Chapter 32 #2
“I heard you had several pairs of willing masculine arms at your disposal,” he says.
“Reasonably willing,” I pipe up. Ternis had clearly been motivated by guilt, and the fanfare trumpeters by, apparently, the promise of a morning’s work for an evening off.
“See? You didn’t need me at all.”
“If you’re here…” Sasha slides a glance in my direction. “Does that mean another prince is on his way?”
Bash shrugs with studied casualness.
“Not necessarily,” I say. “Sometimes he just appears. Once he brought me dinner.”
“He did, did he?” Sasha says, smirking at me.
“Not like that,” I hasten to add.
“A little like that,” Bash says.
I blush, and can’t think of anything suitably ironic and detached to counter with.
He smiles at Sasha. “There, you see?”
“Usually he’s just here because of a prince,” I grumble, my syntax understandably a little jumbled.
“So there is another prince coming?” Sasha says, sounding much too hopeful, given what a disaster princes generally turn out to be.
“Not necessarily,” I say. “He also could just be here because he hasn’t got anything better to do.”
“I haven’t, you know,” he says, agreeably.
“You have a very irritating way of talking sometimes,” Sasha tells him, echoing my thoughts. “You never say anything.”
“That way you know that when I do say something serious, it means something,” he replies, settling into his favorite spot on the staircase and easing into his usual lounge.
“Doesn’t it also mean that no one pays attention to you, even if you are being serious?” she says. “Like the boy who cried wolf?”
“The pirate who talked nonsense,” I add.
“Maybe I don’t want anyone to pay attention.”
“Weren’t you a captain, though? Shouldn’t you want people to pay attention to you?
” I’m awfully glad that Sasha’s decided to deal with her anxiety about her friend’s forthcoming appearance by putting the pirate on the spot; it saves me the trouble of finding gentler ways of asking him the same questions.
And I have been very curious. Curiosity, of course, not being considered a polite emotion among royals.
Gentle interest is about as far as my mother tends to permit questioning to go.
I’ve already asked him a hundred questions that would make my mother scowl with disapproval.
“Perhaps.” He shrugs. “Perhaps I simply used to drink the days away and let my crew run rampant.”
“That would explain the whole ‘got cursed and now skulk around in rural barns’ thing,” Sasha shoots back at him. “Don’t you think, Tandy? He must have been an awful pirate captain to get cursed and stuck here.”
I know she doesn’t intend to suggest anything with the “stuck here” bit, but it stings anyway.
“Yes, Princess, any thoughts about my effectiveness as a pirate captain?” He turns his irritatingly attractive, fathomless blue eyes on me.
“Not a one,” I say, deploying one of my mother’s favorite tricks for dealing with troublesome ministers with issues she considers rather beneath her notice: a slight, elegant shrug.
The kind that signals that one is emotionally disconnected from the matter at hand.
As I am wholly emotionally disconnected from anything that’s currently lounging on my stairs.
“Well, that’s what I think,” Sasha says, not taking the hint.
Bash’s gaze remains trained on me, however, as even as a cat’s, and I suddenly have the very strong sense that he’s quite a good pirate captain, and runs an extremely orderly ship.
Even if it’s the kind of ship engaged in…
how had he put it? Stealing and spending the profits?
“When are you expecting your friend?” I say. Bash chuckles at my obvious and rather ham-fisted attempt to change the subject, but Sasha takes the bait and blushes.
“Soon,” she murmurs. Bash and I exchange a look, the kind that says Isn’t it lovely to focus on someone else’s adorable problems for a while? At least, that’s what my look says. He’s probably just wondering if he can steal my necklace. I move my stack of tiny books again.
The bell over the door rings, and I’m not sure whom I’m expecting except the friend Sasha has found for this little project (and whom she also has a clear crush on), but the adorable little perfidian who bounces in, carrying a giant portfolio, is definitely not it.
She’s small, about my size, with vibrant red skin and an enormous set of wings, two extremely cute horns curling back from her temples, and an unmistakable air of enthusiasm.
She’s the polar opposite of Sasha in every way, and I can instantly see why Sasha is enchanted with her.
“Hiii!” she chirps at Sasha. “Hiii!” she then chirps at me.
“You must be the princess! This is incredibly exciting. My parents met you at the ribbon-cutting ceremony before you got cursed! They said you had this amazing gown. I like the one you’re wearing, though; it’s vintage, right?
I love vintage. It’s hard to find stuff that fits me because, you know.
” She pauses to flap her wings at us. “But when I do, it’s like jackpot, bingo, everything’s super! ”
“Hi,” I say. Sasha is gazing at her rapturously. “I’m Tandy.”
“Oh no,” the perfidian says. “Oughtn’t I call you something like ‘Your Majesty’?”
Somewhere to my left, Bash snorts. “Correctly, it’s ‘Your Highness,’ ” I say. “But here I’m just Tandy, proprietor of Beulah Bonecrusher’s Emporium of Books.”
“Yeah, about that,” the perfidian says. “Have you considered, you know. Rebranding?”
“She can’t,” Sasha says, sounding aghast. “This place has been called Beulah’s for like two hundred years.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t really give off ‘bonecrushing orc bookstore’ vibes,” the perfidian says, glancing at the bluecaps. “It’s really so cute.”
“She was half crushed by a bookcase yesterday,” Sasha says.
“I heard! But that’s, like”—the perfidian waves a hand—“like, too tangential. Beulah’s bonecrushing emporium: Our books will crush your bones.
You see?” She makes a face. “Sends the wrong message.” She gives me a triumphant look.
“Let’s see…this place is most famous for being run by a cursed princess, so… how about The Little Cursed Bookshop?”
“Not likely to steer too many customers in,” Bash says, “if ‘our books will crush your bones’ won’t.”
“Oh!” the perfidian says, spinning around. “I didn’t see you there! You’re the pirate from the barn, right?” She glances at Sasha. “The one all the girls follow about in the hills.”
To his credit, Bash manages not to blush too hard at that. It’s nice to see him taken by surprise for once.
“He certainly is,” I say, raising an eyebrow at him.
It is an appealing image, to imagine hordes of teenage girls trailing about the hills after him.
Makes him that much less intimidating. Perhaps, eventually, I’ll even get past all the blushing.
“But I agree that ‘The Little Cursed Bookshop’ might not be quite the right direction for a rebrand. Which I’m not convinced about anyway.
” I pause. I don’t know her name yet. “Shall we do this formally?” I step out from behind the desk and give her a low, courtly curtsy.
She looks delighted. “Tanadelle de Courcy, fourth in line for the throne of the Widdenmar, and yes, cursed proprietor of Beulah Bonecrusher’s Emporium of Books. ”
“Amaritha v’Balt,” she says, giving her own low curtsy. “Delighted to make your acquaintance. Sasha’s told me all about you.”
I glance at Sasha, who’s turned jade green, the draconae equivalent of beet red.
“Sasha’s told me a bit about you,” I say. “She speaks incredibly highly of your art.”
“Oh!” Amaritha giggles. “That’s so super nice. She’s got such a good eye; that’s like the biggest compliment.” Now she’s blushing a bit, too.
“She’s done marvelous work here,” I say, happy to continue the charming direction this conversation has taken.
“The third floor alone is a work of art, but she’s helped me clear out the entire store, to make it really warm and welcoming for customers.
And she’s essentially invented a new way of displaying merchandise in the window.
” And talked various of my suitors into hand-selling my books to otherwise uninterested customers.
“I just don’t know what I’d do without her. ”
Sasha is now blushing so hard she’s emitting a little steam. I take pity on her. “Why don’t we retire to my room and chat over some tea?” I suggest.
“Okay!” Amaritha chirps. She scoops up the portfolio she’s brought with her, and glances at Bash. “All of us?” she says, a little doubtfully.
“We can’t get rid of him, alas,” I say. “But he does say something helpful on occasion.”
“Perish the thought,” Bash says, agreeably.