Four - Isabel
???
When I hadleft home, I hadn’t known what awaited me at Rose Castle. My father hadn’t told me much of anything. I had known that even in the best-case scenario, I’d be staying at least one night. Leort was the closest town to the duke’s home, and much of our size and prestige owed itself to our association with Truthhold, but it was still a full day’s walk. The town had been built based on geographic advantages, like the river that led into central Nemya. The castle had been built to take advantage of the node and the node only.
This was not a sought-after area to establish villages. There weren’t any rivers nearby, the land was rocky, and the dragons roosting in the Gaboor mountains made most people nervous—though they rarely ventured far from the jagged peaks of the mountains. Altogether, it meant that a journey to Rose Castle from Leort didn’t include any villages on the way.
Therefore, even with the magic pulling at me, I had taken the time to grab a heel of bread and a bit of sausage for my journey and pack a single change of clothes. I donned that clean outfit now, wondering what I’d do tomorrow. Perhaps I could clean the dust from the skirt I had worn the day before without ruining the fabric, but I didn’t have much confidence. I took my clothes to a laundry house back in Leort, and there were no maids to clean my dirty clothes here.
I laced up my bodice and sighed. Even if I could get my clothes clean and wrinkle free, I’d still look dingy compared to my surroundings. Not that my simple linen blouse and wool skirt and bodice weren’t respectable garments, the type found in the closet of any middle-class woman in Leort, but the guest suite was more than respectable.
I exited the bedroom and stopped short. I hadn’t given the sitting room much attention the night before. When the duke showed me the room, I had practically slammed the door in his face. Then I had collapsed against it as the hopelessness of my predicament had settled into my gut. Based on what His Grace had said, my father hadn’t even tried to negotiate any limits to my work for the duke. I hoped that, when I read the actual contract, I’d find something. If His Grace was stuck with me instead of Sofia, then maybe there were other instances of sloppy wordings I could exploit.
After I had recovered enough to straighten from the door, I had crossed the sitting room without really looking. I had noticed the tray of food, and been tempted by the bottle of wine, but in the end, I had decided that collapsing in bed would do me more good.
Now I inspected the room fully, my mouth gaping as I took it all in. While the bedroom had a certain sort of splendor, the sitting room was extravagant.
Damask chairs, spindly tables, and assorted ornaments made of gold, silver, and porcelain filled every inch. I looked down at my wool skirt, then up at the lace—lace!—curtains on the window. Who wasted yards of lace to make curtains? Who wanted curtains that did nothing to block the light?
The room made no sense. Even for a sitting room, it had too many seats. A dozen people could sit on the various settees and chairs. If they could get to them through the maze of tables. I must have been even more overwhelmed than I had realized last night not to notice the clutter. And luckier than I realized that I hadn’t tripped and broken my neck.
In a way, I felt better about my own clothes after studying the room. Even the queen’s finest gown would look inferior here. And even the shabbiest rags would look more tasteful.
My twin would be in raptures over the room, seeing each item as the expensive work of art it was and ignoring the disjointed design of the whole. Thinking of Sofia burned away the last of my wonder. I hadn’t even managed to leave a message for her before I left. She’d be worried sick by now.
I picked my way across the room, once more ignoring the silver tray balanced precariously on a skinny table between priceless knickknacks. It had changed from what I remembered the night before, the wine replaced with a pot of tea and several cups, the plate of food fresh.
My stomach grumbled, but I needed answers more than food. I planned to extract those answers from the duke no matter how much he tried to steer the conversation off topic. Even Chief Nassan admitted that no one could question a suspect as effectively as me.
???
I had noidea where to find a small cat in a large castle, so I began a systematic check. More guest rooms lined both sides of my hall. The suites on either side of mine had similar spacious dimensions made smaller by over-furnishing. On the interior side of the hall, smaller bedrooms filled the space and, if anything, held even more furniture.
I closed the final door of this the hall and turned the corner, nearly stepping on the duke’s tail.
He twitched it out of the way at the last moment, while I teetered on one foot, trying not to step on a peer of the realm. The ridiculousness of the situation hit me, and I had to bite my lip, much as I had the night before, not to laugh at the duke. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to try to scratch him under his chin or scoop him in my arms before I remembered who he was. He was such a . . . floof.
Then he spoke, that incongruously deep voice and bored drawl reminding me that he was not cuddly in the least. “Looking for something?”
“If I were, I’m certain it is in one of these rooms. Not that I’d ever find it. Do your guests generally like tripping over something with every step?”
His whiskers vibrated. “It makes them feel important.”
“It annoys me.”
“Hmm, then you must not be important, Miss Cardh.”
I snorted. “Or I recognize my own importance and therefore don’t need five ormolu clocks to bolster my ego.”
One black ear twitched. “Five?”
I pointed at the offending room. “Two on the mantle, two more on side tables, and one on the windowsill.”
“You can always change rooms if yours doesn’t have enough clocks.”
I gave the duke a look that made most men stammer and make their excuses as quickly as possible. It was more fun that way than pointing out that I wasn’t my twin and watching them flee just as quickly.
The duke was either made of sterner stuff than the men of Leort or he had a warped sense of humor. He chuckled. “Seriously, then. Were you looking for anything in particular?”
“Not anymore. I have a few questions for you.”
“Right now? It is barely past sunrise. I haven’t even had breakfast.” He unwrapped his fluffy tail from around his paws and rose, sauntering down the hall I had just come from.
I followed him back to the stairs he had led me up the night before. “Then why are you out wandering the halls?”
“To discover why you had decided to poke your nose in every room.”
“You knew what I was doing?”
He glanced back at me. “Are these really the questions you wanted to ask?”
“Not originally, but I don’t put a limit on the number of questions I ask. Every answer can help, and I never know which questions will turn out to be the critical ones, Your Grace.”
“I didn’t arrange for a mage to come to my home so she could badger me with questions. You are supposed to use your power to break my curse.”
I let him get several steps in front of me before following him down the stairs. “If I’m to have any chance of success, I need more information. So, I will start by asking questions.”
“Fine.” The duke sighed as he led the way to the nearest door. “But I want to at least get some breakfast while you pester me.”
The door stood slightly ajar, and he slipped inside without waiting for a response. I pushed the door open wider and saw a surprisingly simple dining room. The duke was already halfway to the far end of the table. As I watched, he reached the end and hopped up in front of the chair placed at the head of the table. He nodded at the chair to his right.
I glanced at the seven other seats, but saw no reason not to take the chair he had indicated. I sat down, then jumped when a bowl of porridge materialized in front of the duke. Concentrating, I heard the chime of node power when he twitched his paw and a pot of tea with four cups appeared next.
The duke narrowed his eyes at the empty cups. “I can call a full mug for myself no problem, but if I want a pot, the cups come empty.”
I reached for the teapot and poured two cups. I remembered the four cups on the tray in my sitting room. “I take it you can’t change the number of cups that come with the pot, either?”
“No. A pot of tea comes with four cups.”
I pushed one full teacup toward the duke.
“Thank you, Miss Cardh.”
The duke lapped at his breakfast, and I felt another bubble of laughter rising up. I needed somewhere else to look while I questioned him. I propped one elbow on the table, resting my chin in my hand. “Do you usually dine in front of your guests—and I use that word in the loosest definition possible—without offering them anything more than tea?”
He lifted his head, a bit of porridge in the fur around his mouth. “Couldn’t hold off on your questions long enough to enjoy your own breakfast, I take it?”
“Or maybe I couldn’t find a path to the tray through all the clutter.”
“Clutter! Only worthless items are clutter. My guest rooms are decorated with priceless ornaments.”
I concentrated, catching the quick succession of node magics that rang out as the duke called in toast, fruit, a second bowl of porridge, and two types of juice. I lifted a slice of toast. “Junk.”
“Antiques.”
“Do you even know what is in the guest rooms?”
His ear twitched. “Not a clue.”
I almost smiled. Catching myself, I instead took a large bite of the toast. The duke held me at his castle under duress. I shouldn’t enjoy bantering with him.
The toast was delicious, golden brown and dripping with butter. The fruits were sweet and juicy. I took a few minutes to focus on my breakfast. And all the reasons I hated the duke. Once I reinforced my opinion of him as a selfish ass, I resumed my quest to get answers.
“You said ‘she’ last night.” I poured myself a second cup of tea. “Who is the woman who cursed you?”
“Lady Cecily of Finley. The baron’s youngest child.”
I only had the vaguest knowledge of geography outside Leort’s immediate environs. I could find the capital city of Haiwella and a few other towns on a map, but I had no idea where Finley was. Not that it mattered.
“How do you know Lady Cecily?”
“She stayed at Rose Castle for about a month this past spring.”
“And what was her purpose here?” It required all my training with the constables to keep my expression mild. I hadn’t expected to drag the entire story out question by question. Usually, I let suspects ramble for a while, then asked clarifying questions based on what they had already revealed. Most people wanted to talk. Even the guilty ones tended to say too much, thinking their lies were better than silence.
The duke had no difficulty keeping his answers short. “To become the next Duchess of Truthhold, naturally.”
“Naturally.” I mimicked the duke’s drawl. “She stayed for an entire month. Was she close to achieving her aim, oblivious, or obstinate?”
“Misguided.”
I clenched my jaw. “In what way?”
“She was under the impression that worming her way into my bed meant a betrothal was on the way.”
“Did you send her away at the end of the month, or did she come to her senses and flee?” As a constable, I would never ask the question in such a way, but I wasn’t here as a constable. Besides, I couldn’t help myself.
The duke ignored my phrasing. “I devoted considerable effort to convincing her that a betrothal was not in our future and she finally chose to leave.”
“What was her mood upon departure?”
“Well, she came back a month later and cursed me, so probably not positive.”
I took a deep breath and imagined Frederic, my mentor among the constables, was standing at my side. He questioned people without the aid of truth-reading all the time. I could handle this. “I meant her immediate reaction, Your Grace. How did Lady Cecily react when she realized you had no intention of marrying her?”
He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “She understandably spiraled into the blackest of depressions upon learning she could not have me.”
I pushed away from the table and paced toward the far end. If the duke answered my questions seriously, that might be one thing, but as it was, I needed my power to sift through his answers. It was more than a matter of differentiating truths from lies. Especially when I couldn’t even rely on body language to judge the nuances.
“This is pointless,” I complained when I turned back to face the duke. “I can’t learn anything from you without my power.”
The duke joined me, his soft paws silent on the table’s surface. “I’m answering your questions, aren’t I? Even though they have nothing to do with the actual curse. What more do you want, Miss Cardh?”
“I want to know if you are telling the truth.” I spun to face him. “Though an enchantment prevents me from lying while at Rose Castle, I know you can. You did it last night.”
“Indeed. I have an exceptionally strong affinity to the node, and I am immune to even its spells—unless I sign a contract or someone curses me. However, I am not lying to you about Cecily. I don’t understand the point of your questions, but I will not ruin whatever slim chance there is that my answers help you break the curse.”
“Truth isn’t black and white, Your Grace.” I paced back up the room, the duke staying by my side as he walked over the table. “I’m used to hearing more than simply if a person is lying to me. I can tell when a statement is one truth meant to distract from another, or when an uncomfortable truth is hidden behind a sarcastic comment. My power is far more subtle than your node’s interpretation of the truth. Nor am I na?ve enough to believe that you couldn’t manage to twist words around in such a way as to lie to me even if you were subjected to the truth-telling enchantment.”
“How cynical you are, Miss Cardh.”
“Realistic.”
“Realistically, then, it is in my best interest to be honest with you. I’ll admit, habit might prevent me from speaking the whole truth, but all you need to do is prompt me. Or ask if you think I am shading the truth somehow.”
“And the sarcasm?”
The duke lifted a paw, grooming his whiskers. “That, you’ll have to deal with. However, since I doubt you’ll have any hesitation in simply asking me the same thing over and over, I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“Fine.” I pulled out the nearest chair and sat down. “Tell me exactly how Lady Cecily reacted when she discovered you wouldn’t marry her.”
“She called me a heartless monster, told me she never wanted to see me again, then hid in her rooms until she departed for Finley the next morning.”
“No threats?”
“None. She sounded more upset that I had ‘led her on,’ as she put it, than that I didn’t want to marry her. She felt she had wasted a month.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did you lead her on?”
“Depends on your perspective.”
My fingers curled into my palm, my nails pressing against the skin hard enough to leave marks. “Now would be one of those times I want the whole truth, Your Grace.”
He sank down on the table, stretched out in front of me. His black fur contrasted starkly with the pale wood. “I did not intentionally lead her on. There was an understanding when I invited her to Rose Castle that I might be evaluating her as a prospective bride, but I tried to make it clear early on that I had reconsidered that idea.”
“But you still slept with her.”
The duke sighed. “I thought I had made my position clear by the time she sought out my bed. I thought we both understood it was a physical relationship and nothing more.”
“Well, now I at least understand her motive.” I still wished I could hear the truth of the duke’s statements with my magic so I could judge how much of what he said was fact and how much wishful thinking. In this case, though, it didn’t truly matter, for it was obvious Cecily hadn’t shared his opinion. Now it was time to focus on the next aspect of my investigation. “How did she power the curse?”
“If I knew the answer to that, you wouldn’t be here.”
“Why don’t we pretend for a minute that I know nothing about Lady Cecily or what happened? Anything you tell me, therefore, will be a surprise, even if it is obvious to you. Oh wait, we don’t have to pretend; it’s the truth!”
“Sarcasm, Miss Cardh? Isn’t that beneath you?”
“If you get to be sarcastic, then so do I. Deal with it. Now, walk me through exactly what happened when she cursed you.”
To my surprise, he did. Duke Felix recounted the entire event without the need for prompting. He even included a wealth of details, such as exact locations and tones of voice. Not that I believed his interpretations to be fact, but it was much better than nothing.
“What were the exact words of the curse?” I asked when he finished.
“I’m not positive. Something about being a beast and showing my true nature. She also said that I would stay cursed until someone fell in love with me while I’m a beast, I think.” His tail swished back and forth over the polished table. “I did my best to remember the exact wording after I recovered from the transformation. The secretary who stayed to help me wrote it down. I’ll have Marc copy it over for you, along with the contract your father signed, but I doubt it will be exact.”
I didn’t have the faintest idea how I would—or even could—go about breaking the curse, but at least I knew my immediate next step. “Where do I find Marc?”
“At this hour? Probably still in bed.” He rose to all fours. “Why don’t you take the morning to get settled? I’ll introduce you to Marc at the midday meal. We eat at noon in this room.”