Chapter 13 #2
Adelaide quirked a brow and tilted her head, flashing Alan a smirk. “A body is a body.” Her glare persisted as he shifted uncomfortably, angling himself to face a different direction.
The towel remained wrapped around Amaris with Adelaide’s assistance while she finished binding her hand, keeping sure to secure her fingers together as best she could.
Amaris didn’t want to risk further injuring them or, God forbid, an infection.
Amaris grabbed the only pair of pants among the mass of clothes and a navy blouse before heading for the bathroom.
“You forgot this.” Adelaide tossed Amaris a rigid black corset. “You’ll need it.” She placed her hands on her own chest and eyed Amaris’s breasts attempting to spill from her towel.
What a confidence boost. Not only did Adelaide imply Amaris’s butt was too big for her pants, but now she thought a corset was needed to keep the girls from dangling to her knees.
The pants were worn around the edges and barely fit, but Amaris managed to squeeze her fat ass into them. Luckily, they weren’t leather, like Adelaide’s current ones, but they were a strange material. Amaris squatted and hoped the seam of her ass remained intact.
Her fingers fumbled for several long minutes with the corset.
Now she could begin to blend in, pretending she belonged while she deciphered where she was and how to get out of here.
She contemplated the thought of revealing her true origin, but would they believe her?
Bennet and the duke hadn’t accepted a single word she said, but Adelaide seemed different.
She hadn’t once attempted to question her.
Amaris zipped up her boots. It barely crossed the boundary of normal, but it felt more like her. The pants, the dark colors, her work boots—all were her—a medieval replica of her work uniform.
Amaris pulled open the bathroom door. Alan had disappeared. Her body went rigid, scanning the room, on high alert.
“He left to scrounge something up from the kitchen. I would be famished if I were you,” Adelaide said.
Adelaide tossed her a comb and plopped onto the bed, stretching her hands behind her head and crossing her boots.
Her demeanor was the complete opposite of how Amaris thought her treatment would go.
Her lax position didn’t scream that she saw her as a threat, or maybe she was confident in her abilities to catch Amaris if she tried to escape.
She had to decide carefully whether she planned to tell the truth and to whom. They could think she was crazy. If someone had claimed to be from a different world back home, they would’ve been carted off to a government facility.
Alan returned with a red bottle and a few pieces of bread and cheese.
Amaris’s mouth watered at the sight. He poured himself and Adelaide a glass before retreating silently to his place by the mantel, while Adelaide returned to her chair.
She rolled her eyes at Alan and poured a glass for Amaris, who gave it a good sniff and then again as it lured her in.
It was divine, like strawberries. She took a sip and wanted to sink to the floor.
“What on earth is this stuff? It’s delicious!”
“‘What on earth’? What a foolish phrase,” Adelaide whispered to herself and then completely dismissed it altogether.
Oh shit.
“Kusu. The duke likes to keep a steady supply from Jintaishu.”
Amaris took another sip, savoring the kusu and pretending Adelaide’s comment didn’t short-circuit her brain.
“Most prisoners dine on stale bread and water. You should count yourself lucky.”
“Lucky?” Amaris wiped the liquor spilling down her chin. “I’d hardly call being a prisoner in any form lucky.”
“It could’ve gone differently,” Adelaide insisted, raising her brows as she drank from her glass.
“How could it have gone any worse?”
“Watch your tone,” Alan seethed, his fingers twitching as they hovered over his knives.
Amaris ignored his taunt, but the hairs along her arms spiked at the proximity of his weapons. “I’m not a murderer. This is all a big misunderstanding.”
Alan scoffed, and Amaris refrained from ripping her boot off and chucking it at him.
She set her drink down and sat in the chair beside Adelaide, hiding her hand balling into a fist. “What gives him the authority to decide my fate?”
“He is the duke,” Adelaide said as her gaze panned to her jacket upon the bed.
Amaris caught the subtle caress of her arm and the scratch of her thumb against one of her scars. Adelaide didn’t wear any weapons for others to see, but she had those marks and bruised knuckles. She was a fighter, that was for sure, but why had she been hiding in the throne room?
Amaris thumbed her engagement ring and took a stab in the dark. “He’s your father, isn’t he?” Amaris waited in the silence, knowing she hit her mark when Adelaide blinked and swallowed her drink.
“Not many people catch that minor detail.”
“After your father announced Theodoric as his son, it made sense. You two must be related with your black hair and green eyes.”
“Our mother’s.” Adelaide smiled, swishing her kusu in a circle. “Beautiful traits from the Burchard side of the family.”
“If he’s your father, why were you hiding behind the curtain?”
Alan stopped mid-sip, his eyes shooting to Adelaide as she draped her arm over the back of her chair and prodded at the inside of her cheek with her tongue.
“Why did you run away?” Adelaide threw at Amaris.
She felt the unease as Adelaide studied her, but she tracked her eyes set on her engagement ring.
“Does it have anything to do with the rock on your finger?”
“No,” Amaris lied, sliding her hand under her thigh. “Are you a soldier like your brother?”
Adelaide’s fingers tapped against the back of the chair, her eyes shifting to the window as she took another drink. “No.”
Even with her short reply, she’d offered Amaris more than anyone else. Her daddy issues were apparent, and she was young. She wasn’t a soldier but looked well-versed in a fighting ring, which meant she was rebellious. If anyone here would go against the duke to help her, it would probably be her.
“You look like one,” Amaris began, concocting the beginnings of her plan of flattery to befriend her. “Your attire is similar, and you look tough with your scars.”
Adelaide’s jaw clenched.
“I’d mind your words carefully,” Alan seethed, resting his cup on the mantel.
Interesting.
Adelaide cleared her throat and rolled her sleeves down. “You’re observant, but how I dress is no one’s concern but my own.”
Amaris was observant because she needed to be. One shift in the wind could send a fire crawling down the wrong hallway. One single symptom could be the deciding factor to give a medication. But now her life depended on it.
“My mistake,” Amaris said, attempting to recover. “I thought, as the daughter of the duke, you’d have a similar position as Theodoric.”
“You thought wrong,” Alan grunted.
“Alan,” Adelaide snapped.
Amaris’s attempt at friendship would be a whole lot easier without Alan interjecting his commentary.
“She is a lady of Luana. You’d be wise to speak with respect in the presence of nobility,” Alan snipped.
Jut into my convo with one more word, pretty boy. I dare you. Amaris released the tension in her shoulders and straightened her back. “What about you? You don’t seem to be much of a noble. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re just an errand boy.”
Alan’s blades were in his hands, and he was across the space. Amaris’s heart leapt. She didn’t have a chance to raise her arms in defense, but Adelaide flung her knife through the air, colliding with both of Alan’s with a simple clink. All the blades scattered across the room.
“Not a single drop of blood,” Adelaide sneered. She reclined back in her chair, like attacking someone with a knife was an everyday occurrence.
Amaris dug her nails into her palm, staving off the attempt her heart was making to jump from her chest.
§
After the near assault with his daggers, Alan took Amaris to a room, where she’d been locked up since.
He’d smiled as he bolted the door behind him.
He was going to be a pain in her ass. The room was a step above the cell, with a bed, a decent pillow, and a dresser.
Alan informed her a washroom was down the hall.
Apparently, her bathroom privileges were on their time as well.
Amaris laid on the bed, her head still pounding, since she didn’t have access to ibuprofen or coffee.
She’d already checked out the floor-length windows, and they opened, but she’d be scaling down a steep thirty or forty feet.
As Amaris had leaned over the edge, her stomach had grown queasy.
That was going to be her last line of escape.
A knock on the door pulled her from her planning, and Alan appeared in the doorway. “Supper time,” he snipped, crossing his arms. “I’ll be escorting you to the main hall.”
Amaris refrained from groaning since she was starving and followed him, but also because she would need him on her side until she could get her hand looked at. Over the course of the last hour, the pain had intensified, and her fingers poking through the linen were now swollen tight and bruised.
Amaris cleared her throat as they walked the halls. “Can I speak with Pricilla?”
“Tomorrow.”
“If I don’t take care of my hand soon, it could get infected.” It probably already had with how much it throbbed.
“You should have thought of that beforehand. Someone will fetch you in the morning to begin your duties.”
“It won’t always be you?” Her shoulders dropped. A small offering from the universe.
“I have more important duties to attend to than watching over you.”
“Yeah, because running messages around is so important,” Amaris muttered, skimming the ceiling with her eye roll.