The Duke of Snow and Apples (12 page)

“She’s
beautiful
,” Charlotte gasped.

“Her ladyship insisted,” Frederick said. “The most beautiful horse in her stables…” He looked like he was about to say something else, but something just beyond Charlotte’s shoulder caught his eye and quelled his conversation. He folded his expression back into bland servility just in time.

“Charlotte! There you are! You should have come and found me first thing, you naughty girl.” Aunt Hildy swooped across the stable yard. Not even the prospect of a messy mud hunt could dim her desire for finery. She wore a riding habit of searing pink, a color that would have looked helplessly gauche on a timid woman half her age, and a beaded lavender riding cap titled at a jaunty angle. A necklace of charms, lacquered and painted in gay colors of violet, blue, and yellow, clacked around her throat—rain-aways and stain-wards and wind-wards. The estimable Viscountess Balrumple might deign to admire nature, but she would never submit to it.

“I see you’ve met Quicksilver,” she said. The mare in question whickered as the lady approached. “Isn’t she fine? When I heard you were coming to hunt today, I knew I couldn’t allow you to ride any other. Smart as a whip, but patient as well, if you’re not sure of your seat. Don’t just stand there gawking, Freddy—mount my grandniece!” She turned to examine her harness, only to be distracted by frantic coughing sounds. “My word, Freddy, whatever is the matter?”

“Nothing,” Frederick wheezed. Charlotte, however, thought she heard, “just swallowed my tongue, is all,” muttered under his breath. She stifled a laugh into the back of her glove.

Bending, Frederick laced his fingers together, boosting Charlotte into the saddle. His hand clasped her ankle as he looped it into the stirrup. The contact awoke an unexpected heat that sizzled all the way up her leg and into her belly. Her cheeks bloomed in response, so she dipped her head under the excuse of smoothing the folds of her riding habit to drape over her legs.

When she looked up, she caught Frederick’s gaze, and knew her reaction hadn’t gone completely unnoticed. To her consternation, those dark, laughing eyebrows flew upward, and she could swear she saw ribbons of lemon-yellow mischief spiraling into the air around his face.

Charlotte nudged Quicksilver with her knees, and the horse responded immediately, trotting forward and startling Frederick.

“Why, you’re an old hand at this!” said Aunt Hildy in amazement.

“She’s just well trained,” Charlotte replied.
I wonder if she’s trained to kick on command?

Quicksilver proved more than obedient and capable, and after her great-aunt had mounted her horse (a sleek sorrel gelding who wore the pink ribbons braided into his mane with considerably more gravity than his mistress did), they reunited with Augusta and Mr. Colton at the far end of the stable yard. Some of the other hunters, such as Viscount Elban and Noxley, had already started to gravitate toward the field.

A troop of footmen approached their little group with last-minute services—a forgotten pair of gloves, an extra scarf or charm. Taking up the rear, Frederick held a pair of wind rifles in his arms. Aunt Hildy took her rifle and immediately tested the weight and sight by hoisting it up against her shoulder. She swung around to face Charlotte, causing everyone in their circle to simultaneously flinch.

“My grandniece here is unmudded, as they say,” she said, narrowing an eye along the barrel with imaginary malice.

“Unmudded?”

“Meaning you’ve never done this before,” Augusta explained.

“I can teach you how to fire a wind rifle,” said Mr. Colton kindly.

Although she knew Mr. Colton was just trying to be helpful, inwardly Charlotte resented the condescension. She knew how a wind rifle worked! Concussive wind spells were painstakingly carved into the trigger so they could be quickly and simply cast by pulling it, instead of having to waste precious moments writing the glyphs or speaking the cumbersome vowels and thorny consonants aloud.

Perhaps she could use her supposed ignorance to her advantage. Mr. Colton was already married, but she could cozen Viscount Elban into teaching her.

It would be easy. She could profess ignorance, eyes wide and unsure. A few dropped comments about his legendary proficiency at the sport. She could show off the tight, flattering cut of her riding habit across her shoulders and neck by asking Viscount Elban to show her how the rifle was held. All the while, she could claim his attention for however long she pleased.

The other option, of course, was to disdain the use of a rifle and risk falling flat on her face thanks to some mistake on her part.

Frederick offered up her wind rifle with both hands. His eyes glimmered, just for an instant, and Charlotte wondered what he saw with that strange power of his. Just as she reached for it, the rifle dropped, down with his hands, down with his gaze as he stared at the ground, instantly transformed into a model of humble apology.

“I’m sorry, Miss Charlotte, I completely forgot,” he said, in a voice pitched to sound like a whisper while still being clearly heard by everyone. “You told me you wanted to hunt bare-handed, but somehow it slipped my mind.”

Charlotte froze.

“Bare-handed?” said Aunt Hildy. “How exciting!”

Charlotte felt a flush creep up the back of her neck, even as she felt rooted to the spot.

Mr. Colton chuckled admiringly. “You must be a regular wind-witch, then. Without a wind rifle, I’d spend the entire hunt tripping over my own tongue.”

“Who says Miss Charlotte is any different?” said Lord Noxley. An arrogant smile crawled across his face. “All we have to go on is her word.”

Charlotte lifted her chin. She didn’t have to impress Noxley, a strutting rooster who hoped his fine golden feathers distracted people from his looming debts. “Is that a challenge?”

“Heavens no, I’m a gentleman,” said Noxley.

“I wouldn’t have guessed.”

Noxley’s face didn’t twitch, but his face slowly suffused with red. “A challenge, then. Whomever shoots the most gnomes has to”—after receiving a quelling look from Aunt Hildy, he concluded lamely—“write a poem of the other’s triumph.”

Charlotte’s fingers clenched around the reins. She couldn’t back down now—ignorance in front of eligible gentlemen could be counted as an asset, but cowardice was another thing altogether.

Which decision would hamper her chances more?

She turned to Frederick. As if sensing her scrutiny, the curtain of his lashes lifted and his eyes met hers, covert but bold, daring to look at her without anyone else noticing, daring to claim something of her that no one else could. This wasn’t the first time he’d neatly driven her into a corner of her small square of proscribed behavior. He knew her pride would rather seek unsafe, unsuitable, unknown territory than content herself with a mere corner.

He’d counted on it.

Foolish, presumptuous, observant man.
Damn him!

“You’re forgiven, Freddy,” she said, trying to keep her tone haughty and bored. “Just take the wind rifle away and mind my orders more carefully next time.”

“Of course,” Frederick replied, bowing. The light contained in his eyes was subtle, careful, like the barest reflection of candlelight off silver. Charlotte detected soft tints of emotion, pale and diluted, but present—rose and peach and burnished gold, sunset colors that made her think of home, warmth, and comfort. She turned away, but not without a smile.

…

For the hunting field, Lady Balrumple, on the advice of Charmant’s Earthkeeper, had chosen a place on the southern end of the estate. It sloped down from the mansion, a long skirt of sere brown, wrinkled here and there with shallow hills. A few clumps of hardy orange dragon’s jasmine dotted the field, oblivious to the fact that autumn had left them behind. The shaggy firs of St. Stophra’s Forest hemmed in the eastern side, while to the west, the silver thread of the Alland river represented the border between Charmant Park and the village on the other side.

The hunting field itself was indicated by an enormous, uneven square marked out by wooden stakes carved with powerful earth-wards. Outside this boundary, the hunt’s spectators reclined beneath awnings of indigo cloth weighted with embroidered spells that kept away wind and rain. Servants darted back and forth with tea and salamander-bottles.

Charlotte steeled her spine and nudged Quicksilver to keep up with the other hunters. There was no cowering away now. Her mare nimbly stepped over the stakes.

Spotting them, a tall man as wiry as a winter vine approached and bowed before Aunt Hildy, his hand over his heart. He gave off a rich, loamy scent, and his face was as brown and wrinkled as a walnut.

“This is our village Earthkeeper, Mr. Garrison,” Aunt Hildy explained to Charlotte. “Is the field ready?”

“Yes’m, milady,” said Mr. Garrison. “We had a good year for harvests, so there’s still a bit of kick left in the ground, ripe for a spot o’ mischief. We await only your command.”

“I give it,” said Lady Balrumple.

With another bow, Mr. Garrison turned around and raised his hands. His mouth opened and a low muttering emerged. Everywhere, horses’ ears flipped back in awareness and conversation ceased. Mr. Garrison’s voice grew louder and the muttering grew clearer—dark, guttural words, slightly slurred from long, familiar practice. He spoke in the low-tongue, neither Benine nor Kelok, the two ruling languages of high magic, but a far older and more ancient tongue. Unlike the high magic, this one had no alphabet, no written equivalent. It passed from tongue to tongue and hand to hand down the years among the underfolk. Elemental magic, lower and simpler, yet at the same time more pure.

The hairs on the back of Charlotte’s neck stood up, and she unconsciously rewrapped her scarf around her throat. She could feel the frisson of energy passing from the ground up her horse’s legs. As the assembled people watched, a spot of earth near the center of the field swelled, grew, and burst as a brown, knobbly creature with arms like twisted branches pulled itself out of the ground. As it did, dozens of humps rose in the previously smooth terrain and split open with soft puffs as more creaking, soil-covered gnomes dragged themselves out of their element. They had heads flat and wide as the blunt end of a shovel, lumpy potatoes for noses, and long fingers that tapered to mere wisps at the ends, like roots. As the air shivered with power, the gnomes rose on command.

As one, they swayed with the Earthkeeper, caught in his spell. Then, with a dramatic flourish, the Earthkeeper brought his hands together in a fierce clap. The spell lent the sound the force and volume of a pistol shot, and the gnomes scattered. With an excited whoop from the guests, the mud hunt began.

Charlotte launched Quicksilver into a gallop, the spirit of the occasion teasing a laugh out of her already.

“Take my advice!” shouted Aunt Hildy, her sorrel keeping easy pace with Quicksilver. She lifted her rifle, sighting along the barrel. She pulled the trigger and the gun kicked back into her shoulder as it shot a whistling burst of powerful, condensed wind. Twenty feet ahead of them, a gnome exploded, leaving a pile of disturbed soil in its place. “Pick one gnome at a time, and run it to ground!” She sped ahead with a devilish cackle.

Charlotte spotted a gnome with a particularly knobby head and sent Quicksilver after it. She quickly adapted her hips to the mare’s lively, rolling gate and leaned into the saddle. The gnome barreled forward, but occasionally threw itself into a sharp turn, making her strive to keep up. The words for a particularly powerful wind spell rose to her lips.

Before she could utter it, her target suddenly combusted in a shower of dirt. Noxley passed her on his horse, bestowing a condescending smirk. “Maybe next time.”

Rage flared hot and quick, but the wind and excitement wicked it out almost as quickly. She chose another scrambling gnome and didn’t wait for a clear shot. She emptied her mind, her innate connection to wind a strong and flexible rein in her hands, just waiting for her to give it a command. She shouted the spell, and the wind followed her outstretched hand. It flattened a path of grass just behind the gnome, but the earth elemental escaped unscathed.

Charlotte gave chase and fired off two more spells. Both missed, but she didn’t care. She tore down the hills, the cold wind scraping at her cheeks, Quicksilver’s power and speed rippling beneath her. The air crackled with the sharp reports of the wind pistols and the grunts of horses and hunters. The burnt-sugar scent of spent magic stung Charlotte’s nostrils.

She cast wildly, and out of purest luck struck a gnome a few feet away. It dissolved into loose soil. She whooped a victory, full of fire and joy.

Noxley, close behind her, brought his mount up short. “Poacher! That was my prize!”

“My apologies,” said Charlotte, a pretty picture of insincerity, and angled her horse past his.

She continued on, breathless with laughter. She cast three more wind spells, her skill, aim, and command of the magic increasing with each try. Three more gnomes returned to the earth, leaving behind soft piles of dirt.

“Easy now!” said Augusta, dodging an errant breeze that passed too close to her mount. Charlotte forgot that women riding astride were supposed to be indecent—Augusta handled her horse with such grace and skill, that Charlotte’s admiration soon overcame her shock at Augusta’s indelicacy.

Mr. Colton, meanwhile, employed a tactic similar to Charlotte’s own—shoot first and aim later. His brother, Viscount Elban, held his gun over his arm with a deceptively languorous air. When he ran down a particularly devious gnome, Charlotte watched the rifle snap into position and fire with startling speed.

As gnome numbers started dwindling rapidly, the hunters grew wilier, less concerned with speed than cunning as each hunter strove to defeat the most gnomes. The devious laughter of competition spiced the air—one gnome might find itself chased by two or three riders. With no balls or ammunition it was difficult to tell whose shot felled which elemental, a difficulty that sparked numerous animated discussions and arguments nearly always solved by a quick game of wood-water-fire.