The Duke of Snow and Apples (27 page)

“Of
course
, my dear!” Lady Balrumple relented in an instant and drew Charlotte into a tight embrace, as expensive fabric rustled around them. “Come—I have a room furnished entirely in the Forojian style. Hideously expensive and incredibly flimsy. I often go there when I want to break something substantial.”

Charlotte nodded.

Lady Balrumple turned toward the sudden duke, and all the laughter in her face vanished. “Stay where you are. I shall send someone to see to your new…living arrangements.”

Then they were gone, leaving Frederick alone, a familiar condition that no longer seemed as comforting as before.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The Dowagers sent Tall John to escort Frederick to his new rooms. His shoulders bunched stiffly beneath the heavy blue satin, and tendons stood out in his jaw as he kept his mouth flattened in a thin, firm line.

He bowed, a deep, perfect bend from the waist. “Your Grace.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Frederick said.

Tall John rose and kept his eyes respectfully on the floor, as if he hadn’t heard Frederick at all. As if ten years spent hauling coal and salamanders up three flights of stairs together had never happened. “If you will follow me, Your Grace.”

Frederick fell into step behind him as he was led out of the parlor. Tall John kept to the well-lit corridors adorned with wide, stylized portraits of elegant ancestors and monarchs, instead of murky servants’ passages. He tramped up the wider staircases bounded by banisters carved into the shape of sea serpents with open mouths, his footsteps making little to no noise on the thick carpeting. It was a far cry from the tight, corkscrewing stairwells that clattered with the pumps of footmen and the patens of housemaids from just before dawn until long after midnight.

As they proceeded through the house, faces peeped out from behind corners and half-open doors. House maids with tight, angry looks beneath their muslin caps. Hall boys, managing to look both curious and disapproving. Scullery maids escaped from the kitchen to gawp at this impossible discovery. Footmen, his closest comrades, straightened as he passed and slid the scowls from their faces one moment too late.

This must be what a convict feels on his way to being Collared
, thought Frederick, as Tall John turned in to a hallway, startling the housekeeper Mrs. Morris.

Mrs. Morris, the queen of belowstairs, who had ruled with an iron hand accustomed to administering slaps and pinches to footmen who failed to jump as high as she liked, pressed her back against the wall and pinned her gaze to the floor as if to render herself invisible—but not before her mouth curled into a sneer of disgust. Those who worked the longest under her eventually discovered the warm and compassionate fairness that lurked behind the rigidity, but it seemed Frederick would now be denied that as well.

Betrayal
. Every lurking servant struggled to scrub, smooth, or hide this emotion as the former footman passed.

All the years they’d griped and poked fun at the “uppity folk” or “them upstairs,” they’d never realized that one of “them upstairs” had sat beside them at the dining hall all this time. An impostor. A fraud. Frederick no longer belonged to their company—he was now part of the same class of people who rang for hot milk at two o’clock in the morning, tracked muddy footprints across carpets, seduced and abandoned the housemaids to starve in the gutters. Oh, the Seven Dowagers were better employers than most, gave good wages, weren’t too fussy, but that didn’t make the actual work any less hard.

It seemed ages before they finally arrived at Frederick’s new sleeping quarters. Tall John opened the door to let him pass, but refused to enter himself. Frederick knew this bedchamber, as well as the dressing room and closet beyond. Blue-and-white-striped wallpaper Lady Balrumple had commissioned seven years ago. Heavy mahogany furniture that required a firm polish with foul-smelling Green Serpent oil every spring. An imposing four-poster bed with hangings of dark blue velvet that had to be carefully brushed.

“Remember three years ago when Kitty came in to clean the grate and found a nest of wild wyrms hidden in the chimney?” Frederick said. “We had to scare the bloody things out with pokers and hope they’d flee out the window without singeing the carpets. Nearly lost an eye.”

He received no reply, and when he turned around, he discovered Tall John had already left.

“Really?” came a different voice. “That would have been a shame.”

Frederick jumped, but the intruder was only Edward, emerging from the dressing room. Several cravats lay draped over one arm.

“What are you doing here?” Frederick demanded.

“I’m preparing your clothing, my lord. Some of the guests, at the Dowagers’ behest, graciously donated certain articles for your use, that is, until you can arrange for your own wardrobe. Which reminds me.” Edward laid the cravats over the top of a chair and whipped a length of measuring-tape out of his pocket. “If I could take your measurements before you retire for the night? I should finish the worst of the tailoring by morning.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I am your valet, my lord,” said Edward. “It’s my job.”

“It’s your job to go blind sewing throughout the night?”

“It’s my job to make sure you’re presentable.” He arched an eyebrow. “Whether you want to be or not.”

“Funny,” said Frederick. “I don’t remember hiring you.”

Edward didn’t say anything, but his staunch posture wilted a bit. “I would consider it a very great favor if you would, my lord. My rather public departure from Lord Noxley has rendered a letter of reference unlikely.”

Realizing all the gift horse’s teeth were accounted for, Frederick relented. “All right.”

“Excellent!” Edward looped the measuring-tape around Frederick’s shoulders, chest, and waist.

As Edward took his measurements, Frederick asked, “When, exactly, did you leave Snowmont Abbey?”

Edward tied the last knot into the measuring-string without looking up. “Not long after my father died.”

“I’m sorry. He was a good man, Grubs.”

“Yes, well.” He shrugged. “Everyone just seemed to lose their—well, their drive. Some more than most. No one laughed anymore, or even lost their temper. Mr. Littiger moved in with his aunt when he inherited. Not much older than you. I thought we might be in for a pleasant change, but after a while his aunt died of the winter cough and Sn—I mean, Mr. Littiger, became as listless as the rest of us. Sometimes it felt as if a curse had fallen over the house.”

My curse.
“I’m sorry.”

“For what? Things worsened
after
you left. We all knew something was wrong with Her Grace, if you’ll pardon my presumption, but after you, well,
died
, it was like whatever evil spirit held Snowmont Abbey in its grasp decided to go after everyone else. Snow—I mean, Mr. Littiger especially. You think he’s a bit of a damp goblin now—ha! He’s been that way for
years
.”

Years?
Frederick hadn’t known the man for years. How was that possible? Did the Gray spread from person to person, like one of those unmentionable diseases that stewed down in the darker lanes of Trinidon, like the Scale, or Stone-tooth?

Only an hour ago, Frederick had thought he’d attained some mastery over his magic, but now he felt as if he’d fallen right back to knowing nothing about the most important part of himself.

…

A duke. Frederick is a duke
. The words had wound through Charlotte’s head, a ceaseless monotone chant, since the moment that cursed ring had declared that beneath the powdered wig and subservient pose lurked a man with the purest blood in Allmarch, this side of the royal family.
A duke, a duke, Frederick Adam Phineas Calvin Cleighmore. Duke of Snowmont.

It had sung in her head, like one of the Fey’s lost song-spells, as she and her great-aunt took themselves into the rooms Aunt Hildy reserved for bouts of temper and reduced several finely wrought Forojian chairs to splinters. It lingered like an off-key peal from a warped bell—so much so that she’d had to kick and stomp the expensive wicker and silk furniture by hand, for she couldn’t concentrate enough to manage even the simplest of Wind-spells.

Frederick is a duke.
The moment she opened her eyes after a restless night, the truth continued to drill further into her brain, from where she would never be able to escape it. How could she have been so blind? So stupid?

She laughed bitterly into her pillow. When was she anything other than blind and stupid? When had she
ever
been able to see beyond the pretty surface of things to the lies and deceit at a person’s core? How many conversations, how many intimate moments had she shared with her sister after meeting Mr. Peever? Not once had she even suspected that Sylvia and Mr. Peever might be in love.

She fell back onto her pillows with a moan. He was a duke—and not only a duke, but one of the First Eighteen, directly descended from Fey royalty before the magical race had vanished from Allmarch and the world entirely. She’d thrown an apple at a duke. She’d teased a duke. She’d revealed all her humiliating frailties before a duke.

She dragged herself out of bed and rang for tea. If she’d only
known
.

Known what?
Her voice of reason, suppressed last night in favor of the more satisfying clamor of anger and resentment, chose this moment to resurface.
Known that the man who ran behind carriages and polished silver and let pompous twits like Noxley slap him with filthy riding-gloves was really a Pure Blooded lord?
Charlotte hadn’t been the only one fooled.

The housemaid arrived with the tea tray. She wore a clean bobbed cap and apron over a plain print dress, every inch of her a respectful and obedient maid. Charlotte cast her a sideways look. Might a princess be lurking beneath the neutral face and agile hands arranging the delicate china teapot and cream pitcher just so? Who was to know?

The very idea was ridiculous. Perverse. Frederick had fooled everyone—and
why?
Why subject himself to servitude for ten years when he could have had a dukedom? Was an Entailment really as awful as all that? Last night, Frederick had held out his hand for the ring like a condemned prisoner stretching his neck for the Collar.

Charlotte sipped her tea without adding her usual two spoonsful of sugar first, and the bitterness in her mouth coincided with a growing realization—was the prospect of marrying her so awful? She’d given him her love, and he’d rejected her on the basis that they were too far apart in status.
We still are
. A duke, particularly one of the Eighteen, would be expected to marry someone equally powerful in order to preserve the Fey heritage—not someone from a family so diluted that Sylvia checked herself for lines and blemishes every month she cast more spells than usual. Now
Charlotte
was the unworthy one.

When she finished her tea, she rang for Lamonte. Normalcy, routine. She could get through the day so long as she relied on the usual. Besides, if she delayed dressing and going down to breakfast any longer, she would provoke more remarks than she was already bound to.

Lamonte arrived, quieter than usual, and helped Charlotte into her corset. Neither woman spoke.
Maiden only knows what the servants must think of Frederick
. As the lady’s maid cinched the ties, a flutter of warmth arose in Charlotte’s chest, surprising a gasp.

“Too tight?” the lady’s maid asked. “I will loosen.”

Charlotte laid a hand against the burn just beneath her collarbone. It pulsed, almost like a heart. So new, yet so familiar. She closed her eyes. Behind sealed eyelids her world was black, but when she focused on the sensation, a color sprang unbidden into her mind—a slow, smoldering red like a hot coal.

Last night, before the lie of Frederick’s life was exposed, he
had
shown her truth. She knew the loneliness and suffering he’d endured and she’d seen the amount of effort he’d made to smother what remained of his heart. Now a piece of it glowed within her. The rickety, half-finished frame of her anger collapsed, leaving a wreckage of confusion. She didn’t know what to think. The truth behind his deception lay beyond her involvement with him, ten years in the past.

What had happened to him to cause him to reject all that he was?

…

All conversation ceased the moment Charlotte entered the breakfast room. Some coughing and nonsensical muttering followed, an effort, perhaps, to disguise the true reason for the death of speech, but by the time Charlotte took her seat next to Sylvia, the scrape of her chair against the floor positively screeched against the oppressive silence.

Lord Enshaw and his sons kept their eyes resolutely upon their kippers. Augusta, Lady Tamsin, offered a weak smile. Snowmont—
Charles Littiger
—ate with his usual listlessness. Next to Mr. Oswald, Noxley smirked at her until Mr. Oswald shifted in his chair, a struggle erupted under the table, and Noxley squeaked in pain. Sir Bertram stared openly, those green eyes of his almost invasive in their scrutiny.

Worse still was the stillness from the Dowagers. All of them smiled, some (Aunt Hildy) a little too brightly, but none seemed able to come up with anything appropriate to say.

However awkward, the silence became nowhere near as chill as when Frederick—
Snowmont
—made his appearance. Charlotte sucked in a breath. His natural hair gleamed in the sunlight, the black curls professionally combed back instead of kinked from their usual imprisonment beneath a wig. His forest-green coat clung to his supple frame with an intimacy that was almost sinful. A froth of pure white lace at his throat punctuated his remarkable appearance, fastened with a sapphire stickpin that brought out the color of his eyes.

Above the green superfine and white lace, however, was the face of a man deeply uncomfortable with the situation. His gaze lowered and he bent forward slightly as he entered, the instinct to bow not wholly repressed. His hands opened and closed in nervous fists as he cast about for something, anything familiar.

The sweet burn in her chest flared as Charlotte stared at him, even as resentment threatened to boil up from her belly. The betrayal didn’t sweep the love away, the tingling need that made her body tighten and strain toward him. It couldn’t dampen the pulse of heat in her chest, the memory of red that sent all her ordered thoughts spiraling in all directions.

She loved him. She hated him. She knew him. He was a stranger to her.

“Good morning, Your Grace,” said Lady Balrumple. In contrast to her attitude toward her grandniece, her face folded into a scowl and she looked as if she had entirely too much to say to him.