The Duke of Snow and Apples (20 page)

Naturally, stares followed them across the dance floor. She’d expected that. However, people paused when Frederick planted a spontaneous kiss on her hand. A couple dancing next to them tripped over their feet when he teasingly flicked her unicorn’s horn, a mischievous smile on his lips. When Charlotte compared the stiff butler’s dancing to a golem’s and he threw back his head and laughed, servants halted in their tracks. Men gawked, mouths open. Women smiled behind their hands.

You’d think they’ve never seen Frederick smile or laugh before
. She stared at the sea of unrecognizable faces—people she’d seen or passed countless times in the last week, only now freed from the constraints of their work to holler and spin. Frederick had started out cold and resolutely neutral when she’d first met him, but surely that was only because she’d been so far above him. Because of his position.

Surely he wasn’t only smiling for her. She couldn’t be worth that much to him.

“Freddy, is that you?” a soft, female voice asked as the latest song ended and the dancers settled back onto the floor.

Charlotte turned and stared as a slight, redheaded girl approached, her face obscured by a brown mask with two pointed fox ears attached to it.

“You’ve spotted me, Ellie,” Frederick replied. The familiarity in his tone made Charlotte stiffen and swell, like a cat defending its territory.

Ellie smiled, her pale lavender freckles startlingly familiar. In a flash of recognition, Charlotte remembered the housemaid she’d run into the other day. Someone who worked with Frederick and obviously knew him. Someone of his own class and pretty besides.

Ellie sucked on her lower lip. “I just wondered, if you would be so kind, I mean…would you dance with me when the musicians start again?”

Charlotte repressed the urge to hiss at her, but as Frederick glanced at her, eyes gleaming slightly, she realized her envy was likely written clearly across her face. His lips curved in unmistakable amusement. It entertained him to see her jealous?

“I’m afraid I’m already promised. To Daisy,” Frederick said, straightening his face into neutrality. Ellie gave a tremulous smile and nodded, before disappearing back into the crowd. Charlotte felt the tension in her chest relax, but she still planned to step on his toes at least once more before the night was through.

What right did she have to feel jealous? What did she know of his life? Nothing—at least nothing that took place past the green baize door that separated the upstairs from below. Ellie probably knew everything about him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He led her to the refreshment table.

“Nothing.” She took the offered glass of punch and gulped it down. “Ben thinks I’m a village girl—do you have friends in the village?”

Frederick’s gaze flickered away. “I don’t spend too much time in the village—I only get a half-day every fortnight.”

“Oh—and those you must spend visiting family.” She craned her neck to look him in the eye, but those pieces of sky skipped away from her as he shook his head.

“How
do
you spend your half-days?” she asked, spurred by impatience. “It’s can’t be all work.”

Frederick set down his glass with a crystal
thud
. “I’m sorry to disabuse you of the quaint notion that the life of footman doesn’t revolve entirely around work.”

“And yet the other footmen can laugh and dance without other people staring at them as if the Maiden’s risen again,” she said, stung.

“Then I must be a freak.” The last consonant cracked like a whiplash.

Guilt welled up in her. “You don’t mean that. I’m just abominably curious, Frederick. It’s a flaw you’ll have to accustom yourself to.”

Frederick’s expression softened, and he took her arm, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “I know.” The palest of gleams shone out from under his lashes. “But I
am
a freak. I can’t be like everyone else.”

“Neither can I.”

“That’s not what I meant. I wish I could be your kind of strange.” He laughed.

“I’ll stop prying,” Charlotte said, even as disappointment settled like a cold weight at the bottom of her stomach. What right did she have to expect these things of him? Why did she want to know more about him, when they clearly had no future beyond the moment?

“There’s not much to pry into,” he said. “My father died when I was still in swaddling clothes. I never knew him.”

“And your mother?”

“Ten years past.” He shrugged. “I’m an altogether unexceptional orphan.” The sudden wash of sad, wintry hues—blue, violet, black—across his face belied the casual pose.

Strange—it hadn’t taken very long at all for her to adapt to his magic and the infrequent moments he let it slip. She reached up, ostensibly to straighten his cravat, but really to bring herself close enough to smell the heat rising off his chest, to fit her head underneath his chin.

“I’m sure, wherever she is, she’s very proud of you,” she said.

The light leached from his eyes. He broke away, leaving cold space between them, and opened his mouth to offer—a retort? A denial?—when a young man came up from behind him and latched onto his sleeve.

“A word?” It was the young man with the pale hair and the red cravat, who’d stared at them so intently when they’d arrived at the masque.

“In a moment,” Frederick said. He tried to extricate himself from the man’s grip, but the strange man clung, his knuckles whitening.

“I don’t have a moment,” the man said. “I’ve tried to find you alone ever since the mud hunt, but with the hubbub before the masquerade and valeting Lord Noxley, it’s been hopeless. Please!”

“It’s nothing that can’t wait,” said Frederick, tugging.

“If I can’t say it to you alone, I’ll say it now, my lord,” said Noxley’s valet.

Frederick froze, his face locking closed, his eyes dead chips of blue ice. “Let go of me.”

“My lord!”

“You’re drunk,” said Frederick, color deserting his face.

“Don’t you recognize me?” said the valet. “No—no of course you wouldn’t. I was a bootboy for—”

Frederick wrenched his arm free so violently the valet nearly pitched forward onto his face. Heads turned in their direction, and gossip circulated along with the wine.

“Stop this!” Charlotte said. She turned to the young man. “What’s your name?”

The valet recovered himself in a moment. “Edward Grubs. My father was Gerald Grubs. He was a butler.” He aimed a look over her shoulder, at Frederick. “You remember him.”

“You’re mistaken.” Frederick hooked an arm around Charlotte’s elbow. “Come on, we’re leaving.”

He cut through the crowd, Charlotte barely keeping step, leaving Edward Grubs to gape at them, his face stark with dismay.

Frederick made it to the exit, leaving a trail marked by whispers and shocked glances. He towed her along the servants’ corridor, and then down another hallway before she dug in her heels.

“That’s far enough, don’t you think?” She rubbed her aching shoulder. “We can stop running away now.”

“We weren’t running away.”

“Well
I
wasn’t. What’s wrong? Did you and Edward used to work together? Under a different employer?”

“No.” He shifted closer, and Charlotte experienced a single sharp point of anticipation before she realized it was only to untie her armband.

“Can’t I keep it?” she asked. “As a souvenir?”
Does it all have to end so soon?

“If you like.” He dropped it into her outstretched palm like a reluctant payment.

Disappointment settled in her chest, a soft, muted, helpless pain. However, sometime over the last few days, between putting on a scarlet gown and strapping a makeshift horn to her head, Charlotte had resolved to do away with helplessness.

“Don’t make me gore you,” she said, lowering her head.

She jutted forward, bumping her horn against his chest, jolting a chuckle out of him. He cut off her retreat by curving his arms around her waist.

“Careful,” Charlotte said. “I aim for the heart.”

“Don’t I know it.” His hands skimmed upward, awaking rising curls of heat through her body. His hands fluttered over her rib cage, up to her neck, and then he hooked his thumbs under her mask and drew it off. He let it drop, ignoring the slightly bent horn. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

He kissed her, long and slow and sweet, dissolving all of her needless worries and thoughts until only the bright coil of her core remained.
Edward who?
For all she knew, they were still in the Old Hall, with the high ribbon-sounds of the violins and flutes, the tenacious drumbeats, and the taste of wine and spice on her tongue.

Or maybe she stood in a deserted hallway, fooled by the music of her happiness, the thud of her heart, and the flavors of Frederick’s mouth.

A muffled cry echoed from down the hallway. Charlotte pulled away, caught in an embrace with a footman by a very pretty, very blonde, and very disturbed butterfly.

“Maiden and saints,” Sylvia swore.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Now would be a good time to resume running away,” Charlotte said.

Frederick hesitated, staring at the butterfly in a peach-colored gown who quivered from head to foot with maidenly shock and outrage.

The heel of Charlotte’s hand dug into Frederick’s chest. “Go, go.”

“I can’t just leave you.”

“My estimation of you as a rugged, heroic, and thoroughly masculine warrior will remain unchanged,” she hissed. “This is not a butterfly you want to deal with.”

“Your reputation…”

“Will remain unblemished if she values her own.”

Ah
. Recognition dawned slowly.
Sylvia
. There was very little hope they could depict their embrace as anything other than improper, but news of Charlotte’s indiscretion could damage Sylvia’s wedding hopes just as easily. His mask still covered his eyes, and his attire, while formal, remained indistinguishable. He could flee right now and serve both sisters tea and toast the next morning without being caught.

Odd how, a few moments ago, running away seemed necessary, unavoidable—but now the prospect of abandoning Charlotte to the tender mercies of her sister rankled his pride.
I’m not afraid of a prim little debutante.

Charlotte looked up at him, trapping him with those warm brandy eyes, her imperious eyebrows sloping gradually downward, reminding Frederick of what truly frightened him. Of what he wanted, had briefly possessed tonight, but couldn’t keep.

He turned tail and fled—as manfully as possible.

Retracing his steps, he debated on whether or not to return to the Old Hall. Even at this late hour it would still be thronged with people, comrades, friends. With Charlotte on his arm, he’d enjoyed himself among other the other underfolk for the first time in years. He’d forced himself to converse, to dance, to listen to the japes and gossip and contribute in his turn, because he hadn’t wanted Charlotte to realize how unfamiliar this all was to him, how cold and barren and desperately lonely his life was, even outside of work.

She found out anyway, of course.
Before she’d arrived, isolation had been something to be proud of. By engaging with no one, he hurt no one. Now he fought a war with himself, between the awakening desire to return to the Old Hall and meet the eyes of the fellow servants he’d previously avoided, and the old fear that something might escape, or break, and leave him alone in a sea of Gray and empty faces.

He stopped and leaned his head against the cool stone of the wall. He needed time to think. The sounds of revelry echoed from the Old Hall nearby, the ghosts of companionship and enjoyment.
Not for me. Not anymore
.

“My father wept at your grave, Your Grace.”

Frederick tensed at the all-too-familiar voice behind him. He kept his face to the wall, unwilling to risk betraying himself with a grimace—his control over his facial expressions had weakened under Charlotte’s influence.

“Well, not at your grave,” Edward Grubs continued. “Since we never did find your body. We had your name carved on a lovely stone in the family mausoleum, though, so we wept before that. A nice large stone, you’ll be happy to note, to fit the entirety of your name.
Frederick Adam Phineas Calvin Cle
—”

“Enough.” Frederick turned around. Edward stared back at him, his eyes lidded, the careful apathy of his expression somewhat belied by the white-fisted hands at his sides. He had his father’s long, square jaw and wide nose, and the same large hands the butler had used to entrance a much younger Frederick with light-charms and sleight of hand.

Edward’s composure slipped, his next words emerging with an accusing clang. “My father took it very hard—losing Her Grace and then you in such a short time.”

Of course he would have
. Frederick’s mind flew back down the years to the family seat of Snowmont Abbey, with rooms too large, echoing and empty for one little boy and his mother, and too far from the teeming city life of Trinidon.

All too frequently, an eight-year-old Frederick would end up suborning a posse of hall boys and footman to accompany him when catching sylphs and water-flies in the brook, climbing trees in the ravine, and raiding the apple orchard—which, since he technically owned the orchard, meant taking what was already rightfully his but with a great deal of noise and shouting and waving of imaginary swords.

As a child, he’d imagined he’d had a family of liveried brothers and cousins, and a stately, quiet father who wore black every day. Of course, his brothers had to do everything he said and were dismissed for pinching silver, and Grubs, while as kindly as a butler could be, never referred to Frederick as anything other than “my lord” or “Your Grace.” But it had been far better than nothing.

And how did I repay them?
With selfishness. With pain. With the Gray.

“What are you doing here?” Edward demanded, impatient with Frederick’s silence.

“It’s complicated,” Frederick said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“What I understand is that there’s a wyrmbrain upstairs who holds a title that should be yours.”

“He’s more welcome to it than I,” Frederick said. “You wouldn’t want me to come back, Edward. I wouldn’t do any good.”

Edward’s mouth pinched. “What would Her Grace have wanted?”

“That hardly matters, since she’s dead,” Frederick snapped. He hated the harshness of his tone as soon as he heard it, but all words regarding his mother emerged sharpened by regret. He cut his tongue on them every time.

Edward backed away, his face unreadable. “I don’t know what I expected would happen, once I cornered you.”

Frederick had no response for that. Recognizing Edward, and being recognized in turn, pried open the door he’d shut against his memories by a few precious inches. Memories of wilting smiles, deadened eyes—colors that faded thanks to his clumsy touch. The snarl of a good man gone mad.

Edward broke the awkward stillness first, with a deep, old-fashioned leg, an exaggerated demonstration of fealty to a lord. “Your Grace.”

“Don’t.”

The valet rose. “You will always be Your Grace.”

The words were as much a threat as they were a statement of fact.

…

“Tell me his name, Charlotte!”

Sylvia’s shrill protests, made in the first moments after she recovered from the shock, were high enough to shatter glass, while her hands fluttered as if dispelling the cloud of scandal she swore, in heated tones, would taint Charlotte forever.

In response, Charlotte remained silent and brushed past her. She headed toward the Dowagers’ ballroom to find their masquerade winding down. Slower, statelier music from the orchestra had replaced the livelier rounds, and most of the guests converged at the refreshment tables or sat in various collapsed positions upon the chairs lined up against the far wall. A few of the younger couples still danced, uncaring of their limp curls and drooping feathers.

Charlotte found Aunt Hildy in the nearby card room, lying indolently upon a red-upholstered couch, exhausted friends and admirers slumped about her, a forest of fans waving for any hint of a breeze. Sylvia remained two steps behind, as if she feared that any lapse in her supervision would release Charlotte into all sorts of wickedness. Thankfully her complaints drained away as they approached the Viscountess’s social circle, leaving her only with the nervous flutter of hands and a disapproving look.

Lady Balrumple hailed her, after first checking to make sure her own pearl-white skirts lay in the prettiest arrangement of folds about her reclining legs. “There you are, my darlings! Look about you! I am the social success of the county.”

“Indeed you are, Aunt Hildy.” Charlotte grinned. “I mean—Winter Queen Aman.”

Aunt Hildy inclined her head in gracious assent, the better to show off the glittering ropes of diamonds woven into her snow-white hair. She wore triangular pieces of pink felt attached to her earlobes to give them the pointed Fey look, Charlotte noticed. She recognized Lamonte’s handiwork. Lady Balrumple, for all her age, made a very convincing Fey monarch.

“Quite a crush, isn’t it?” Aunt Hildy said. “For every face I recognize, there are twenty I don’t. I fear I must have missed you.”

“I’ve had a splendid time,” said Charlotte. Beside her, Sylvia gulped down a retort, her fair complexion growing splotchy with offence. “Besides, you were busy being the best-dressed and most gracious hostess.”

“Ah!” Aunt Hildy clapped a hand to her heart. “Flattery, my one weakness! Well, that and heat.” She fanned herself. “I’m bound to melt any minute.”

“I brought a wind-charmed fan from home. I can go and fetch it for you.”

“Magic at a masquerade? How wicked of you.” Aunt Hildy smiled. “I shall cause a sensation! Send your footman for it, do.”

“Don’t the servants have a masque tonight, too?” Charlotte asked, all innocence. “I’d hate to interrupt.”

“I don’t want you working unless it is absolutely your heart’s true wish to do so,” Lady Balrumple said plaintively.

“I am well aware of the true wishes of my heart.” Even now, the memory of Frederick stirred her body to quickness, sending warmth shooting to her toes, fingertips, and her swirling, uncertain center. “I assure you, pleasing you is one of them.”

Once the sisters cleared the ballroom, Sylvia’s outrage boiled out of her. “The
servants’ masque!
That’s where you were!”

“Such lofty powers of deduction you have.” Charlotte gathered her skirts as she climbed the stairs to the first floor. Yellow-white salamanders glowed in the wall-sconces, filling the deserted stairwell with flickering, warm light that made Sylvia look sallow and ill as she rushed to keep up.

“Have you
no
regard for your reputation?” Sylvia panted as she sought to match Charlotte’s punishing pace. “Or your safety? They’re
underfolk
. They don’t understand or value the same things we do.”

“Things like hard work and sacrifice? Oh yes, we’re terrible with that, aren’t we?”

“Things like morals and common decency!” Sylvia grabbed Charlotte’s arm to slow her down. “I saw the two of you together. That is not how a gentleman behaves with a lady!”

Charlotte paused, just long enough to bring Sylvia up alongside. “Not even Mr. Peever?”

“That is not…that is entirely irrelevant to…” Sylvia burned a deep red. “That is different. We are about to be married. And we don’t go about mauling each other in hallways.
And
Mr. Peever is not a-a
bootblack
!” She sighed, her face relaxing. “Perhaps this is my fault.”

Charlotte sensed she may have set off some sort of trap, so she continued walking down the corridor, hoping that the sooner she retrieved the fan from her room and presented it to Lady Balrumple, the sooner she could escape this increasingly embarrassing conversation.

Sylvia continued, her lips pursed. “I should have taken you better in hand, especially after the announcement of my engagement.”

“In
hand
? You’re a mere eighteen months older than I am.”

“And soon to become a married woman,” Sylvia said. “Securing your future is as much my duty as Stepmama’s, but I obviously allowed myself to become lax. Now that I’m here, I’ll set everything to rights…”

“Be
quiet
.”

Sylvia opened her mouth to protest, but Charlotte stopped it with a raised hand, her anger diverted. “Shh. What’s that?”

Sylvia stopped, then cocked her head in the same direction. A soft sound, like a series of quick gasps, echoed from a corridor that branched off to their left. The lit wall-sconces, Charlotte saw, continued only partway into the corridor, and the rest faded into darkness.

“Sounds like someone crying,” Sylvia whispered.

Motioning for silence, Charlotte tiptoed toward the sound, trailing a hand close to the wall. Even with the salamanders, the insular, imposing architecture of this oldest section of Charmant Park ate up a great deal of the light, leaving only flickers amongst the deep shadows of the carvings and columns.

The sound, she discovered, leaked out from a doorway left slightly ajar. Dim moonlight filtered in through a mullioned window, outlining a shaking figure in silver. Sylvia had hit the mark, Charlotte realized. She couldn’t tell whether she was under- or upperfolk.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” The deep, resonant voice seemed to emerge from the darkness itself, and Charlotte nearly jumped.

“Y-yes,” the girl said, speaking, it seemed, to the voice whose form was hidden by the rest of the door. “He never notices me. Not to be cruel—he’s never looked at any girl. At least until
she
came.”

With a start, Charlotte recognized Ellie’s voice—the maid wearing the fox ears who had asked Frederick to dance.

“It fills you with sorrow,” said the voice. “And hurt, and anger, and shame.” He sighed, a satisfied exhalation of air as if he’d finished testing the scent of an excellent wine.

“It’s not his fault,” Ellie whimpered.

“Of course not,” said the voice. “But you don’t want the hurt anymore, do you? I can take it away again.”

“I don’t know…” Her voice trailed off into silence, and the breathy sobs stopped. The air was so quiet it almost trembled, like a creature waiting to pounce.

Two bright, burning spots of green lit up the darkness. Charlotte squeaked in surprise and stumbled back, expecting to collide with Sylvia, but she ran up against a wall instead. The door swung open, and the green sparks turned toward her. She could feel their gaze almost like a grasping, skittering touch across her skin.

Without thinking, Charlotte coughed out a fire spell—the simplest one she knew, a monosyllabic word that electrified the air. Above her, a tiny flame sputtered to life in a wall sconce, creating barely enough light to trace the figure of the man who stepped out from the doorway toward her. Just as suddenly, the flame winked out, leaving nothing but darkness and malevolent green.

Charlotte turned and ran.