The Duke of Snow and Apples (8 page)

Frederick sighed. A safe,
male
haven. He was finished spying on Charlotte. Truly, this time. The last three or four times he’d snuck out of the coach house, across the grounds, to peep in the ballroom windows he’d nearly gotten caught. He might even have betrayed himself already.

He’d witnessed Charlotte in her natural element, swimming gracefully through conversations and dances instead of gasping in an airless facade of propriety. Relaxed, she divulged pretty, unconscious gestures that she had, before, been careful to stifle. Like the way she pinned her lower lip with her lovely white teeth as she smiled at a particularly amusing retort. Or the way her eyebrows swung up and down in expressive arcs as she described something interesting. Or the way she exposed the creamy column of her throat when she launched into surprised laughter. Loud, galloping,
real
laughter this time.

Frederick settled into a chair next to Shipley and watched as he trounced Miss Katherine’s groom at Persuasion, played with un-spelled cards. Really, it was better for all involved that Frederick had made his fourth (
all right, fifth
) foray to the ballroom windows his last. He could no longer bear to watch yet another gentleman flutter into Charlotte’s circle to ask for a dance.

He wasn’t quite ready to admit to himself the amount of longing Charlotte’s social success incited in him. A footman lived a small, confined life, with small, confined desires. A few extra minutes of sleep, a dollop of the housekeeper’s Firemass jam, a silver polish that didn’t smell so much like cat piss. Tiny wants that could be hidden away in a pocket.

When he thought about Charlotte, something in Frederick’s chest stretched, tightened, and chafed against his careful confines. He
remembered
balls. Not the innumerable dances and routs and assemblies he’d stood at as an invisible servant, but the ones he’d attended
before.
He’d been too young to dance with anyone of consequence, but he remembered the steps. He recalled the warm, slight weight of a young girl’s hand in his, the raucous energy of a country earth-step, the dizzying heat that made everything seem lighter than air and yet slower than syrup. His mother’s loving glance as she sat on the sidelines, her face lit up despite her perpetual state of mourning that forbid the use of spells or color.

But that was
Frederick
. Freddy Snow had nothing to be proud of. Not anymore.

Frederick stood up, his chair squeaking against the floor. The room suddenly felt too hot. He needed to get out, get some air.

Shipley looked up from his card game. “What, again? I’ve barely seen you drink anything since we got here.”

“I’ll only be a moment,” Frederick mumbled.

He stepped back out in the cold night, hugging his arms about himself. He needed some air, something to cool the unwanted, unasked for heat boiling his veins. He wouldn’t go back to spy on the ballroom. No, that was done. Finished.

It wouldn’t do any harm to
look
in that direction, though. It was well past midnight, with only a half-moon to limn everything in dim silver. In contrast, the gold brightness spilling from the ballroom windows called like a beacon. Frederick heard the soft
crunch
of boots against gravel and realized he’d already started walking in that direction.

Cursing himself, he stopped, but the crunching sound continued. Someone else sought the solace of icy weather, a dark figure wrapped in a shawl striding away from the life and warmth of the party. Frederick felt exposed and foolish. What excuse could he, a visiting footman, give for exploring the grounds without permission?

Perhaps I can get away with pretending to be an over-solicitous servant.
He started forward, head down, a deferential offer of assistance balanced on the tip of his tongue.

“May I help you Mi—” The words died on his lips as the woman let her shawl fall to her shoulders.

“As a matter of fact, I do need help,” Charlotte said softly in a voice like silk over steel. “What is Viscount Elban’s favorite color? What is
Mr. Oswald’s
favorite color? Everyone I meet seems to give me a different answer.”

She stepped close, too close, until Frederick could feel the brush of her breath on his face. Her shawl slipped lower, off her shoulders completely, revealing the luscious contrast of creamy skin and scarlet silk. She probably thought she was being intimidating, but her presence stirred an entirely different reaction in Frederick’s body. Bless and damn her both, he could no longer look down as a defense—for looking down now meant down the bodice of her dress. He forced his head back up so he could look her in the eyes. Doing so, he felt strangely powerful. Bold. Equal.

“You enjoyed yourself, admit it,” he said.

Charlotte’s eyebrows soared toward her hairline, and she took an instinctive step back. Clearly, she’d expected him to be all limp apology. “You’re not in a position to give orders.”

“No one could keep their eyes off you in that ballroom.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, but that mischievous corner of her mouth turned upward at the compliment. God, that rebellious corner. He could tame it if he tried, with lips and teeth and tongue. It would only take a moment.

“Yes you do. You’re welcome.” His voice emerged deeper than he’d intended, huskier.

Petulant anger flared in her eyes. “I have nothing to thank you for! You lied to me and deceived a lady’s maid! You nearly ruined everything!”

“I saved you from making a spectacle of yourself.”

“I was nothing
but
a spectacle tonight,” she retorted. “Do you have any idea how furious and exposed I felt?”

“I do.”
Turnabout’s fair play
. He doubted
she
had any idea of the disastrous effect she had on him, all the unwanted emotions she awakened in him despite the years he’d spent shutting them away. They gnawed at him, even now. Particularly lust, which curled a hot path up his spine to the building heat in his brain. “You were too furious and exposed to keep up your little charade!
You’re welcome!
” He backed away and gave a sarcastic little bow, an attempt to put space between them.

Charlotte reared back with an outraged gasp. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, no?” Frederick tried to hold his mental and emotional barriers in place, but frustration and desire licked at his resolve like little tongues of flame, threatening to set his whole mind alight. “You get by on pretty practiced phrases, clockwork wit, and rehearsed mannerisms, instead of being who you are.”

“You do not know who I am,” Charlotte said with cool arrogance. Before Frederick’s eyes, the girl retreated behind the walls of her castle and the gate lowered shut. Her voice emerged polished and bland. “The actions of your superiors may seem mystifying to you, but there are rules of conduct, of propriety…”

“Last night I saw a child reciting her schoolgirl lessons.”

“A servant cannot presume to understand what a
gentleman
looks for in a lady…”

“Servingman or gentleman, I am still a
man
,” Frederick said, stung. He’d forgotten how true anger, true insult felt. It twisted inside him, tighter and tighter, until he felt an answering
twang
in his head, the first tentative notes of his emerging power. “You’d be surprised how alike men think. At last night’s dinner,
I
thought you were the most stilted, boring, and insultingly
false
woman in the entire room!”

All color drained from Charlotte’s face, leaving her as frozen and pale as a pillar of salt. Blinking rapidly, she turned away and tottered back down the path, her movements wooden and halting. Frederick’s anger vanished, and hot shame welled up in him. It wasn’t her fault he was losing control. It couldn’t be. There had to be some other reason he couldn’t hold it all in like he’d done for the last ten years.

“Wait!” He ran after her. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Y-yes you did.” Her breathing hitched. Even in the dim light, he could see her shoulders shaking. “If even a footman notices my errors, they must be d-doubly obvious to eligible gentlemen.” She whirled around, unshed tears gathered on her lashes. “But I h-hardly need
your
help. Hearts aren’t won with pretty dresses alone, nor wicked tricks. It takes
work
,
preparation
,
practice
,
willpower
…”

Frederick offered a hand before he could stop himself. He hadn’t wanted to make her cry. “You don’t—”

She slapped his hand away. “I don’t what? I don’t need your pity. I don’t need anything from you or anyone else.”

“I wish you could have watched yourself in that ballroom tonight,” Frederick said. He didn’t bother to keep the wonderment out of his voice. As loath as he was to reveal anything vulnerable about himself, he sensed he wouldn’t convince Charlotte otherwise. “Because I did—and I saw you, Miss Charlotte Erlwood, as you really are.”

“You mean wearing the dress you tricked me into.”

“I mean you were right the first time. You don’t need anything from anyone
.
You burned like a star, without all the senseless restrictions and mannerisms you normally apply.
Everyone
in that ballroom could see that.”

Frederick’s magic sang like a thrummed harp string, and he reached out for her without thinking. Charlotte turned away quickly, and Frederick saw dark ocher swirls of self-doubt circling her face.

“What if it’s only the gown?” she whispered, draped in the bruise colors of worry and sadness. “What if it’s only hiding what’s wrong with me?”

She blinked, and a tear slid down to perch on the edge of her right cheekbone, and without thinking, Frederick brushed it off with the pad of his thumb. Even wearing gloves, the contact sent a jolt of sensation all the way up his arm, and his power hummed in response. He hadn’t meant to darken her colors. Shades of gray, dark blue, and dirty yellow danced around her.

Frederick had buried his magic in his cold place to guard against wrath, fear, and despair. He wasn’t prepared for the fierce need to comfort Charlotte that coursed through him. Undone by kindness, his barriers dissolved.

“You’re wonderful all by yourself,” he murmured. Almost of his own accord, his thumb traced a damp line down her jaw. “Why would you want to hide that?”

Charlotte’s cheek blushed under his hand and as his thumb reached her chin, her lips parted ever so slightly. Frederick lowered his face to hers. Or rather, he fell toward her, drawn by an inexplicable gravity, and covered her lips with his own.

She tasted of lemon fizz and salt, laughter and tears. Her mouth opened under his, whether in surprise or invitation Frederick wasn’t sure. All thoughts of his cold place vanished as heat exploded within him, searing every nerve joyfully alive. The frozen parts of him melted, expanded, stretching and uncoiling with delirious abandon. His eyes burned as, no longer contained, emotions boiled out of him, joy and pleasure and deep, deep wanting. They flowed from his eyes in spirals of gold, streams of rich purple, blooming stars of crimson. His head pealed with magic, high trilling notes.

Charlotte pulled away, the jarring loss of contact jolting Frederick back to himself. She stared at him, glowing with the bright, clashing hues of confusion and surprise. Her face shone dimly in the light, her mouth hanging slack in shock.

With horror, Frederick realized the pale blue light reflected off her skin was his own, coming from his hated, cursed eyes. He squeezed them shut, and tried to quiet the victorious din of his magic, released at last.
The cold place, I need the cold place. I need to find the cold place.
Snow, bitter winds, ice, anything, so long as it was cold…

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Frederick forced the words out with false levity, opening his eyes slowly. Inside, he struggled against the heat and the noise of his magic as he tried to pack it away.

“That light, with your eyes.” Charlotte reached out, and the merest brush of her fingers against his cheek caused his magic to flare. His eyes blazed, and for a moment, the world around him vanished, leaving only darkness and the pure, concentrated colors of Charlotte’s core. Mortified, he drew back, and his normal vision returned.

“Don’t touch me!”
Oh God, she saw me. She saw
me.

“What—”

“I said
don’t touch me!
” He stumbled away and threw himself into a run, head pounding, lungs wheezing, back to the carriage house. He avoided the warm sanctuary of the coachman’s room. He needed to shiver. He needed to freeze. He needed that wretched curse of his and the useless urges that stirred it to wither away and die.

He climbed up onto the footman’s platform on her ladyship’s carriage and huddled there, shuddering, until the cold within at last matched the cold without.

Chapter Eight

Frederick’s iron bedstead creaked as he turned over for the umpteenth time that night. At last conceding defeat, he threw off his blanket and welcomed the chill. The salamanders in his tiny grate had died out hours ago, their little corpses naught but glittering ash. Frederick breathed deeply. The frigid, late-autumn air felt good on his skin, in his lungs. Winter couldn’t come soon enough.

He gazed out his small window. Nothing but the palest of smears on the horizon heralded the approach of dawn. Now was as good a time to get up as any. He crossed to his rickety dressing-table, cracked the ice in the water jug, and poured himself enough freezing water to shave and bathe. He gasped at the first splash against his face. Cold only hurt at first, but then it brought peace.

Without his cold place, Frederick might have burned up years ago, just like those salamanders, leaving nothing but ash. He’d always had this curse, this magic without language. He’d never known a day without it. During his years at school, he’d study spells in the lilting, musical tongues of Benine or Kelok, all the while wondering why his own power never needed words.

With only a thought, emotions and desires would bloom into being all around him, turning the world into a dizzying painting only he could see, daubed with people’s wishes and needs and feelings. As a boy, he’d thought he held some secret key, some unheard-of gift that allowed him a glimpse into a world beneath the surface. He hadn’t known it was wrong. He couldn’t have guessed that just looking into that private world gave him the power to destroy those colors, and the people who felt them.

But that wasn’t an excuse for the Gray his power brought with it, the loss of color and life.

On impulse, Frederick knelt beside his bed, searching with his fingers until he found the exact hole in the mattress’s side. He reached in, digging through the straw until his hand connected with his secret treasure, and he pulled it out. The gold band felt heavy and warm in his palm, and the enormous faceted ruby glimmered in the dim morning light.

Once, this ring had been a symbol of his place in the world, of the power his ancestry and lineage gave him, power that few others held. Now, he kept it only as a reminder that he couldn’t be trusted with power of any kind.

His lip curling with disgust, he stuffed the ring back into its hiding place.
Bloody arrogant fool. You’ve let yourself grow soft.
As he dressed in his morning livery, he fumbled with the buttons while putting on his waistcoat and realized his hands were trembling.

Is that all it took to unman him? What was it about the turn of Charlotte’s head and the glimpse of that lopsided smile that sent every thought of meekness and servitude and silver polish scurrying out of his head?

He was used to belittlement at the hands of his betters. Charlotte posed an entirely different threat. She incited rebellion. Like a child with a stick, she stirred his carefully ordered anthill until he seethed with frustration, dissatisfaction, and lust. Just the memory of that stolen kiss, of that hot mouth yielding to his own…

It threatened to destroy his control. Last night, it had. His power had returned so easily, filling his head with fire and song as if he’d used it every day of his life. And Charlotte had broken away.
That light, with your eyes
. No mention of his kiss. No outrage at the presumption of his underfolk hands upon her gently-bred face. She’d seen him for what he really was, and that, more than his kiss, had frightened and repulsed her.

Good
. Maybe this would put some much-needed distance between them, and he could return to doing what a footman did best. He settled his wig on his head and took a long look at himself in the chipped mirror above his dressing-table. Short of casting a very difficult and dangerous spell, this was the closest Frederick could come to being invisible.

…

“Sounds like another failure for Mama,” said Mr. Oswald at the breakfast table, after the china finished rattling.

“I’ve heard worse,” Lady Alderley said. “The blast the day before last nearly took the roof off. Eh, Charlotte?”

“What?” Charlotte jerked up from her studious examination of her buttered toast. “I’m sorry, I fear my mind must have wandered.”

Seated at the head of the table, Lady Balrumple smiled like a cat with cream. “My, my,
someone
enjoyed themselves last night.”

“Oh, to be certain, Aunt Hildy.” She supposed one of the assorted sensations swirling through her like a tempest might be enjoyment. Along with confusion, consternation, shock, disbelief, and uncomfortable pleasure. “I had a lovely time.”

“And with whom is your mind wandering? Some starstruck beau, perhaps?” Charlotte’s cheeks flamed, but before she could respond her great-aunt cut her off. “No, I shan’t pry. I shall only observe. Doubtless the answer will come in time.”

I’ve no starstruck beau. I’ve a starstruck footman. An unearthly starstruck footman.
The memory of that kiss alone made her lips burn. Surely no action could awaken sensations so powerful without leaving a mark of some kind, some indication of the illicit contact she’d shared with a man as far below her as to be unnoticeable.

It was Frederick’s fault. After insulting her, he should have apologized and begged forgiveness out of fear for his position. He should at least have done something to
remind
her that he was a footman. Instead, he’d captured her mouth with such fierce wanting that she’d opened up to him, all obedience, utterly convinced he had every right to claim what was rightfully his.

At least the kiss she could explain. Those eyes of his were a different matter. When lit up with that shocking brightness they’d cut through to her very soul, filling her with an aching pleasure so acute it splashed across her vision in whorls of light. Some bizarre, magical connection had exploded between the two of them in a rainbow of shared emotion.

“Mr. Oswald, you study magic as your profession, do you not?” she asked suddenly.

Lady Leighwood’s son finished his tea with a gulp. “Earth magic, yes.”

“Does all magic require spells?”

“All Allmarchian magic requires a language, if that’s what you mean,” Mr. Oswald replied. “The ancient tongues of Benine and Kelok. The Fey, before they died out, spoke those languages and could manipulate and transform the realities around them with a simple conversation or a written missive.”

“Could someone, perhaps, cast magic with their mind?”

“You mean heathen magic?” Lady Enshaw said. “Oh, that’s best left alone. If it doesn’t come from God through the Maiden’s hands, it’s safest not to cast it at all.”

“I disagree,” said Mr. Oswald, warming to the subject. “No magics are inherently evil. The Holy Maiden rebuilt the world, not just the Allmarchian corner of it.”

“But the Holy Maiden was Feyish,” Lady Enshaw insisted. She blinked. “I think.”

“Half-Feyish,” said Mr. Oswald. “And perhaps she couldn’t cast any other sort. Maybe she never learned. She started out as mortal as any of us.”

“The Fey haven’t walked among us for centuries. Old news is so tedious,” Aunt Hildy interrupted, perhaps in an attempt to cut the unsavory topic of religion out of the conversation.

“But
are
there magics like that?” Charlotte asked.

“I wish I could give you a straight answer,” Mr. Oswald said. “Magics proliferate everywhere. Fey magic is by far the most common, but the Elassines are said to practice a form of meditation that allows minds to communicate. The Cheloi used to work blood-magic. Magic is
force
. It can be ignored, but it can’t be destroyed or erased. Inexplicable forms of it could pop up anywhere. For instance, twenty years after the Blight devoured the islands of Selence, our highest magicians still cannot explain what happened. The warped magic there is so strong none but the bravest and most foolhardy of smugglers venture near it.”

So Charlotte still had no solid explanation for Frederick’s bizarre power that spewed light from his eyes and stirred rising waves of inexplicable excitement within her. No reason she would behave so foolishly, so irrationally with a footman when she was supposed to be snaring a husband.

“Speaking of servants, how are you faring with my footman, Charlotte?” asked Aunt Hildy. “If he’s allowed you to so much as fetch your own gloves, I’ll be monstrously disappointed. I do not tolerate exertion in my household, unless it is directed toward amusement.”

Charlotte opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She couldn’t very well tell a roomful of Pure Blooded that Frederick had taken liberties with her against her will, and that it had been revolting, outrageous, and humiliating.

Because it hadn’t.

She couldn’t take her great-aunt aside and privately reveal how Frederick had deceived her and gone against her express wishes, resulting in her utter disgrace at Lady Mettle’s ball, ruining her reputation forever.

Because he hadn’t.

Quite the opposite. Last night her pride had choked her, preventing her from admitting that she’d had a wonderful time, a uniquely pleasant experience after a string of boring, staid social events. In the clearer light of morning, the words rose up and off the tip of her tongue with disarming ease.

“Freddy’s indispensible,” Charlotte said. “I don’t know what I would do without his extraordinary efforts.” Of course, she only meant his efforts toward improving her social graces. His efforts in other areas were none of her concern.

Aunt Hildy’s face lit up. When a footman arrived with the morning’s letters, the Viscountess bestowed such a dazzlingly happy smile upon him that he took a step back in surprise.

Lady Balrumple sorted the letters, her cheerful glow undiminished. “Oh, Charlotte. Here’s one for you.” She passed the square of paper down the table.

With a sinking heart, Charlotte recognized the glyph of Sylvia’s sealing-spell on the envelope. She surreptitiously stuffed the envelope into the pocket of her morning gown.

“Who is that letter from, my dear?” Aunt Hildy interrupted herself again, “
No
. I shall not ask who is sending you correspondence you evidently want to keep secret. I shall only
observe.
Don’t mind me.”

Charlotte felt her cheeks flare scarlet. It was all very well to joke about secret letters and torrid affairs when one was already married, widowed, and wealthy. The only thing secret and torrid about her life at the moment was Frederick, and he wasn’t even a gentleman. The most significant gentleman in her life had been Mr. Peever, and he had always asked her permission to hold her hand, begged leave to drop a kiss upon it, and mouthed only the most polite and positive of platitudes. Frederick didn’t mouth or beg anything—he
told
, he
took
, he
touched
. No, Frederick Snow was not a gentleman.