The Demon of Darkling Reach (The Black Prince Book 1) (24 page)

She stumbled a little, and he caught her. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped, feeling beyond hopeless. “I hate you.”

“That is irrelevant,” he replied, using his arm to support her.

“And….” She didn’t finish her thought, only wished she were elsewhere.

“Why?” he asked. This time, he seemed genuinely interested.

“Because,” she wailed, “I never thought of myself as a weak-minded person and I never thought—”

He stopped, and turned her to face him. “You’re not weak-minded,” he told her. “I wasn’t, either, when I…became what I am. The issue isn’t one of weakness, Isla, but of relative strengths. Every creature, however strong, is weak compared to something, as you correctly pointed out earlier. There is always something further up the food chain, even if that something is only the void of space.”

“I don’t…understand you,” she said. “But you are…?”

“Say it.”

“You are…a demon? I mean, not…a man?”

His face was a mask, but she thought she saw humor there. Humor as well as—something darker. Less pleasant. Haunted, even. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”

“And you’re not…?” She remembered, again, what Cariad had said.

Tristan, seeming to sense her thoughts, thought for a moment before responding. “I’ve been a man far longer than most men, darling, and have some practice at the art. As to how I came to inhabit my current form, it’s a sad tale.” His tone was blasé, almost dismissive. “Remind me to tell you, sometime.” And then, still gazing down at her, his eyes darkened. “I’m far older than you can conceive, but I
am
a man, and have a man’s needs.”

“…Needs?” She stepped back slightly, stumbled again, and he caught her.

Stars flashed before her eyes, and the field around her whirled. This had all been too much—this night, this week, this
life
. Isla wanted to retch, wanted to scream, wanted to escape.

She fainted.

I
sla awoke in her own bed to find Rowena sitting on the edge of the coverlet.

Her sister’s eyes were wide. She’d obviously been there for some time, waiting for some sign that Isla was waking up. The bed’s heavy curtains were drawn back and, squinting, Isla turned her face toward the room’s single window. Strong afternoon sunlight poured in. Her cat, Mica, lay sprawled in the brightly colored patch on the tiles.

She tried to sit up, failed, and flopped back against the pillows. “What…?” And then, “the duke—”

“Oh”—Rowena made a dismissive gesture—”he left hours ago. Something about
business
, or some such.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I listened in at the door to father’s study, and I heard him, the duke, I mean, explain that you’d had a difficult night and should be let sleep. And of course father is in terror of refusing him anything so he agreed. You missed Father Justin’s special mass!” Rowena didn’t like Father Justin any more than Isla did, and her supposed reproach was laced with heavy irony. “But don’t worry,” she consoled Isla, just as disingenuously, “he’s giving another one tomorrow.”

Rubbing her temples, Isla sat up. She remembered very little of the night’s events after she fainted. She couldn’t
believe
that she’d slept so late. That she hadn’t come back to her room until almost dawn had nothing to do with it. There must be something wrong with her, she decided, some residual effect of—of what had happened.

Thinking of it now brought a shiver, which Rowena misinterpreted. “So?” she asked.

“So what?” Isla countered, not understanding.

“Did you…
sleep
with him?”

“No,” Isla said, but without much conviction. What
had
happened had been quite a bit more intimate. Or so she imagined, given the limited experience on which she had to draw. The joining of bodies was one thing; the joining of minds quite another. She felt raped. Violated. And strangely…curious. She knew more about him, now, too. She knew that he wasn’t human, and what others interpreted as
evil
was merely his total lack of regard for—or interest in—their point of view. He was no more evil than a sword or a mountain lion or a mandrake root. He just was.

And she could still feel the faint impression of his hand on the back of her head, and smell his tobacco and his cologne and all the other scents that, together, she’d come to associate with him. Leather and wool and horses and the woodsy, watery scent of the outdoors.

After she’d fainted, he’d picked her up and carried her back to the manor. He hadn’t spoken and neither had she. She drifted in and out of consciousness, not so much truly fainting as too overwhelmed to function. She’d lain prone with her face pressed into his chest and he’d carried her as easily as if she’d been a small child.

That he hadn’t killed her had been a shock. Part of her wished he had, and part of her wished he hadn’t left. She’d been surprised, too, by how gently he’d held her. She’d been so certain that he’d rend her limb from limb and, despite his courtly gestures at the dinner table and in other public places, hadn’t thought him capable of anything other than roughness.

She was sure, as well, that the guardsmen gave them funny looks as they came inside but lifting her head and verifying this for herself was too much effort so instead she squeezed her eyes shut and pretended to be elsewhere. Somewhere where no one was seeing her, fully clothed and covered with bits of hay, being carried inside in the last hour before dawn.

Fully clothed!
Isla gasped in horror, gripping the coverlet. She’d been stripped down to her chemise, a thin cotton shift that clung to her boyish form like a second skin.
He
must have undressed her. And now that she concentrated, a few vague memories did rise to the surface: of him kicking her door open as he held her, managing to make even that pedestrian gesture look graceful. Of him carrying her to the bed, laying her down on the coverlet, and making short work of her garments as she stared up at him through half-closed lids. He was, she’d noted, no stranger to the mysteries of a woman’s wardrobe.

And then he’d tucked her in under the covers, much the same way Asher’s father had probably tucked
him
in before he’d been killed, and told her to sleep. She’d tried to protest, to tell him that what he’d done was wrong and he was an awful person and not really a person at all, but all she’d managed was a mumbled, “I hate you.”

“I know,” he’d replied, without rancor.

And then he was gone. Isla was fairly sure that she’d been asleep—truly asleep, this time—before the door swung fully shut behind him.

“You shouldn’t, you know,” Rowena said scoldingly.

Isla looked up from her folded hands. “What?”

“Fool around with him.”

“Why not?” Isla asked. Not that she had, of course! Or would! Of all the men—creatures—on the Gods’ green earth the last one she wanted to fool around with was
that
one. But even so, she was interested in Rowena’s opinion. And vaguely insulted that her sister thought she’d behaved immorally. Her sister was the prude!

“Well.” Rowena sniffed. “Why buy the cow, and all that.”

Isla had made this same argument to the duke last night. Still, she refuted it now. “Hopefully,” she said, “a man is marrying a woman for more than sex. He can, after all, get a prostitute for that.” And most did. Frequently. Those not wealthy enough to keep mistresses ran the risk of contracting all kinds of diseases, some of which had absolutely revolting symptoms.

“The duke,” Rowena said, none too kindly, “is famous for patronizing prostitutes. Or didn’t you know?”

“Actually,” Isla said, feeling worn out, “I’m fairly certain they’re mistresses.”

Rowena’s face fell. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” It wasn’t, but what was the point of saying so? Rowena couldn’t help herself. Or so Isla rationalized. She was feckless. But she meant well. Isla wanted to believe that, now more than ever. And perhaps, she considered, the topic was a sore spot. If Rowena believed that the sole basis of Rudolph’s interest in her was sex…that was enough to upset any woman. She stretched and, reaching for the glass she kept at her bedside, had a drink of water. She was beginning to feel almost human again.

“He left you a present,” Rowena said, changing the subject. Her old enthusiasm was back, the previous minute’s storm clouds chased away as though they’d never been.

“He did?” Isla’s tone was incredulous.

“That’s how come I know you’ve
definitely
been fooling around.
The Chivalrous Heart
says that a man always gives a woman a gift after she’s…well, you know. And if their love is unrequited, but you’re getting married so that’s hardly unrequited.” Rowena sounded inordinately pleased with herself for having made this leap of logic. “Anyway, was it good?”

Isla just stared at her.

“You know…is it big?”

“I’ve no idea!” Isla cried, scandalized.

“
The Chivalrous Heart
refers to it as
the engine of love
. Do you think that’s apt? I always thought that would be the woman, since a man can hardly make love to a woman without one. Unless of course he’s making love to a man but then he wouldn’t be making love to a woman, then, now would he?”

“What does Rudolph’s look like?” Isla countered.

Rowena hit her with a pillow. Things between them were, Isla consoled herself as she struggled out of bed, fine after all. Which pleased her. With all the changes going on in her life right now, she didn’t think she could bear losing the tight-knit bond she had with her sister. Her best friend.

“It’s huge!” Rowena cried, making a face. “The biggest one there is.”

“Rose says size doesn’t matter,” Isla pointed out, “but, rather, whether the man in question knows what to do with it. I guess Rand’s is rather large but he’s so bad at sex that none of the dairymaids care and all of them refuse to bed with him. She tried to tell me about Hart’s but I made her stop.” Isla wrinkled her nose. “That’s a mental image I can never un-see.”

“You have to open your present now.”

Isla struggled into her clothes. She’d just have to forgo a bath today; the day was more than half over, anyway. Rowena helped her slip a shift over her head and lace up the older and less attractive of her two kirtles. Isla didn’t have many clothes—most women didn’t—and so had to be creative when it came to dressing herself. She was well able to make the same five pieces of clothing look like five or six different ensembles over the course of a week, and she’d been working on a new kirtle and shift when the duke came.

“I’m surprised,” she said dryly, hunting in her hope chest for her stockings, “that you didn’t open it for me.”

“I would have,” Rowena said perfectly seriously, “except I was worried that there might be a curse.” She gestured to the table near the fireplace. “It’s over there, on the table. Rose brought it in this morning, with strict instructions not to wake you. She was
very
excited.” Rowena tittered. “She wanted to know what was in it, and I told her a venomous snake.”

“You didn’t!” Poor Rose.

“I told her that if she lifted the top off the box it’d bite her and she’d die writhing in agony.”

“You’re vicious!” Isla teased, laughing.

Rowena grinned. She followed her sister as Isla approached the table, seeing there a plain wooden box of the sort that expensive slippers came in. The craftsmanship was simple but excellent, the sides connected with perfectly even finger joints. It was the same rough size as a shoe box, too, maybe a little larger. Biting her lip in an unconscious expression of anxiety, she placed her hands carefully on the sides and lifted off the top.

The first thing she saw was the note: written on a scrap of vellum, the single line had been formed in a spidery, perfect hand.
To the girl who is beautiful, inside and out.
She stared at the scrap, unsure of what to think.

Rowena snatched it from her, having forgotten all about curses. “Oh!” she cried. “This is so romantic!”

Inside the first box nestled a smaller, more ornate box; this one was overlaid with a complex pattern of cedar, ebony, and what appeared to be ivory. Isla had never seen ivory up close, but she’d read about it in books like so many other things. She ran her fingers over the intricate work, admiring the obvious effort that had gone into the perfect geometric design.

“That’s beautiful,” Rowena sighed.

Lifting it out onto the table, Isla opened it. Again, she removed the top. And then
she
gasped. Inside, the box had been divided into three square sections and in each of the sections sat a glass bottle.
Real glass!
Isla lifted one out, examining it. The glass had been tinted cranberry; the craftsmanship was beyond exquisite. She lifted the stopper and held it to her nose: attar of roses. The scent was unmistakable. The second bottle was the same woodsy, spicy scent she’d smelled on the duke: sandalwood. And the third was the most exotic of all: amber, cloves and cinnamon.

Carefully replacing each bottle, she stared down at the box. The box alone was a master craftsman’s wages for a year. Or more. Altogether, the ensemble in front of her represented a small fortune. She sat down on her chair, overwhelmed and unsure of what to do.