UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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The next day, the King decided that he wanted to go hunting, and he must have all his favorite people with him, including his beloved son Armand. So they had to get up barely past dawn and join a seething crowd of people, horses, and dogs that spent most of the morning ranging through the grounds.
Rachelle hated every moment of it. The evening before, Erec had come to tease her and ask why she had needed to take a saint into a wine cellar, followed by a torrent of clever insinuations that she couldn’t even decipher, so all she could do was glare at him in silence. Afterward, once the hallways were dark and empty, she had dragged Armand out to explore the Chateau again. But they had no direction, so they wandered for hours without learning anything. When Armand started leaning against the wall and dozing off whenever she stopped to examine a room, she had to give up for the night.
Now she was trapped again, playing the court’s wearisome game. And she hated it. She hated the sunlight pounding into her eyes. She hated the laughing, chattering nobles who thought the sunlight would last forever. She hated Erec, who kept smirking at her.
Most of all, she hated Armand, because she had really believed that his idea about the library and the wine cellar might work.
Worse: she couldn’t stop seeing him.
She was supposed to watch him. But now she kept noticing every detail: his embroidered cuffs shifting against his silver wrists. The sliver of pale throat visible above his collar. The peculiar way he planted himself when he stood, as if bracing for a heavy wind. Even sitting on a horse, his shoulders had the same stubborn set.
He still smiled at the lords and ladies who talked to him, but now there was something wry to the expression. Sometimes he would draw out a word a little longer or clip it off a little shorter than she had expected, as if a bit of his thoughts had bled through. As if his thoughts were something separate and lonely that had no place in the role he was playing.
At noon, there were pavilions and a baskets of food and jugs of wine. The day had grown hot, so it was a relief to sit down in the shade; Rachelle overheard several ladies complaining about the heat and then giggling as they loudly wished that there really would be an Endless Night.
La Fontaine drew Armand away to sit with her and the King, and Rachelle would have followed, but somebody grabbed her shoulder.
There was an instant where she nearly drew her sword. Then she turned, and there was Vincent Angevin.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I just wanted to meet you. Won’t you sit down with me?”
Everyone was sitting down around them. Rachelle supposed that the next hour was going to be horrible no matter what, so she sat down next to him on one of the rugs that the servants had thrown down.
“Tell me, is it very boring to guard my cousin all day long?” he asked.
“Not as boring as I’d like,” she said. “Especially with the assassins that keep attacking.”
Vincent didn’t seem the slightest bit disturbed by her remark. “Poor Armand,” he sighed. “Nobody ever liked him much. Except Raoul, who never could stop feeling sorry for the oddest people.”
“I don’t like you much,” said Rachelle, and instantly regretted being so blunt.
Vincent grinned. “You’re so pretty when you’re resentful,” he said, and pinched her cheek.
Nobody had pinched her cheek since she was ten. For one moment, she couldn’t believe it had happened, until the pair of ladies sitting nearby started giggling. Vincent’s eyes were crinkled up with laughter.
“If you could see your face,” he said, in a genial voice that invited all the world to laugh with him.
Rachelle gave him her most balefully blank look. “I’m a murderer. Do you really think you ought to upset me?”
“But that’s what makes it so exciting. Will she kiss me or will she kill me—I think every man secretly wants to play that game.”
But she couldn’t kill him, any more than she could have refused to accompany Armand on the hunt. She had to keep pretending she was a part of this court. She had to keep playing their game, and there was only one role for her.
The nearby ladies were giggling again, no doubt delighted that they got to watch Vincent Angevin make a conquest of a bloodbound.
Her face burned. She thought: You murdered your own aunt. Do you really deserve dignity?
Then one of his hands dropped to rest on her thigh.
“Excuse me,” said Armand, “but I need Mademoiselle Brinon right now.”
“You’ll have to wait your turn,” Vincent started, but Armand was already sitting beside Rachelle.
“The sunlight has given me a terrible headache,” he said. “May I rest my head in your lap?”