Crunching footsteps on the gravel path shot through her ears like cannon fire. Una pulled her hand from Gervais’s and spun about to see Prince Aethelbald striding up the garden path. He saw them at the same moment and paused. A sharp expression flashed across his face, then vanished the next moment behind a complete mask. He bowed and went on his way without a word, disappearing around a bend in the path.
Una backed away from Gervais and curtsied. “Thank you, prince, for . . . the lovely song,” she said, then turned and all but ran from the garden, clutching her skirts in both hands.
“Oh dear,” she whispered as she retreated, wishing her thudding heart would ease. She glanced back and saw Gervais shoulder his lute and walk from the clematis arbor. “I think I’m in love – Oh, dragon’s teeth!”
With that unladylike phrase she landed in a heap on the garden path. In her flight she had not watched where she went and failed to see Aethelbald when he stepped out in front of her.
“Princess Una,” he said, offering her a hand, “are you all right? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Really, the blotches had earned a holiday for all the extra time they’d been putting in these days! She refused Aethelbald’s proffered hand and scrambled to her feet on her own, brushing gravel from the back of her skirts. “Sneaking up on people,” she snapped. “Really, sir, there are proprieties to maintain!”
“I was standing in plain sight.”
“It couldn’t have been that plain since I didn’t see you!”
“You might have seen me had you been looking where you went.”
“I was looking where I went right up until I stopped . . . looking. . . .” She crossed her arms, then uncrossed them because Nurse said that princesses should never cross their arms. But then she didn’t know what to do with them, so she crossed them again. “What do you want?”
Was he smiling at her? Did his rudeness know no bounds?
“Princess Una,” he said, “I merely wish to inquire after your hands.”
She glared at him. “My what?”
“Your hands.”
He reached out and, much to her surprise, took one of her hands. Too taken aback to know how to react, she watched as he turned it palm up and drew it closer to his face for inspection. His smile was gone now, replaced by a solemn expression. She stood, mouth agape, watching him study her fingers and desperately trying to remember what was considered a seemly response to this sort of situation. None of the etiquette books Nurse had shoved in her face had covered spontaneous hand inspection.
At last Aethelbald raised his gaze to meet hers. “You are badly burned,” he said.
She drew her hand back and studied her fingers herself. There wasn’t a mark to be seen. “I’m not.”
“I see what you cannot,” he replied. She looked up to meet his gaze again. His eyes were dark, flecked with gold about the edges. And somehow, as she looked at them, she felt as though they weren’t quite human. All the wildness of the Twelve-Year Market, the breath of great distances, and the smell of the sky lay hidden in that gaze. For just a moment Una believed him.
“Will you allow me to tend to your hurts?” he asked.
The moment passed.
“You have plenty of nerve, Prince Aethelbald.” It didn’t come out as regally as she had hoped. In fact, she thought she sounded like Nurse, which galled her. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to achieve by ordering me around so!”
“Ordering you around – ”
“First bursting in on me at the market!”
“Bursting in – ”
“Then embarrassing me in front of the whole court!”
“Princess, I – ”
“And now all this rot about invisible injuries and interrupting Prince Gervais as he and I don’t see what business it is of I can do what I like and I think you’re simply and that’s that!”
Una paused there, wondering if what she’d just said had made a lick of sense. Judging from Prince Aethelbald’s face, it hadn’t. “Well, now you know,” she finished, and took fistfuls of her skirts, preparing to sweep grandly past him.
But he sidestepped to block her way. “Princess,” he said gently, “please believe me when I say that I care for you and am only concerned for your well-being.”
“You can stop concerning yourself. My being is well enough, thank you. Good morning.”
To her relief, he let her go. She crunched on up the path to the palace, telling herself that she wouldn’t look back. Heaven help her, she would not turn around to see whether or not he was still watching her!
But she did.
And he was.
Grinding her teeth, Una fled to her chambers, determined never to leave them again.
8
Trailing attendants behind, Felix hunted for Aethelbald in the practice yard. He saw the Prince of Farthestshore standing near the barracks, talking to one of his knights. His wooden sword slapping against his leg as he ran, the boy hurried across the yard. As he drew near, he realized that the knight standing before Aethelbald was not one of the three he remembered seeing at the banquet hall a few evenings ago. This one was tall and slender, with hair as golden as a dandelion. He turned as Felix neared, and the young prince came to a halt in surprise.