moment before she chuckled. “Oh, they will be noticed! You can bet that Bernadine and Emele are consorting over the pony right now.”
“That is probably so.”
Elle stroked Rosemerry for a few good minutes before Severin finally spoke again. “Elle, take him.”
Elle scrunched her eyes shut. “Alright,” she agreed before opening her green eyes and smiling at Severin. “Thank you for the pony, Severin. I will treasure him.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less of you,” Severin said, turning around to walk back up the aisle.
“Where are you going?” Elle asked.
“To get the side saddle.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He wouldn’t be any good to you without tack, would he?”
“The weather is too poor to ride outside,” Elle said.
“Naturally. You can perch on him in here and test how riding feels with your leg,” Severin said, returning with a ladies side saddle. “I bought you a regular saddle too in which you can sit astride in, but be careful in choosing when to use it. You will upset the delicate sensibilities of noble women, should they see you riding so,” Severin sneered, opening the door to Rosemerry’s box stall.
Elle watched the easy way Severin strapped the oddly shaped saddle on Rosemerry’s back. “You really like horses, don’t you?”
Severin glanced up as he tightened the saddle’s girth. “Yes. I spent much of my boyhood serving under the generals of Loire’s cavalry. I grew up on them.”
“You don’t get to be around them much anymore?”
“Not looking and smelling like this,” Severin shrugged.
“I’m sorry,” Elle said.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Sit lightly,” was the only warning Severin gave before he picked Elle up and perched her on the saddle.
Elle grasped Rosemerry’s neck as she heaved her legs into position. “Thank you for the warning.”
“You’re welcome,” Severin said, adjusting the placement of Elle’s leg on the saddle. “Now, I’m going to get his halter and lead him in the aisle. When I do you can grip his mane...”
The morning of Elle’s departure, Elle hurried down the stairs in her gray dress—stepping carefully and gripping the stair railing. Emele skirted at her side, but Elle ignored the slate the ladies maid pushed at her.
“It’s wrong, I must have miss-seen the view from my window. It can’t be,” Elle said when she reached the main floor. Servants seemed to crawl out of the woodwork as Elle took firm, confident strides.
Bernadine, flanked by two kitchen maids, emerged from the hallway leading to the kitchen, wiping her
hands on a flour spattered apron. Burke and several menservants hesitated on the stairway at the far side of the room.
Normally Elle would have realized what their appearance meant, but she was fixated on the front door. She reached it and wrenched it open, opening the door to a sea of swirling white. Overnight it had snowed at least a foot, and more was coming down as the wind howled. It was a blizzard. An enraged, vengeful blizzard.
Although the wind pulled on Elle’s hair and her dress, Elle stared outside until her eyelashes froze. She finally closed the door and leaned against it, her forehead resting on the wooden surface.
“Elle.”
Elle turned to face Severin, who stood with Burke on the stairs. “I cannot leave. We would never get out through all this snow, and more is piling up by the minute,” she said.
Severin nodded as he drew closer. “It would not be wise,” he agreed. “You are still worried the crown will abuse you for your absence?”
Elle briefly tightened her lips. “It makes me feel helpless,” she admitted.
“You will never trust me to secure your livelihood, will you? I am a prince, Elle. You are safe here. Think of it as an extended holiday.”
Elle laughed. “Where have I heard that before?”
Severin stared at her. “…Are you well?” he finally asked.
Elle sighed, and the exhale seemed to deflate her.
Severin turned to stand at her side. He offered her an arm. “Breakfast?”
“Breakfast,” Elle agreed, cracking a smile.
They left the main floor, heading for Severin’s study.
As they left Bernadine and Heloise clasped hands—their eyes hooked on Elle’s and Severin’s interlaced arms.
Emele brushed out the message she had written to Elle before writing anew. A miracle?
Bernadine nodded and Heloise crossed herself as Burke and his compatriots slapped each other on the back. Elle wasn’t happy about her extended stay, but the Chanceux Chateau household was thrilled.
Severin watched Elle in the dim firelight. She was covered in a blanket and slumped in an armchair, sleeping. Her mouth was not the tight line it had been all day, but a relaxed curve. Her mass of unruly hair fell down her shoulders, and she was dangerously close to sucking up a lock of it whenever she breathed in. The tension had finally left her around lunch, but she hung about Severin all day, even into the late evening.
Severin glanced at the window at the back of his study. It was ink black outside, and snow still gusted in the howling winds. Severin returned his gaze to Elle, who shivered, before he rose to stir up the red coals in the fireplace and add a log to it.
Elle yawned when Severin returned to his chair. “Did I wake you?” he asked.
“No. I was only dosing,” Elle said, pulling the blanket farther up and keeping her eyes closed. “Severin, why are you kind to me?”
“You thought I would be a brute just because I’m royal?” Severin asked, a hint of a tease in his voice.
“No one is kind to me, not without an ulterior motive,” Elle said, her words slurred with drowsiness.
Severin’s cat ears twitched. “What about your family?”
“Of course they’re kind to me,” Elle said, shifting in her chair. “But it’s not the same. They expect so much from me.”
“Like what?”
“They see no limit to my strength. They think I can do anything.”
“Wouldn’t such confidence be considered a blessing?”
“Maybe, but I cannot show a shred of weakness around them. When I first was indentured I was proud that I alone could help my family. It’s not that they are ungrateful or unloving, but I’m so tired…,”
“And they expect you to keep going,” Severin said.
Elle briefly looked at Severin. “Yes,” she said before closing her eyes again.
Severin leaned back in his chair before he reached for his wine glass and considered his houseguest. Elle always seemed like a sharp minded thing. A fox came to mind when describing her, but the artless, open look her face took on in the muck of her lethargy spoke otherwise.
“I am kind to you because of your courage and compassion. Most people scream when they see my servants, much less me. I don’t recall you screaming over anything besides your broken leg,” Severin said. He sipped his wine—it was warm and flat.
“You’re gentle,” Elle murmured, drawing closer to sleep.
Severin snorted. “In what way? I have the personality of a savage, even Lucien says so. My temperament is sour and my humor is typically ill appreciated.”
The edges of Elle’s lips—which Severin was starting to think might not be too big for her face after all—curled in the hint of a smile. “Your humor is funny,” she insisted. “Most people just aren’t smart enough to understand it.”
“Thank you,” Severin said after a few moments.
Elle didn’t reply, having finally given into the siren song of sleep.
Severin watched her for a few moments before he stood and walked to her chair. He delicately captured the lock of hair she inhaled with her breathing and tucked it behind her ear. He froze in the middle of the motion, staring at his hand as if it had betrayed him.
“No,” he firmly said. “It’s too late. It can’t be broken. Even if I wanted her to, she wouldn’t. She knows better than to fall for an illegitimate prince,” Severin chastised himself before tugging Elle’s sliding blanket up and settling it on her shoulders. He returned to his work with renewed vigor, doing everything in his power to ignore the relaxed female sleeping nearby.
“Being that I am of a high intellect, I find cursing distasteful and ill mannered. If that were not the case, however, I would compose a creative, innovative ballad of cursing and recite it at this moment,” Elle announced, swaddled in enough fur lined clothing pieces to make it difficult to move.
Elle was once again on her wretched crutches, not because she had declined in health, but because none of the servants would allow her to take chances as she stood outside with them in the sunshine and two feet of snow.
Emele rolled her eyes as she used a broom to sweep snow off a series of four stairs. She paused long enough to write, It is beautiful. Be grateful you are outside. The sun will do you good.
“It is cold and I am angered that no method of transportation will be able to travel through this snow for some days. And do not pretend this is for my health, I know we are outside only because Marc is shoveling snow as well,” Elle said, briefly lifting a crutch to point out the stout gardener, who was clearing snow from a path that followed the perimeter of the chateau.
Emele burned with embarrassment and pushed Elle’s crutch down before she looked around to see if any of the other servants witnessed her mortification. No one had, mostly because the male servants weren’t very interested in gossip if it did not involve breaking their curse.
Elle and Emele were the only ladies present. All of the male servants—from Burke to the stable boys to the footmen—had assembled into a massive snow shoveling army to help Marc and his fellow groundskeepers to shovel stairs, walkways, balconies, and courtyards.
Must you trumpet it to all parts of the chateau? Emele wrote before she went back to sweeping the light dusting of snow the shovels left behind.
Elle waddled a few steps in her swaddling. “What do you expect? You have hobbled me with an over abundance of clothes and crutches.”
Emele shook her head before she froze. A smirk crawled across her lips as she wrote on her slate. You must be dreadfully bored. Let us talk then, so you are properly entertained.
Elle eyed her ladies maid. “Very well, what shall we discuss?”
Romance.
Elle smiled. “I thought that’s what we were talking about.”
Emele hastily wrote, Not my romance! I meant yours.
Elle’s wicked smile fell flat. “You are a wolf in a sheep’s fleece. Emele, I have told you before, nothing will happen between your master and I. Push off and leave that t
opic alone.”
And why would you immediately assume I was thinking of a romance with Prince Severin?
“Because Oliver is about ten years too young for me,” Elle said, moving closer to the chateau wall to shelter herself from the wind.
You have been spending much of your time with him recently.
“With Oliver? No I haven’t,” Elle said.
Emele impatiently stamped a foot. No, with His Highness!
Elle shrugged—a motion that could barely be seen due to the amount of cloth piled on her. “I enjoy his company—not in the romantic sense,” Elle hastily added. “He knows when to be quiet, and when to say something. He has a delightful sense of humor, and as an added incentive when I am with him you are not hounding me to find him.”
It sounds like friendship.
“Of a sort, yes. In the beginning I think he mostly tolerated me, but I would like to think that Severin no longer finds me a nuisance and enjoys our time as well,” Elle said.
What is love but friendship set on fire?
“Oh get off it. You are twisting my words. Besides, everyone knows love requires a base, physical attraction,” Elle said. “And claws and fangs are hardly the things of romance.”
No.
Elle stared at the slate and raised her eyes to Emele.
The ladies maid had abandoned her broom. The parts of her face that weren’t covered by her mask were flushed with color, and it took Elle a moment to realize it wasn’t with embarrassment or coldness, but with anger.
“What do you mean?” Elle carefully asked.
Beauty fades, Emele wrote. It weakens or it disappears, or something happens and it is ruined. Emele briefly reached up, grasping the edge of her permanent, black mask. She mouthed something before shaking her head.
Elle waited as Emele collected herself. She placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder, making the maid smile.
I came from a good, middle class family, Emele wrote. My father is a well-to-do horse breeder, and my mother served as a ladies maid in her younger days. My family hoped I would marry well, especially after I secured a post in Severin’s house where I would be exposed to his sister—the Princess—and assumedly whatever lady he chose to marry. I, Emele hesitated before she wrote. I was beautiful.