The Kiss of Deception (15 page)

Kaden came alone to the dining room. I was relieved that Rafe hadn’t come. I was troubled enough without having to navigate his dark moods. Still, I found myself looking at the tavern door each time it opened, thinking he had to eat sooner or later. I tried to smile and offer my standard greetings to everyone, but when I brought Kaden his meal, he stopped me before I rushed off.

“Your fire seems dampened tonight, Lia.”

“I’m sorry. I might be a bit distracted. Did I forget something you wanted?”

“Your service is fine. What has you bothered?”

I paused, touched that he perceived my rattled state. “It’s only a little throbbing in my head. It will be fine.”

His eyes remained fixed on me; apparently he was unconvinced. I sighed and conceded. “I’m afraid I received some disheartening news today from my brother.”

His brows rose as if this news greatly surprised him. “Your brother is here?”

I smiled.
Walther.
I’d forgotten how happy I had been. “He was here for a brief visit this evening. I was overjoyed to see him, but unfortunately we had to part on some difficult news.”

“A tall fellow? Riding a tobiano? I think I may have passed him on the highway today.”

I was surprised that Walther would take the main highway from Luiseveque and not stick to the back trails. “Yes, that was him,” I answered.

Kaden nodded and sat back in his chair as if he was already satisfied with his meal, though he hadn’t yet touched a bite. “I can see the resemblance, now that you’ve told me. The dark hair, the cheekbones…”

He had observed much in such a short passing on the road, but then again, he had already proved himself observant when he noted my lack of
fire
in a bustling tavern.

He leaned forward. “Is there anything I can do?”

His voice was warm and slow and reminded me of the gentle rumble of a distant summer storm—so inviting at a distance. And those eyes again, the ones that made me feel naked, like he saw beneath my skin. I knew I couldn’t sit down and tell him my worries, but his steadfast gaze made me want to.

“Nothing,” I whispered. He reached out and squeezed my hand. More silent seconds ticked between us. “I need to be about my duties, Kaden.”

Glancing across the room, I saw Berdi watching from the kitchen door and wondered what she must think, then wondered who else saw—and, really, was it anything I should feel guilty about? Wasn’t it good to know someone was worried about me when others were seeking to put a rope about my neck? I was grateful for his kindness, but I pulled my hand from his.

“Thank you,” I whispered, afraid my voice might crack, and I hurried away.

When our evening work was done, I left Pauline gaping at the kitchen door as I rushed out by myself, claiming I needed fresh air and was going for a walk. But I didn’t walk. I got only as far as Otto’s stall. It was dark and deserted, and my worries would be safe with him. I balanced on the top rail of the stall, hugging a post with one hand and scratching his ears with the other. He didn’t question my late-night attentions. He accepted them gratefully, which made my chest pull tighter. I struggled to choke back sobs.
What should I do?

The truth would kill her.

I heard a rustle, the hollow thump of metal. I froze, looking into the darkness.

“Who’s there?”

There was no answer.

And then more noise, seemingly from a different direction. I reeled, confused, jumped from the rail, and called out again. “Who’s there?”

In a slash of moonlight, Pauline’s pale face appeared.

“It’s me. We need to talk.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

RAFE

It wasn’t my intention to witness what I did. If I could have moved quietly away I would have, but I was trapped. It seemed that in one day I had witnessed far more by chance than by intention.

I had gone to a pub in town for my evening meal, not wanting to encounter the princess again. I had had enough for one day. Enough of her royal conniving antics altogether. I’d already told myself she was an imperious pain. Better for me that she was. It was easier to keep my distance that way. But as I drank my third cider and barely touched my food, I found I was still trying to sort through what happened, and with each sip, I damned her again.

Only this morning when I had seen her in the canyon, I was tongue-tied. She’d looked just like any other girl out gathering berries. Her hair braided back, loose strands brushing her neck, her cheeks flushed with heat. No pretense. No royal airs. No secrets that I didn’t already know. Words had run through my mind trying to describe her, but none seemed quite right. I had sat like a witless fool on the back of my horse, just staring. And then she
invited
me to stay. As we walked, I knew I was going down a dangerous path, but that didn’t stop me. At first I kept all my words in check, carefully doled out, but then in an uncanny way, she pulled them from me anyway. It all seemed very easy and innocent. Until it wasn’t. I should have known.

Up on the cliff, when there was nowhere else to go, when our words seemed to matter less, and our proximity mattered more, when I couldn’t force my gaze away from her to save my life, my mind raced with one possibility and one possibility only. I stepped closer. There was a moment. A long breath-holding moment, but then with a few venomous words from her—
a terrible mistake, the marks of grunting barbarians
—I was slammed with the truth.

She was not just any seventeen-year-old girl, and I wasn’t any young man helping her pick berries. Our worlds were not similar at all. I had been deluding myself. She had one goal. I had another. She practically spat her condemning words out, and I felt venom surge through me too. I remembered how different we both were, and no distant walk could change that.

The more I drank, the foggier my anger became, but then flashes of her clandestine rendezvous in the forest would surface to sharpen it again. What had pushed me to follow Kaden? As I watered my horse, I saw him slip down the path toward her cottage and soon I was on his heels. What did I expect? Not what I saw. It explained everything.
She has a lover.
I knew I had been entertaining a dangerous fantasy.

After four ciders, I paid my bill and returned to the inn. It was late, and I didn’t think I’d run into anyone. I made a last trip to the privy after unsaddling my horse and was headed for the loft when she appeared, coming down the path hell-bent, her cap clutched in her fist like a weapon, and her hair flying behind her. I stepped into a shadowed corner by the stalls, waiting for her to pass, but she didn’t. She stopped only feet from me, climbing onto the rail where the jackass was stabled.

It was obvious she was distraught. More than distraught. Fearful. I had come to think she wasn’t afraid of anything. I watched, her lips half parted, her breathing uneven, as she whispered to the donkey, caressing his ears, raking her fingers through his mane, whispering words so strained and low I couldn’t hear them, even though with just a few steps, I could have reached out and touched her.

I looked at her face, gently illuminated by the distant light of the tavern. Even with her brows pulled low and an anguished crease between them, she was
beautiful
. It was a strange thing to think at the moment. I had deliberately avoided the thought each time I had looked at her before. I couldn’t afford such thoughts, but now the word came, unbidden, unrelenting.

I saw more than I was sure she wanted anyone to see. She cried. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and she angrily wiped them away, but then whatever grieved her made the tears inconsequential, and they flowed freely.

I wanted to step out of the darkness, ask her what was wrong, but quickly suppressed that impulse and questioned my own sanity—or maybe sobriety. She was not to be trusted, flirting with me one moment, meeting a lover the next. I had to remind myself that I didn’t care what her troubles were. I needed to leave. I tried to slide away unnoticed, but the ciders at the pub were strong, and I wasn’t feeling surest of foot. My boot knocked an unseen pail.

“Who’s there?” she called out. I thought the deception was over and was about to make myself known when the other girl approached, covering my presence.

“It’s me,” she said. “We need to talk.”

I was frozen in their world, their worries, their words. I was trapped, and all I could do was listen.

CHAPTER TWENTY

He came out of nowhere. One moment not there, the next
there
, scooping Pauline into his arms. “I’ll take her to the cottage,” he said, almost as a question. I nodded, and he left with me trailing just behind him. Pauline was limp in his arms, moaning, inconsolable.

Just before we reached the cottage, I raced ahead, flinging open the door, turning up the light of the lantern, and he carried her inside.

I pointed to the bed, and he gently laid her on the mattress. She curled into a tight ball facing the wall. I brushed the tangled mop of hair from her face and touched her cheek.

“Pauline, what can I do?”
What had I already done?

She moaned between sobs, and the only words that were understandable were
go away, please go away.

I stared at her, unable to move. I couldn’t leave her. I watched her trembling and reached for a blanket, gingerly tucking it around her, stroking her forehead, wishing to take her pain away. I leaned close and whispered, “I’ll stay with you, Pauline. Through everything. I promise.”

Again, her only discernible words were
go away
,
leave me alone
, each one a stab in my chest. I heard the scuff of Rafe’s boots on the floor and realized he was still in the room. He inclined his head toward the door, suggesting that we step outside. I turned the lantern down and followed him, numb, quietly easing the door shut behind us. I leaned back against it, needing its support. What had I said? How had I said it? Did I just blurt the words out cruelly? Still, what else could I have done? I had to tell her something sooner or later. I tried to retrace every word.

“Lia,” Rafe whispered, lifting my chin to look at him, reminding me of his presence, “are you all right?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t want to tell her—” I looked at him, uncertain of what he had heard. “Were you there? Did you hear?”

He nodded. “You had no choice but to tell her the truth.”

The truth.

I had told her Mikael was dead. But wasn’t that the lesser of two evils? He wasn’t coming for her. He was
never
coming. If I had told her the truth, all the dreams she held dear would be gone. They would all be illusions, false at their very roots. She’d know she had been played for a fool. She’d have nothing left to hold on to, only bitterness to harden her heart. This way, couldn’t she at least have tender memories of him to warm her? Which truth was more cruel? His deception and betrayal, or his death?

“I should go,” Rafe whispered. I glanced back at him. He was so close I could smell the cider on his breath, could feel his pulse, the gallop of his thoughts, every nerve in me raw, the night itself closing in on me.

I grabbed his arm. “No,” I said. “Please. Don’t go yet.”

He looked at where my hand grasped his arm, and then back at me. His lips parted, his eyes warmed, but then slowly, something else filled them, something cold and rigid, and he pulled away. “It’s late.”

“Of course,” I said, dropping my hand to my side, holding it there awkwardly like it didn’t belong to me. “I only wanted to thank you before you left. If you hadn’t happened along, I don’t know what I would have done.”

His only response was a nod and then he disappeared down the trail.

I spent the night sitting in the corner chair staring at Pauline. I tried not to disturb her. For an hour, she stared at the wall, then guttural sobs racked her chest, then mewing cries like those of an injured kitten escaped from her lips, and finally soft gentle moans of
Mikael, Mikael, Mikael
filled the room, as if he were there and she was talking to him. If I tried to comfort her, she pushed me away, so I sat offering water when I could, offering prayers, offering and offering, but nothing I did took away her pain.

Just this morning I’d been afraid that I might never meet the young man who loved her so. Now I feared if I ever did meet him, I would cut out his heart with a dull knife and feed it to the gulls.

Finally, in the early morning hours, she slept, but I still stared. I remembered my ride past the graveyard with Pauline this morning. I had known. Fear had seized me.
Something was wrong. Something was hopelessly and irretrievably wrong.
My flesh had crawled. Warning breezes. A candle. A prayer. A hope.

An icy whisper.

A cold clawed hand on my neck.

I hadn’t understood what it had meant, but
I had known.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The next several days went by in a flurry of emotion and chores. Endless chores, which I was happy to take on. The morning after the news, Pauline woke up, washed her face, fished three coins from her meager savings of tips, and left for the Sacrista. She was there all day, and when she returned, she was wearing a white silk scarf draped over her head, the mourning symbol reserved for widows.

While she was gone, I told Berdi and Gwyneth that Mikael was dead. Gwyneth hadn’t even known he existed, and neither had heard Pauline’s heartfelt stories about him, so they couldn’t quite grasp how she had been affected—until she returned from the Sacrista. Her skin matched the color of the white silk that cascaded down around her face, a pale ghost except for her puffy, red-rimmed eyes. She looked more like a gaunt ghoul returned from the graveyard than the sweet young maid she had been only the day before.

What worried us more than her appearance was her refusal to talk. She accepted Berdi’s and Gwyneth’s concerns and comforts stoically enough, but shook away more than that, spending most of the days on her knees, offering one holy remembrance after another for Mikael, lighting one candle after another, feverish in lighting his way into the next world.