Chapter 18
The steaming water should have soothed her, but no matter how Ceridwen scrubbed, the feeling of Malik’s gaze or his hands on her could not be washed away. Her blood ran cold despite the wet warmth cocooning her in the tub.
Drystan had thrown Malik against the wall with more force than a man should be able to muster. Another reminder that even though they’d shared a kiss, he was a noble, different, and she was just her, a poor commoner living in a city at the edge of the kingdom. There could be nothing between them.
Lord Winterbourne ordered Jackoby and Kent to bring her back to her room while his cousin laughed at the mess of their dinner. The entire time, Drystan’s voice had been cold and callous. The previous night felt more like a dream or a tricky snow phantom than an event that had actually occurred.
When they’d come upon Gwen in the hallway, her eyes had widened, and a lightly wrinkled hand had moved to cover her gaping mouth. She hadn’t left Ceridwen alone since. Gwen said nothing of their guest but did her best to distract her charge with talk of clothes, plants, and tales of the capital.
“All of this was during the late king and queen’s reign?” Ceridwen asked in response to Gwen’s story—a happy one about the former monarchs and the prosperity they brought to the people.
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “Before that…well, those were dark times indeed. I still remember the constant worry and fear. Those times cannot return, no matter the cost.” An uncharacteristic sharpness clung to her words with a passionate fervor.
The dark king was dead. His grandson, the prince who’d fallen to his grandfather’s dark magic, was dead. But if two monarchs could fall to its embrace, what prevented the others?
“You worry about King Rhion. Could the darkness pervert him the way it did the prince?”
Silence reigned. The nonanswer was answer enough. She thought it could, and it worried her, where even the monster haunting this city did not. Ceridwen shivered, sending ripples through the water.
“My sister still lives in the capital with her family,” Gwen said at last. “She sends me letters from time to time. The stories out of the capital are not ones that anyone wants to hear.”
Elspeth had said the same, and Ceridwen had heard the rumors. Death. Whispers of dark magic. Not to mention the king’s erratic behavior of late. “Do they have a monster like ours?”
“Possibly several— Well, it’s hard to be certain. Rumors and all. And I should not have told you. Lord Winterbourne would not approve. But things are certainly dark indeed.”
More monsters like ours…worse ones?And what did the king do about it? The former monarchs would never have let this happen.
Taxes. Death. Dismissing his counsel. King Rhion was a plague on them all. Ceridwen took out her frustrations on the water, sloshing it dangerously close to the edges of the tub.
“Ceridwen.”
She snapped her head up at the sound of Gwen’s voice.
“This knowledge does not leave the manor. Some nobles do all they can to keep word from leaving the capital, and it cannot spread here. They’d find out where it came from.”
And that would be bad for all of them. Whatever the nobles had done, it had not been enough. The gossip had begun to spread before she’d come there. Ceridwen thought to mention it but nodded instead.
“Are you doing okay in there?”
“I’m fine.” Not at all. But the bath wouldn’t be what killed her. Drystan’s curt words, the monster, or Malik’s games would do that easily enough if they continued.
“Why don’t I go bring in a comfortable nightdress for you to change into? Oh, and I could fetch some rose water. That might do nicely to ease your worries. Or perhaps some hot tea? Yes, I think I’ll have some brought up with the tray.”
Gwen’s kindness eased the stiffness from Ceridwen’s shoulders where she hunched in the water, but her care would not be enough to heal her inner wounds. “Tea would be lovely,” Ceridwen said.
“Perfect.” Gwen rose from her perch and ventured toward the exit. Before she closed the door behind her, she turned back. “I’ll— Oh. One moment.” She called the last part out louder than usual. Someone must be at the door. Probably a maid with a dinner tray since this evening’s meal had been thoroughly ruined. “I’ll be back with your clothes,” she finished.
With effort, Ceridwen rose from the tub, gooseflesh breaking out over her skin from the cool air. A thick towel, so much finer than the worn, holey ones she had at home, embraced her body while she used a smaller one to rub the water out of her clean hair.
The oddity of having someone wait on her still sat uncomfortably, but Gwen had been determined, at least tonight, to make sure Ceridwen was well cared for. It reminded her so much of Bronwyn or Jaina tending to her when she’d been ill last spring that she did her best to enjoy it. At least this time, she wasn’t waiting for the Goddess to claim her, though there was a moment during dinner when she’d briefly considered asking her to.
Ceridwen expected a nightdress, but the outfit Gwen helped her into moments later was just as fine as the one she’d worn to dinner. The dress was lined cotton in pale blue and white, with dark-blue ribbons accenting the trim. A wearable cloud meant to comfort on this dark night. Another blue ribbon tied back her hair, which Gwen braided behind her head. It’d be wavy instead of its usual straight by the time it dried, but Ceridwen didn’t mind that a bit.
Her bare feet halted on the cool stone floor as soon as she entered the bedroom proper from the little bathing room. Drystan stood near the fire, his hands behind his back.
“Ceridwen,” he said, turning to her.
A thousand emotions flowed with one word, yet his face still remained stiff.
She flicked her gaze to Gwen, who’d come to her side, not bothering to hide the hurt and betrayal in her wide eyes and parted lips.
Gwen winced. “He asked me not to tell you.” Her gaze drifted to Drystan. “I’ll be going now.”
“Wait.” Please.
Gwen took one of Ceridwen’s hands in hers and gave it a little pat. “You’ll be fine. He’ll explain everything. Won’t you?” She cocked an eyebrow at Drystan on the question. From her tone, one would think she scolded a young schoolboy, not the lord of the manor.
He nodded, and Gwen gave one in return. “Good night, dear.”
Ceridwen’s toes curled against the stone as Gwen left, ruined dress in tow, and closed the heavy wooden door behind her. Tension filled the room, thick as porridge, but even that paled to the knot stuck in her throat.
“Please come have a seat,” Drystan said. He motioned to the chairs near the fire where two trays had been laid out on the low table between them, fully occupying the small table space.
When she didn’t move, he continued, “I’m sorry for what happened. For what had to be said and done.” He ran a hand through his hair, the icy calm of his face melting away to be replaced by something real and almost frantic. “I tried, yet in the end, I still failed.”
Her brows drew together. His words made no sense. He’d stopped his cousin…eventually. Though it stung that he hadn’t intervened earlier, that any of it had happened at all. Perhaps it was her curiosity or the genuine pain in his voice, but something drew Ceridwen across the room.
“Explain everything. Who is he? Why would he—” She balled her hands into fists. Goodness, the impropriety of it all. Maybe his cousin only meant to kiss her—a scandalous enough thing after she’d rejected him—but something about the way he had looked at her made his advances seem much more sinister. “Why did you…” She couldn’t put words into it. His indifference left her too raw, and another cut might just let her tears slip free, and she couldn’t allow that in front of him.
Drystan nodded and took a seat. He scrubbed his hands down his face before he finally began. “Malik is my cousin, as he said, though we are not close as some cousins may be.” His mouth worked in his jaw. “He’s come here before, but he did not write of his intent to visit this time.”
“You never planned to tell me about him?” she accused, keeping the high-backed chair between them and leaning on its back. The least he could have done was give her some warning about the monster of a man.
He ran his hand through his hair again, a few dark strands sticking out haphazardly in his wake. “I did not expect him to visit again, certainly not unannounced.”
As if that was some excuse. She dug her fingers into the fabric along the top of the chair. Too bad it wasn’t him they strangled instead.
Drystan’s gaze flicked from her face to her hands and back again before he slumped in the chair. With a sigh, he said, “I thought he’d dismiss your presence if he thought you were unimportant to me. I was wrong.”
Her brows arched skyward. “Is that supposed to be an apology?”
“Yes. I messed up. Miscalculated. And you paid the price for that.” His elbows rested on his thighs as he leaned forward once again, constantly wiggling in the chair. “We don’t have many guests here. I wasn’t prepared. Somewhere along the way, I became complacent, and that cannot happen. I never wanted to hurt you. And when he advanced on you…I couldn’t hold back, no matter what ruse I played.”
A ruse? Truly? So why did it still hurt so badly?
“Has he left?” Ceridwen asked.
“No.”
Her spine stiffened.The idea of locking herself in the bedroom became infinitely more appealing. “Will he be quite so…rude going forward?”
Drystan’s eyes locked with hers, solemn and resigned. “I have no idea what he will do now. But I believe he learned what he wanted to know, and he’ll find a way to use that against me.”
The girl is not nothing after all.
The words chased themselves through Ceridwen’s mind. A thread of heat wormed its way into the icy chill surrounding her heart. “He wanted to know what I meant to you.”
Drystan nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving her face. The intensity of his cool blue gaze nearly stole her breath.
On silent feet, she rounded the chair and sat in its cushioned embrace, staring at Drystan across the still steaming plates of food. The rich scents had yet to stir her hunger around the knots of anxiety twisting there.
“And what am I to you?”
Her heart clenched as she waited for his response, braced for more pain and indifference.
“More than I expected, and more than I ever wanted him to know.”
The tourniquet around her heart loosened, sending heat flooding through her body. Though not the words she secretly wished for, they were so much more than the terrible callousness she’d feared. Truthfully, it was much more than she should dare hope for, given their difference in status, to say nothing of her family’s poverty.
Drystan rose with a slight groan to stand in front of the fire. The flames highlighted the dark material of his overcoat. “Malik may be here for some time,” he said into the fire before turning to her.
“You cannot send him away?”
“Unfortunately not. No.” His back stiffened. “He outranks me, my cousin, and doing so would only draw his suspicions further.” One hand clenched into a fist at his side.
“He outranks you, yet he wished me to call him simply Malik?” It wasn’t done. Nobles loved their titles more than the gold in their pockets, and that they all but worshiped, or so some said.
Drystan scrubbed a hand down his face. “He’s not one for manners or propriety, as you observed. Quite the opposite, really.”
It was a wonder such a reputation hadn’t preceded him there, though perhaps not since Teneboure was so out of favor with the nobility. She wiggled in the chair. “And you said you are not on good terms, so why is he here?”
“To keep an eye on me and make sure I do not step out of line.”
Another answer that fueled more questions. “What does he think you may do?”
“Ceridwen…”
Her lips thinned as she stared him down. She’d been pulled into this mess, intentionally or not. The least he could do was explain it a bit.
Weary eyes bored into hers as he sat heavily and stared at her across the open space. “The king does not trust me.”
Her mouth gaped in silent exclamation. That, she had not expected.
“Sending me here was a test, a show of goodwill, but one mistake, and I will lose what little favor I have curried. So Malik comes, and he watches, and he reports back to the capital.”
No wonder Drystan never wanted guests in the manor or ventured out into local society. Ceridwen hugged her arms around herself despite the rising warmth of the new fire. In a heartbeat, he could lose it all. One wrong step. One bad report. And it all depended on Malik. She never wanted to see that man again, yet it seemed she had little choice in the matter.
“Are all your relatives so repulsive? Will more of them visit?”
Drystan’s countenance darkened. “Possibly worse, though they will not visit here.”
Worse? How could they possibly be worse? Especially someone of noble blood. She picked at the sleeves of her dress.
“In any case, you should rest if you can,” he continued. “Tomorrow may be a long day.”
“I haven’t played.” Though, deep in her heart, she didn’t want to. The day had rattled the song from her fingers and stripped it from her heart.
“Play for me tomorrow.” His shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world pressed down upon him and only her songs gave him strength. How could someone so young have so many burdens? A noble alone at the edge of the kingdom was a lonely one indeed.
“You’re exhausted.” The thought slipped from her like water between her fingers.
“Sleep does not come easily for me, especially when I keep the monster at bay.”
With a real monster of a man in the house, she’d almost forgotten. “Is it safe tonight? Will it come too?” She couldn’t handle another demon in the same night.
“Not tonight, I don’t think. We should be fine.”
She should have asked more, but the certainty in his voice brokered no questions. Drystan rose to his feet, and Ceridwen feared he prepared to leave her alone.
“Wait.” She held up a hand. “Malik won’t come in here, will he?”
The hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “I’d thought to sleep in here.”
She gaped.
“Or I could put up a magical ward.”
Magic. The word hung between them. He pursed his lips, gaze darting, as if he were a young child waiting for a reprimand. “I could sleep in the hall if you’d rather me not stay here or use magic to protect your room. Though,” he drawled, “that doesn’t protect the balcony or the windows. And truthfully, I’d prefer not to sleep on the floor.”
“Not the hall, then.” She shook her head. A noble on the floor—impossible.
“So what shall it be? Magic or the sofa?” he asked.
Blood or impropriety. Such choices. Heat flooded her cheeks as she debated the answer. “Whichever you prefer,” she said at last.
Drystan crossed the narrow space between them and lifted her hand to his lips, placing a chaste kiss upon the back that sent a shiver down her spine. “A little of both, then. Magic to see if he tries himself against it, and myself in case he does.”
“What about the monster?” she asked. It’d sounded so close before, almost within the manor walls.
“I warded your room against that before you arrived.” He looked away. “I try to keep it at bay, but it’s quite challenging.”
“That’s one of the things they are watching you for? Part of your test?” One he didn’t seem to be passing if it involved ending the monster for good.
He nodded.
“So it’s not a twisted pet?” She’d wondered, especially hearing it so close to the manor.
His brows rose. “A pet? Never. I’d love nothing more than for it to be gone forever. But until then, stay in your room at night where it’s safest.”
“You can’t kill it?”
He held her gaze for a long time before he answered. “I want to.” Sorrow tinged his words as his hand opened and closed. “A stronger man might be able to, but I can’t. Not yet. Soon.” He glanced away. “One way or another, I’ll make sure this monster is gone for good.”
Ceridwen watched as Drystan worked his magic on the room. He took the little blade he’d used in the garden and cut his hand—another scar for her. The blood he painted on the doors and windows soaked into the wood and glass as surely as if it had never existed to begin with. Yet Drystan promised the wards held true—ones specifically designed to keep out any male she did not invite inside, though as the caster of such a spell, he was immune.
An extra spell he wove as well, almost without effort it seemed, to let him know if anyone tried his wards. Though the blood had sickened and terrified her when he’d first demonstrated his skill, the more she watched him work, the more she became entranced by the magical designs.
The slide of his bloody fingers across a surface reminded her of Bronwyn painting a new canvas. Each stoke precise and measured, shapes taking form from whatever vision enraptured her mind and gave her inspiration for a new work—often a landscape or snippet of winding city streets. Though occasionally, Bronwyn chose to paint a subject, either animal or human. Each took her breath away, but they were never a mirror of their subjects. Yet, at the same time, Ceridwen could not say what her sister added or took away to give them their own unique air.
Drystan’s patterns were like Bronwyn’s paintings. Intricate. Beautiful in a way. Yet elusive to the mind all the same. She could not have copied one from memory had she tried, despite watching him hastily draw the same symbol on each potential entry into the room.
At length, he lay upon the long divan near the fireplace and said not a word as she climbed into bed and hid her face with the blankets. When worry refused to let her sleep, she peeked out from the coverings toward the smoldering embers of the hearth.
A breath lodged in her throat as light gave shape and life to the room. Drystan lay wide awake, his hands propped behind his head, where he sprawled upon the divan, watching her.
Their eyes locked.
Seconds turned into minutes. Silence grew heavy and thick in the air.
What could she possibly say? I’m frightened? I miss my family? But their health and happiness relied on her staying, no matter how uncomfortable she might be at times. A recent letter from Bronwyn only solidified that when she shared that the money Ceridwen earned was enough to buy new medicine for Father, some that actually seemed to help him regain his strength.
It wasn’t just them who relied on her either. Somehow, impossibly, Drystan might need her too. The secrets he kept frustrated her, but some deeper pull drew her in, like it did as she stared at him across the room.
He’d join me in bed if I asked him.She could feel the truth of that in his gaze as certainly as the blankets wrapped around her. Part of her yearned for it, her fingertips aching to wave him over. But a last bit of self-preservation held her back. What could she hope to gain from sharing a bed with him? A night of pleasure, perhaps, but she knew he planned to return to the capital at midwinter. Would he return after that? Would he bother with her? He had no reason to, despite his proclaimed love of her music. She was a commoner, and there was no future between them that didn’t end with her in pain and possibly ruin.
Even so, the pull of desire toward him was strong enough to hold her still, to hold his gaze across the room in the dim light.
What are you thinking about right now? She yearned to know, to ask. What could possibly fill his mind as he stared at her in the dark?
If she went to him now, would he reveal his secrets? Open his heart?
A log in the fire split, sending up a spray of sparks and tumble of glowing embers. The movement drew Ceridwen’s attention, breaking the invisible connection between her and Drystan. She hid back under the covers, not trusting her head or heart. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’d figure something out.
Eventually, she did find a few minutes of rest.
When Gwen woke her the next day, Drystan had already left. In fact, if she hadn’t known better, nothing in the room would have indicated he’d been there at all.
“Did Malik die during the night?” she asked the housekeeper. It would be generous of the monster to take himself off their hands.
Gwen huffed a laugh before ushering her to the dressing screen, where she changed into a gown of evergreen with creamy lace and ribbons. Yet another dress Drystan had commissioned on her behalf. Despite her initial reluctance, she had to admit that the dresses were a dream. The soft material caressed her skin. The layers kept away the winter chill. Each dress was more fashionable than anything her family had been able to afford since childhood, when she’d been far too young to appreciate them.
“Unfortunately not,” Gwen replied. “And Lord Winterbourne has insisted that you meet them both for a casual breakfast in his study.”
Ceridwen’s hands paused in their efforts to smooth the heavy skirts. Never once since she arrived had Drystan attended a meal with her other than dinner. Yet now, he wanted her to eat breakfast with him and a man he knew she loathed? This must be another front. Another attempt to convince Malik that nothing was amiss. But why involve her? Ceridwen shuddered. She pinched her eyes shut as she wrestled control of her worries and pushed them down and out of sight. With a deep and steadying breath, she turned toward Gwen. “I’m ready.”