“You’ll do, and I’ve tried everyone else. Adrian will show you.”
“Why don’t you take me?” I say.
He looks at me.
Take me.
Good job, Roxanne.
“I’m busy. Perhaps I could call on you later. Tonight. Adrian!”
He turns away before I can argue further. I stare at the back of his magnificently handsome head and try to burn holes in his skull with my imaginary eye lasers. It doesn’t work. He returns to his counting.
I huff.
“Let’s get this over with. You have a sister?” I ask him as he leads me into the castle.
Adrian nods. “Two, actually, but…” He trails off in a way that just begs me to ask for more details.
“But what?”
“Saska is my elder sister, by just more than a year. My natural sister.”
I blink. “Natural? There’s an unnatural kind?”
“She’s a bastard,” he admits, then chews his lip. “We don’t talk about it. My uncle loathes her.”
Something clicks in my head.
“She runs away a lot?”
“Many times.”
The wheels start clicking even harder.
“She’s kind of a pack rat, huh? Likes stuff?”
“She brings things back with her. Gifts, toys. This time I suppose she brought you,” he says nervously.
I eye him.
“Your mother passed away. Conrad told me. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you,” he says, his voice heavy with the weight of old grief. “I’ve made my peace with it. I hope she’s in a better place. God knows there has to be one.”
His tone is bitter, and his expression even more so. He brightens as he leads me up a tower staircase, into the castle. About halfway to the top, he reaches to open a door.
He doesn’t have to. It flies open, bangs against the wall, and a serving girl runs screaming out, disappearing down the stairs. I peer after her then look into the room.
It’s a mess. There’s an upturned table and food spilled across the floor. In the middle of it all is a ten-year-old girl in a torn nightdress, wielding a sword.
It’s not a magic red sword but it’s just as alarming. It’s clearly real, the edge deadly sharp. She swings it and points it at me.
She looks more like her dad, with sandy blonde hair and green eyes and a fair complexion. She tilts her chin back imperiously, all four foot nine of her, and offers me a challenge.
“Who are you? Tell me or I’ll run you through.”
“Put that down!” I bark, my voice hammering the walls. “Are you crazy? Did you cut that girl?”
“I would have if she’d been slower,” she says, defiant.
“Nina,” Adrian says, groaning. “For God’s sake, put that down.”
“No. It’s mine. Uncle Manfred gave it to me.”
Adrian tenses at his uncle’s name, gritting his teeth even as he squeezes his hands into fists.
I step past him into the room.
“Give it to me.”
She jabs it at me, though too far away to do any harm.
“Come too close and I shall, witch.”
“This isn’t a game of pretend and I’m not a witch. That’s not a toy. I need you to put it down.”
I lied to Conrad. I have some experience at this. Some summer internships and work with kids. It got me out of the house.
Away from my father.
“Fine,” I say when she ignores my pleas.
“Adrian, let’s go.”
I turn and walk out of the room, and grab him by the arm to make sure he follows me. I swing the door shut and take up a position outside, in the hall.
Adrian looks at me, puzzled.
“Just wait.”
It takes longer than I’d hoped, maybe twenty minutes, before she comes out, without her weapon.
She still pouts at me, defiant, arms folded.
I step past her into the room and pick up the sword gingerly. I hand it to Adrian by the grip.
“Take this to her father, will you?”
Adrian nods, gives me a sympathetic look, and descends. That leaves us alone. Me and this girl.
“I’m Roxanne,” I inform her.
“I don’t care.” She puffs up to her full, unimpressive height. “I am above your station. You should kneel.”
“Well, I’m not. Get dressed and get your butt back out here. We’re going to get you fed, but first you need to clean up this mess.”
She crinkles her nose. “The servants can deal with that.”
I laugh. “You made the mess, they didn’t. It’s your problem, and after that little display I don’t think you’re going to be seeing any servants back up here anytime soon.”
She huffs.
“Or you can just sit there all day and go hungry. Do what you want.”
I start to leave.
“Wait,” she grunts, storming back into her room.
I hear her angrily picking up the serving tray and food for a bit, then silence until she comes out in…pants. We have something in common, as the only female humans in a million-mile radius who can wear pants, apparently. She tops the ensemble off with a puffy shirt that makes her look like the world’s cutest, angriest pirate.
“That food was on the floor; let’s go get you something clean to eat. Just remember there are starving children in Africa next time you ruin your food.”
“What’s Africa?”
I blink a few times. Right.
“It’s a continent. It’s that way.” I point in a roughly southerly direction.
“I don’t care,” she says imperiously, before stalking down the stairs.
I follow her to the kitchen. When we arrive, the sight of her sends half the young women working there scurrying to hide.
“There’s something you have to do before you eat,” I announce.
“What?”
“Apologize.”
“No. These servants are…”
Marta appears before us, oddly graceful on the balls of her feet.
“You will apologize,” she thunders, “or you will not eat in this castle again. I’ve had enough. Shouts or insults are one thing, but you came after one of my girls as if to kill her. Look.”
The self-same girl is in the corner, looking like grim death.
“I won’t,” Nina announces, folding her arms across her chest.
“Okay,” I shout, exasperated. “That’s it.”
I take her by the arm and pull her back out into the yard.
“Conrad!” I shout. “Come on, your majesty, I know you’re out here somewhere.”
I find him near the smithy, doing more of his counting. More stuff in wagons flows into the castle. He sees the two of us and scowls.
“What are you doing?”
I give Nina a firm, but gentle, push, toward her father.
“This little hellion went after one of your people with a sword and refuses to apologize for what she did. How is she supposed to eat if they’re afraid to feed her?”
Conrad looks down, and she looks up.
The tension in the air grows thick. Conrad doesn’t back down from the ten-year-old glaring him down, but he doesn’t confront her either. He goes stone still.
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Then make time,” I tell him.
He puts his hand on his daughter’s shoulder, and she jerks loose and bolts.
For the gate. She’s running out of the castle.
I surge after her, but I can barely jog in this stupid dress, much less run. Conrad blasts past me at full sprint, faster than I would have believed. He catches Nina under the arms and carries her back into the castle, holding her out like she’s liable to bite him.
I’m not half sure she won’t. She kicks and struggles, until he plops her on her feet and glares down at her.
“What is the meaning of this?”
She stares at him blankly. I don’t think there is a meanin
g.
“I want my sword back,” she says.
“What sword?”
“Adrian took it,” I cut in. “I told him to bring it to you.”
“I want it back,” Nina bellows, clenching her little fists. “It’s mine.”
“Absolutely not,” Conrad says. “Little girls don’t need swords.”
“Adrian has one!”
I bristle a little.
“Adrian knows how to use it. You could have hurt someone very badly.”
“Why don’t you teach her,” I blurt out.
They both stare at me like I just sprouted a second head.
“Who teaches Adrian?” I go on.
“I do. I spar with him.”
“Then you can teach her,” I say. “When she’s ready she can have her real sword back. For right now, she gets a practice one.”
“I don’t want a practice sword,” she huffs.
“It’s better than nothing,” I tell her, and then to Conrad, “she gets a reward for her behavior. It’s win-win.”
Conrad frowns but nods. He eyes me sharply.
“Fine then. See that she’s fed and attended to and bring her to the yard at midday.”
I nod, triumphant, although my charge marches back to the kitchen like she’s going to her execution.
“You’ll apologize,” Conrad says to her back. “Or no lesson.”
Nina stops and grits her teeth then clenches her fists and soldiers her way back to the kitchen. I stand by while she offers an apology to Marta, and then to the mousy girl named Lenka who tried to feed her and failed.
Only then does she agree to sit down and eat a breakfast of fruit, hard-boiled eggs, and bread with thick, almost cheesy butter.
The sight of it reminds me how hungry I am. I have some of the beef-jerky-stuff and some bread and wash it down with wine cut with water. I better build up a tolerance if I’m going to be staying here for a whole month.
When she’s finished eating she washes up from a basin. By then the sun has risen high, so I walk with her, back outside.
Conrad is already sparring at swords with Adrian. Both are stripped to the waist and sweating. I don’t spare Adrian half a glance. Instead I stare at Conrad.
He’s absolutely, mouthwateringly, panty meltingly gorgeous. I know I’m gawking like an idiot, but I don’t care. I can’t tear my eyes off his rippling muscles, the way the sweat shines on his skin. Adrian’s face is all concentration. Conrad’s is light, almost distracted.
My stomach sinks a little as I watch them.
They’re practicing killing, I realize. It’s a little strange to see people do this and mean it. They’re using blunted metal swords with rounded points like safety scissors, but it’s just different from, say, the fencing club at my college, when the people doing the sparring might actually use it to kill someday.
They’re blindingly fast, and good. Conrad so far outclasses his son, though, that he almost looks bored. Finally he calls a stop to it, panting, his big chest heaving.
I won’t lie, when I see that I picture him doing the same thing, only on top of me, that sweat mingled with my own. Suddenly self-conscious, I have to look around to reassure myself that everyone isn’t staring at me.
Relax, Roxanne. They can’t read your mind.
The only person paying any attention to me at all is Saska, off on her own, leaning against the wall. She stares at me as if she’s trying to bore through me. A smile ghosts across her lips as she pulls her hood up and departs.
“Father,” Nina announces, “I want my lesson now.”
Laughter rings in the yard. Not Conrad’s, or Adrian’s, but this is all quite amusing to the men lurking around.
Conrad silences them all with a glance and nods. Adrian takes his blunted steel sword and brings back a pair of wooden ones, also rounded and lacking an edge. The one Conrad takes is too small for him, almost ludicrously so, but it fits Nina perfectly, at least for a two-handed grip.
“Stand to,” Conrad barks, and she eagerly stands in front of him.
He smacks her wooden blade from her hands and she yelps.
“Hold it properly or be disarmed. Look at my hands.”
So they start. She’s awkward, the practice sword is too heavy for her, and she falls on her butt or topples over more than once trying to slash at her father. He humors her at first then catches her amateurish attacks and turns them off.
“You try too hard,” he tells her. “You will unlearn what you think you know.”
Nina grunts, her cute little face scrunched in concentration. Conrad stands beside her and swings the practice sword around slowly, and Nina mimics the motion, sweating in concentration.
After a time she’s exhausted and sweating through her clothes.
Conrad ruffles her hair.
“Rest,” he tells her.
He glances my way and a wicked gleam take shape in his eye. He hefts the practice blade he took from Nina and tosses it at me. I catch it without thinking.
“Your turn,” he says. “This was your idea.”
“I’m wearing a dress,” I protest. “I can’t sword fight in a dress.”
“Then take it off,” he says.
The way he says those simple words sparks something deep within, and I blush up to my hairline and stalk toward him, angrily clutching the grip of my sword in both hands, like a baseball bat.
I’m suddenly glad for the gown. My legs are shaking with excitement. Conrad looks at me a little more openly, a little more hungrily, his eyes lingering for a moment on my cleavage, such as it is, before lifting to my face.
I’ve never fenced before, but I did play softball until I was sixteen. I move the tip over my head in circles, like I’m anticipating a pitch.
“Well?” he says, standing casually, not even on guard.
I give a war whoop and charge him. He just steps out of the way, prompting laughter.
“I see I need to teach you the same lessons,” he mocks, motioning me onto the attack again.
I grit my teeth and move in more slowly this time. We cross swords with a meaty wooden thwack, the vibrations climbing up my arm to the shoulder.
No matter what I try he just swipes or knocks my blows aside. He’s toying with me.
I go in for it, running at him. He side steps me, and then THWAP.
The flat of his practice sword hits me right on my ass, not hard enough to hurt but enough to sting. My scream is more from alarm than pain. Conrad grins like an idiot, and he’s so handsome I want to knock his teeth out for it. He’s not the only one who bursts out laughing as I rub at my stinging backside.
I run at him, concentrating, trying to remember what I just saw Nina doing for the better part of an hour until she was all tuckered out.
It changes. Conrad’s expression shifts from amusement to focus, and he starts placing his feet, turning his body, parrying. He’s fighting back now, not just toying with me. Without thinking, I press my attack.
In the back of my head I expect he’s still toying with me, but it doesn’t seem that way. I don’t even let his glorious body distract me. I charge in and swing, and the most bizarre thing happens.
I feel his wooden blade thump lightly against the back of my neck, just as mine connects softy with his. We stand entangled, a wooden blade against one another’s throats. Everyone is silent and staring.
If they were real, we would have killed each other.
Conrad, panting, lunges at me. I swing. This time he disarms me easily, wrenching the sword out of my hand by the wooden blade. I stumble and he catches me, dips. I find myself in his arms and my hands gliding on his sweaty chest.
He draws closer, closer, his lips only inches from mine. I can feel a collective breath drawn in. Everyone is watching us.
He drops me on my butt and stands up.
“See yourself properly cleaned up. Now that my little hellion has been exercised for the day, see what you can do about educating her.”
He turns and stalks of w
ithout a word.
Jerk.
Nina, of all people, helps me up. She pants as we walk, and won’t stop staring at me. Adrian gives me an odd look, too. I want to give them all the finger.
God, just the sight of him like that makes my whole body pulse. When he leaned down like he was going to kiss me I felt myself open up inside, this gripping hollow needing to be filled. I’ve never felt anything like that before, not on my neediest nights alone in my bedroom.
Nina tugs my sleeve.
I was walking aimlessly, I realize. I head back up with her and, flustered, realize I’m soaked in sweat.
“I’ll be back soon,” I tell her. “Stay here.”
On my way down I find Saska, with her enigmatic eyes drinking me in.
“What?” I demand.
“I have nothing to say. You should bathe, though, and be quick about it. I’ll have you sent some clothes.”
She abandons me at the foot of the stair. By now I can find the baths, and scrub myself down quickly. I jerk in alarm when one of the serving girls comes in, strips, and climbs in the tub with me like it’s no big deal at all.
Awkwardly I finish bathing and dress in the fresh outfit Saska sent down, another plain wool garment.
I find Nina in her rooms. She’s wiped herself down and changed into a little gown that looks oddly out of place on her, and waits for me, kicking her feet in midair on the chair beside her hearth.
“My father almost kissed you.”
I groan.
“Have you kissed boys before?”
“Okay,” I make a T-motion with my hands, much to her confusion. “Stop right there.”
I’m supposed to educate her, but she can ask her sister about that or something. Not my job.
“Why?”
“Just stop,” I sigh. “I’m supposed to tutor you now. Teach you.”
She shrugs. “Why?”
“Your father asked me to.”
“Did he say he’d kiss you if you teach me?”
I rest my head in my hands.
“Does your head hurt?”
“It’s getting there,” I sigh. “I’ve kissed boys before. Does that make you happy?”
“Have you—”
“Stop. I mean it.”
She shrugs her shoulders, but I can see her smirking at the excitement of asking me about the taboo. We’ll just stop there.
“Where are you from?”
“New Jersey. America.”
Count On Me Page 7