Despite everything else that was happening, her curiosity was piqued. Why was Vespus out of favour with Melisia? Was it a new development, or an older resentment?
Sorrow looked for the baron, only to see him standing with Eirlys and Rasmus in the far corner of the room. Both Rasmus and the princess were dressed in metallic finery; Princess Eirlys in a gown of gold and Rasmus in a frock coat of silver, over midnight-blue trousers.
As though he felt her gaze, he turned, his violet eyes meeting her dark ones across the room. Sorrow looked away first.
Heart sore and alone, she left her post in the shadows and moved towards where a buffet was being served by Rhyllian chefs and began to fill a plate, noting with little interest that florals and botanicals were the theme of the meal. Cream soups in tiny glass tureens topped with purple and yellow blossoms. Salads made from a mixture of leaves and blooms, breads with herbs and seeds baked through. Slices of rare beef with rosehip sauce, minced lamb and rosemary wrapped in vine leaves. And the desserts … lavender and lemon cakes, rose and pistachio pudding, geranium ices melting in pools of liquid hot chocolate…
She took her plate and retreated again, trying a little of this and that, finishing the lot without meaning to. She hadn’t known she was hungry. Rhyllian food seemed to do that to her.
It was as she licked the last of the lavender syrup from her fingers that she became aware of eyes on her, and knew before she looked up that it was Rasmus.
He was alone, leaning against the wall, the leaves behind him curling around his body, as though they knew him. Her heart gave a thump, and she stilled with the instinct of something knowing it was being hunted. Slowly, she rose, leaving her plate, skirting around the table and moving towards the back of the room, her pulse speeding as she did.
Rasmus followed.
A Personal Eden
He kept to the other side of the hall, stalking her along its length, his eyes never moving from her. When she paused to exchange greetings with someone, he waited. As soon as she moved again he did too, matching his pace to hers.
Sorrow’s heart thrummed in her chest. What was he doing? Why was he doing it? Starwater, she assumed, it had to be. He’d drunk the liqueur again and it had made him reckless. But how reckless? Did he plan to confront her, in front of his family, and their guests? Or perhaps he was trying to intimidate her, remind her this was his place.
She weaved through the dancers, but her dress made her feel like a target, and she knew he was still there, waiting for her to emerge. As she freed herself from a twirl Fain Darcia had drawn her into, there he was, lips slightly parted, eyes unblinking.
Enough, she decided. She didn’t need this, not today.
She glanced around and spied the bubbling pool she’d heard earlier, hidden away behind a trailing curtain of ivy. She looked at Rasmus and jerked her head towards it, before making her way over, disappearing behind the greenery.
A moment later he joined her.
“What are you doing?” She went on the attack immediately. “You made your thoughts about me perfectly clear. I’ve been trying to stay out of your way.”
He fixed her with glittering eyes. “People think it’s strange we don’t talk. They’re speculating we fought, and that’s the real reason I left Rhannon.”
“If you wanted to avoid rumours, you should have spoken to me openly, not hunted me across the hall.”
“That’s not what I want.” His voice was low, his expression searching as he looked her up and down, scanning the dress that now felt too flimsy.
“Then what?” She forced the words out through a mouth suddenly as dry as Astria.
“I was…” He turned away, walking to the other side of the pool. “I spoke to Irris earlier, after the Naming. She asked if I’d spoken to you and I confessed I had. And not very well. My behaviour two nights ago was hideous. I was hideous. The Starwater…” He trailed off. “Clichéd to say ‘I was drunk’, but it’s not totally a lie.”
“Are you apologizing because Irris told you to?”
“She told me to leave you alone, actually. But I can’t. Not until I’ve apologized. So, on that note, I shouldn’t have spoken to you as I did. I was drunk, and childish. I beg your forgiveness.”
Sorrow left it a beat before she replied. “I understand why you acted like you did.”
“That doesn’t make it right, and I’m sorry,” he said, emphasizing the Rhannish word. “Especially for my parting shot. That was low, and untrue.”
“It was,” Sorrow agreed.
Rasmus lowered his head, and Sorrow walked around the pool to face him.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. For not telling you straight away when I knew what was going to happen. I should have. I owed you that. And I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, when you asked me to. I think I knew how it was going to go, and I knew if we spoke I’d have to say something then. It was cowardly, and you deserved better.”
He was silent for a long moment. “Forgiven, then?”
Sorrow held out a hand and he took it.
The second his fingers wrapped around hers she knew what she wanted. Needed. He could fill the chasm that was threatening to split her in two; hadn’t he always been able to distract her, to soothe her? Heal her?
Her eyes locked with his, and then they were moving, as if they’d planned it that way all along: Sorrow reaching up as Rasmus bent down, their lips finding each other’s as though they’d never known anywhere else.
He moved her back, back against the wall, and the leaves welcomed her, welcomed them both as he kissed her.
Their hands returned to those places they knew so well, falling back into a rhythm that was part dance, part homecoming: hers in his hair, cupping his face, his at her waist, pulling her flush against him, her skin humming under his touch. He moaned when she pressed into him, breaking the kiss to lick her throat, grazing his teeth over her collarbone as she let her head fall back and her eyes flutter closed.
A loud laugh nearby forced them apart, the jewel-coloured birds above them twittering loudly as they flew away. Rasmus’s eyes were glazed, his face flushed. They looked at each other for a long moment.
“That was foolish,” Sorrow said. “If we’d—”
“Leave. Leave the ball.” His voice was whisky-rough and rich. “Follow me.”
Sorrow nodded.
He tore a handful of leaves from the ivy and left her. She crouched down, splashing her face with the cool crystal water. She couldn’t go. She shouldn’t go.
She went.
She was blind to the rest of the party as she made her way after him, and this time no one stopped her, as though they couldn’t see her either. Within minutes she’d left the indoor garden behind, stepping out in the cooler air of the corridor. Two guards nodded to her as she passed, and she inclined her head, wondering where Rasmus had gone.