Rescuing Rapunzel (27 page)

“Are you all right?” he asked, stroking my head.

I nodded. “I would like to leave now.” Gothel’s poisonous stare dug into my skin and I needed to get as far away from her as I could.

“Thank heaven,” Kiki said, and started through the corridor toward the exit.

I glanced back at Mother. The witch. Gothel. A horrible glow gleamed in her eyes. And though her mouth did not move, I still heard her words.

“Do not underestimate me, child.”

Chapter 38

Nick returned Tressey to her rooms and, while she did not speak about what the witch had said, it obviously weighed heavily on her. The innocent light sparkling in her eyes had disappeared, replaced by a hard resolve. A sight he did not like. He would go back there and strangle the witch himself, if he thought it would bring her peace.

Tressey was not crying. She had not shed a tear since leaving the dungeon, but he imagined she was saving any tears for the privacy of her room. He kept his arm around her, regardless of propriety–even though her expression was calm and determined her steps were not certain. She had stumbled several times on the way out of the dungeon and each time he had caught her, though she had not seemed to realize it.

“Would you like me to have someone bring you something?”

She nodded and walked into her room, wandering around like she had never seen it before. Or maybe she was not seeing what was in front of her at all–she seemed so distant.

“Tressey?” He remained in the doorway, watching the way she wandered, her hands starting to shake.

“She grew me like a spell. An herb in a garden. I was not anything to her beyond a vessel for her experiment.” She did not turn to look at him, merely stared at the far wall, the shaking of her hands the only movement he registered.

The admission of Gothel’s crimes made Nick sick. Horrible, evil, detestable. None of the words he could think of seemed strong enough. He wanted to… He did not know what he wanted to do to the witch, but he wanted to avenge Tressey’s honor, to bring her back some sense of self.
 

At the same time, he did not want to leave her, not now, when Tressey seemed so obviously upset. He stepped inside. “Would you like to be alone?”

This did make her turn her head to meet his gaze. “I have been alone all my life. Solitude is the last thing I want.”

“You never have to be alone again,” he said coming further in the room, the door falling shut behind him. The thunk of the latch catching echoed in the room.

Tressey jumped at the door’s abrupt thud, but the coldness remained in her eyes, and she did not look away from him. “What are your intentions, Lord Nicolas?”

It was a simple question, really, but it asked so much of him. He froze, unsure exactly how to answer for he could feel the tension in the room. The wrong answer would certainly bring his destruction. He walked a precarious path. Whether he was hunting a meal or a wife, both game could pin him with a simple move.

Tressey just had.

“I wish to be with you,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because… because I’ve been looking for you all my life.”

“Your betrothed.”

“Yes.”

Her spine stiffened, her gaze hardened to blocks of frozen granite. “When you want to propose to me, come talk to me. And ask me.” Her words stung him to the core. “Do not assume I will marry you because of some promise made twenty years ago. That life was taken from me. No matter how many titles, lands, properties I am supposed to have, I am not a von Stroebel. I am me.”

He took a step forward. She spoke the truth; she was not a von Stroebel, but Rapunzel, locked in her tower, hidden away from the world, even now. Yet she had now lost even that. At least in the tower, she was still a girl. Not a spell, woven for results, not the person it bore.

He loved her. Not because she had a title or fulfilled a promise made years before, but because of who she was. The girl in the tower who sang such beautiful songs, who had smiled and laughed and danced with him through her ells of hair. The girl who had cut her hair though it caused her pain–twice–to heal him. This selfless, incredible woman was who he loved. Even now, with the hair gone, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He loved her. And he knew it. If for any reason he had not been certain before, he was now. He was not about to lose her because he had flubbed his words.

“You are the woman I fell in love with. Whether you were my betrothed or just a peasant, I did not care. I wanted you. It did not matter then, and most certainly does not now. I never wanted a mysterious, stolen princess. I only ever used that promise to keep others away. I did not want them. I did not know what I wanted. Until you. Your voice. Your face. Your eyes. Even the mountain of hair. I wanted everything.”

The ice in her eyes began to crack. “I should not even be here,” she whispered, the pain in her voice stabbing him in the gut.

“But you are. We want you here.”

“Are you certain?” Her eyes pooled with tears.

“I am.” Nick pulled her against him, and as soon as they touched, her tears poured out. After a few moments, Nick scooped her up and carried her to the bed.

He had every intention of laying her on it and letting her go, but he could not do it. She curled on her side, the tears still bubbling out, and he could not bring himself to leave her there with such pain in her heart.

Instead, he scooted onto the bed with her, pulling her into his arms, and falling back, letting the feathered bedding swallow them both as she cried. He whispered soft words against her skin, kissing her brow and stroking her shoulders, anything to lessen her pain. Slowly she began to calm herself. He did not let go, holding her until all the emotions were spent.

This was what he wanted, to hold her to him, to soothe her tears, to make her feel better. That was what husbands did, was it not? Soothe their wives?

Nick did not realize how long he had been lying there, since Tressey had fallen asleep against his shoulder, her tears exhausted, and his own exhaustion overtaking him. He dreamed of Tressey singing, her voice ringing out over a gloomy hall, pushing away dark shadows.

It was a wonderful dream–her voice, clearing the air. He would have been quite happy to see how the dream ended, if he was not jarred awake by a shriek.

Nick bolted upright, knocking Tressey out of his arms, ready to fight as though the castle were under attack. What he was not ready for was the maid Alda slamming him upside the head with a chamberpot.

“Ouch!” A slew of very unkind curses flew out of him and the front door slammed open, rattling the nearby table with its crunch against the wall.

“Nick!” His mother’s voice hit his ears first, in a tone he knew well.

“Oh my!” Kiki stifled a giggle. Gah, was the girl always around? He was going to have to restrain her, make Bryan keep an eye on her, though even with Bryan’s legendary tracking skills, Nick doubted he would be able to keep Kiki in his sights.

“What is…” Tressey rose, rubbing her eyes.

The duchess marched across the room to Nick, grabbing him by the ear with all her might, and pulled him away from the bed. “Have you no shame? In all my days, I have never seen such an ungrateful, selfish…” she went on and on, spinning a colorful diatribe of insults at Nick. Some were standard mother rants, others more specifically oriented for the situation. “… now the wedding will have to be at the end of the week. What were you thinking? How dare you compromise…”

Nick barely heard her, focused instead on trying to pry her fingers off his ear–evidently, his one weak spot, because try as he might, he could not bring himself to stand upright with her fingers clamped down as they were.

“Compromised? Surely not, Duchess, please…let me explain…” Tressey climbed out of the bed, charging forward, her dress swishing around her in a rumpled mess.

Nick loved how her hair was tousled around her and sleep still hung in her puffy eyes. He could not help a smile, and could not wait until he could wake to her by his side every morning.

The duchess waved her finger in his face, distracting him. “You are not allowed to find this funny, young man! How dare you!” And off she went again.

Even though he was half bent over, to his mother’s level as she waggled her finger in his face, on a thundering roll, he could not help finding this situation absurd.
 
Even more absurd, the maid kept slapping him with a pillow every few seconds, trying to beat him out of the room.

“Mother, please,” Kiki said, trying to break into the fray.

“Do not, Enrika!” Mother snapped at her, and faced Nick again.

Not that it stopped Kiki.

This could have gone on for hours if a shrill, almost chilling, high-pitched note had not echoed throughout the chamber.

Everyone froze–the duchess releasing Nick, Kiki stopping mid sentence. Even Alda halted her assault by pillow.

The winds hurled through the room, slamming into all of them as the note reached its crescendo, blowing Tressey’s short hair around her face, making some of the tousled locks stick out at odd angles.

The only thing that dared move in the utter silence was a few of the feathers from the pillow Alda had been using, floating in the air. Everyone stared at Tressey, Nick just as shocked at such a loud sound coming out of a delicate thing like Rapunzel.

She narrowed her eyes, glaring at each person in the room. “All of you need to leave. Now.”

Nick took a step forward. “Tressey–”

She raised her hand. “Everyone.” She took a single step forward, a glide almost. “I have had a most trying day.” She looked to Kiki. “Take Her Grace and explain our encounter in the dungeon.”

“You were in the dungeon?” the duchess said, eyebrows raised.

“My lord,” Rapunzel said, glancing at Nick. “I shall see you when I break my fast.”

Nick found himself doing exactly as Rapunzel wished, and headed out the door with his mother and sister in tow.

“You know,” his mother said, “I think she shall be a fine wife.”

“I know she will be,” Nick replied.

“I am still putting guards on her room.”

Nick let out a sigh.

Chapter 39

I crept across my bedroom floor to a bookshelf on the far wall. Slipping my hand along the top left side, I felt for the…

There. An indentation. I slid my fingers along it, feeling for the lever to release the shelf. It thudded with a clank that felt as if it shook the room. I paused, my arms stiff, afraid at any moment my maid would burst in, wondering what I was doing in the middle of the night, fiddling with shelves.

The shelf slid to the right, revealing an arched hole in the wall, the passage exactly where Kiki had said it would be.

Devilish, that girl was.

I grabbed my candle, not about to enter the dark tunnel without some light.

“Seven,” I whispered. Seven doors I had to pass to reach Nick’s rooms. I took a deep breath and entered the tunnel.

I padded along as quietly as possible, for I did not want to see any mice or spiders or any other rodents as I walked. My heart raced with every step. I waved my hand through spider webs and began to wonder about the intelligence of this idea. I had put on a lovely night shift, wrapped a robe around me and covered my head with a hood but, sliding through the spider webs, I was certain I would look a fright by the time I got to Nick’s rooms.

The duchess had put two guards outside my door with explicit instructions to not allow any male into my room, for any reason. If I were to leave, I had to tell them where I was going–a shock, to be certain, when I emerged to speak to Kiki.

I had intended to take a note to Nick’s room and leave it under the door, asking him to come see me in my rooms but, because of the guards, I knew he would never be able to come in. Instead, I turned to the only resource I had in the castle–Kiki.

We had talked a great deal about the day and everything that had happened. At least, everything she knew about. She asked me several times about Lady Eva, if anything had been said between us before she left, but I denied it.

That was one of the main reasons I wanted to speak to Nick. I had to ask him some questions about what Lady Eva had said. I had sat, quill in hand, scribbling out memories from our conversations in the tower. The things he had said about the women here at the castle, in particular. Not once did I remember him saying anything about breaking his betrothal to marry one of them. Nor had he mentioned any of them with the kind of fondness I would expect a man to have for someone he was considering marrying.

And the betrothal.

We very much needed to discuss the betrothal. It was ripping me apart. I knew not if I should trust the betrothal and the circumstances in which I found myself, or if I should try being free, learning who I was, before bonding to someone else. I did not know who I was, did not know anything about my real family.

I needed to figure those things out. I owed my real parents that much at least.