Chapter 21 #3
The balcony in her room had a view of the gardens, but only a partial one, and this section of it was new to her.
Straight ahead, a hedge loomed at least eight feet tall, some sort of evergreen shrub, boxwood maybe.
To the left and right, grass pathways stretched.
Toward a rose arbor to the left, a long and intricate one of iron, the new canes green and curved, not yet budded for summer.
To the right, the path became gravel, and opened up, she could tell, onto a lawn mostly hidden from view by the hedges.
She heard the musical splash of water, and the twitter of birdsong.
She folded her hands together and called, “Your grace? Prince Lucius?” She didn’t want to see him, but neither did she want to appear tardy because he was.
A quick rustle heralded Lucius’s sudden appearance on the path. He melted out of the hedge, from a ‘til-now hidden opening, and Tessa gasped in surprise before she could catch herself.
He froze mid-step, his eyes widening, as though he was surprised, too.
Tessa forced her hand down, from where it had flown to cover her mouth, and managed a tremulous smile. “H-hello, your grace. What a lovely morning. Are you well?” She gripped her skirts and curtsied.
When she straightened, she found him staring at her, brows lifted, fingers twitching at his sides. She was reminded of a deer on a frosty morning, startled to encounter a human on the game trail, ready to flee.
Anger spiked hot and fortifying in Tessa’s belly. Here she was, held captive, told she was to marry this prince against her will, and he was the one who looked like he wanted to run away. How dare he?
“Hello,” he said, stiffly. He bowed, and it was an awkward jerking motion.
As quickly as her anger flared, it dimmed, giving way to hopeless melancholy. He hadn’t chosen to bring her here, and force her into matrimony, just like he hadn’t had a choice in father. This was Romanus’s fault, all of it. Lucius was just as much a pawn in the emperor’s scheme as her.
She sighed, and said, “Did you want to go for a walk, your grace?”
“Er…yes. Yes. Let us…do that.” Belatedly, he snapped his heels together and offered his elbow in a stiff attempt at chivalry.
Tessa would have rather jumped through the hedge with no clothes on, but rested her hand inside the triangle of his bent arm, and fell into step beside him as he headed down the grass path toward the sound of tumbling water.
She noted the little things. The slippery silk weave of his sleeve beneath her hand, and beneath it, the thin, unschooled muscle of his arm. The floral undernotes of his soap. His height, the way he was only half-a-head taller than her. The light treads of his soft-soled moccasins across the grass.
The way he was nothing at all like Rune, and the way that made her throat ache with unshed tears because she missed her husband terribly.
The path opened, as she’d thought it would, to a broad, hedge-lined lawn where a tall fountain of cast bronze gleamed in the sunlight.
It was rendered in the shape of a nude man holding a jar overhead, and water spilled from its lip to splash down into the pool at his feet.
Benches lined the hedgerows, and tall urns held topiaries trimmed in the shapes of serpents.
The leaves of the ivy were just emerging for spring, and the ends of the stems were still pale and new-cut; whatever the topiaries had resembled before, the emperor had had them trimmed into his own house sigil.
With the barest pressure, elbow drifting closer into her space so that she stepped sideways to avoid further contact, Lucius steered her around the fountain and down another path, this one paved with artfully irregular fieldstones.
At its edges, the first tender shoots of snowdrops peeked through the winter-brown lawn.
Tessa didn’t want to speak to him, but since he loathed this arrangement as much as she did, it might be wise to develop at least a passable rapport. If they could unite in their distaste for their circumstances, they might be able to avoid the future the emperor planned.
(A childish hope, she knew, but her only one at the moment.)
She took a deep breath and forced a cheerful tone. “I’ve always enjoyed gardens. For the longest time I’ve thought my mother’s were the most beautiful, but I always longed to see the gardens here at the capital. There are rooms to it.”
As she said this, one such room opened to their right. This one was a broad square of gravel arranged in perfect, smaller, alternating squares. It resembled a gaming table.
They walked past it.
Lucious offered a noncommittal humming sound, but nothing in the way of conversation.
She would have to be bolder. Damn him. “What are the gardens like in Seles?”
The toe of his slipper scuffed on his next stride, which meant he’d definitely understood the question, and definitely experienced a physical reaction. Hopefully a negative one. “They are…um. I don’t spend much time out of doors.”
She glanced over at him as they strolled, and saw him blushing; his pale, Selesee complexion meant the spots of pink high on his cheeks looked bright as cherries by contrast.
“No,” she said, “you don’t look as though you do. Your hands are very soft.”
His blush intensified, and his brow furrowed as he frowned.
“You remind me of my cousin, Oliver. Your nephew, I suppose.” That was never not going to sound strange enough to make her ill.
“He, of course was sickly, the way he is now. He was forced to spend most of his afternoons indoors, reading. Do you enjoy reading? Do you have novels in Seles? Or is it only dull history tomes?”
He came to an abrupt halt, and slipped out of her grip; for her part, she didn’t try to hold on.
He pivoted around so he stood in front of her, heels clicking smartly together, spine ramrod straight. “My lady.” His face was set in firm lines, but his eyes were white-rimmed. Panicked. “Why are you asking me these sorts of questions?”
Encouraged, Tessa linked her hands together and pushed her shoulders back in a pose her mother had wielded like a weapon against men for all of Tessa’s life.
“Prince Lucius, correct me if I’m overstepping”—another of her mother’s tricks—“but I believe that both of us would like to find a way to avoid our nuptials.”
His eyes widened another wild fraction. “You—” He stepped forward, suddenly, and Tessa tensed, blinked, anticipating a strike, but she refused to shrink away from him.
He didn’t strike her. Instead, he leaned in close to her face, until she could smell fresh sweat beneath the pomades and powders. Lips barely moving, he hissed, “You can’t say that out loud. Anyone might be listening.”
“Are they? Listening?”
He darted glances over each shoulder. “I don’t know. My father—” He bit his lip until it turned even whiter.
Tessa laid a hand on his arm, and he flinched, but then settled, as though, like her, he was making a concerted effort not to recoil. “Your father is very powerful,” she said, with genuine sympathy. “I don’t know anything about his magic, but surely you must.” She squeezed his arm, encouraging.
He shook his head. “I don’t—I have no magic. None. That’s why he wants us to…” He couldn’t say it. Gulped and gestured between them.
“Why he wants us to have children?”
He stared at her, red-nosed and miserable.
“Come with me, Lucius.” He didn’t react to the lack of his title, and went easy as a lamb when she relinked their arms and towed him farther down the garden path.
Tessa didn’t know the layout of the gardens, but thought it unlikely they’d get truly lost. She turned around one hedge, and then turned them again, again, until they arrived at another fountain.
This one was six ornate copper tears, stained blue where the water poured over its fluted edges, the pool at its base full of shifting lily pads, and, she noted with a glance, huge goldfish swimming in lazy arcs.
She took them to the stone lip of the pool, and sat, pulling Lucius down beside her when he frowned at her in puzzlement. She leaned in close and said, “Maybe the sound of the water will cover our voices.”
“Maybe,” he said, in a miserable voice. “But he can do all sorts of things. Things we can’t even imagine.”
“Yes, well.” An idea occurred. “Look at me. At my face.” Can you read my lips? she mouthed the last without sound.
His brows flew up. Yes, he mouthed back, and then smiled.
Good. Let’s formulate a plan.
~*~
Amelia woke to a pounding on her chamber door, only to realize the pounding was in fact inside her head. She groaned, and pressed an arm over her eyes after a failed attempt to open them almost blinded her.
“It’s time to get up, my lady,” a brisk, female voice said. Far too loudly.
Amelia rolled over onto her side, facing the wall rather than the windows, and her stomach rolled, too.
She swallowed and breathed shallowly through her mouth, willing her gorge to settle.
She couldn’t remember how many cups of wine she’d had, but it had been far too many, regardless.
The night was a too-warm smear in her memory, the lights swimming, Cassius’s face appearing above hers, again and again, cup refilled, the concern writ clear in his pale eyes.
Soft footfalls approached the bed. “My lady,” the slave repeated.
A much more welcome voice said, “I’ll tend to Lady Amelia.” Cassius.
“She needs a bath,” the female slave said, outright snappish with him. “And to dress. The physician is expecting her in an hour.”
“I’ll see that she arrives at his chambers on schedule.”
Amelia envisioned a stare-down.
Finally, the slave said, “Very well.” More footfalls, these retreating, and then the door opened and closed.
It was quiet, then, save the too-loud crackle of the fire, the excruciating twitter of birds outside, and the roar of her own pulse inside her head. The mattress dipped behind her. In a soft voice, Cassius said her name. “Amelia? Are you well?”
“Urgh. No,” she croaked, but rolled back over and slitted her eyes open a fraction.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, and when she rolled, it put her close to him—very close. Their hips nearly touched.
She wasn’t sure why, but she liked that idea. It must have been the hangover.
He blushed, just as he had last night, the delicate pink of a seashell suffusing his sharp cheekbones. But he remained sitting, and then offered her his hand, palm up and open and clean. And inviting, somehow.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
“Probably not well,” she said. “But if you’ll help me…”
“Of course.”
She placed her trembling hand in his, and his fingers closed around hers, cool and grounding.
She was wobbly, queasy, and the headache would plague her all day, she knew, but Cassius fetched her a cup of wine, and that helped.
As did his arm, strong and steadying around her waist as she made her way toward the steaming tub.
When they reached it, he withdrew his arm, but touched her elbow. “I can…” His blush deepened.
“I can manage. Turn around, please.”
He did so, quickly, hands linked behind his back like a soldier at rest.
Smiling to herself, she shed her robe and gown and slid down into the hot water.
“Should I, ah.” He cleared his throat. “Fetch someone to help you wash your back?”
“Gods no. I’m more than capable of bathing myself.”
“Very well.” She thought he sounded relieved.
She reached for the soap, and Cassius said, “I did some more reconnaissance this morning while you were still asleep.”
“You sound eager.”
“I am. Or, well. I think what I learned might be beneficial for us.”
Us. She realized, despite the pounding head, the woozy weakness, that she was smiling again. He wasn’t looking at her, so she soaped up her arms and didn’t try to rearrange her expression.
“It’s about Prince Marcellus. Apparently, he enjoys his wine.”
She snorted. “Don’t we all?”
“Well.” His tone suggested he was smiling, too. “He likes his quite a lot. And apparently, he needs it for courage when he’s bedding a woman.”
“Oh?” She didn’t know where this was headed, but her pulse accelerated. Excitement, rather than dread.
“Yes. And I was able to procure a special sort of powder.”
“Special, you say?”
“Yes. Let’s say that, with its use, our next obstacle will be the emperor’s suspicion when you don’t quicken with his grandchild.”