Page 13 of The Ragpicker King
Silla ran her hand down the front of Kel’s waistcoat. “You could join us, Demoselle.”
Antonetta gave a bashful laugh; only Kel would have seen the flash in her eyes. “Gracious,” she said. “How very shocking. I shall have to tell Magali. She will positively faint.” She waved at them vaguely. “Do carry on,” she chirped, and vanished from the alcove.
Kel swore and detached Silla’s hand gently from his waistcoat. Thoughts of the Gray Serpent momentarily fled, he darted after Antonetta.
He caught up with her in the narrow, wood-paneled corridor that led back to the main rooms. When he called out her name in a low voice, she didn’t turn. He jogged ahead and planted himself in front of her, blocking her way forward.
“Ana,” he said. “Listen to me—”
Assuming a look of saintly patience, she crossed her arms over her chest and regarded Kel with a level stare. He could not help staring back. He had not been this close to her since the awful night in the Shining Gallery. She had not dressed herself in Montfaucon’s colors; she wore scarlet silk like a banner of rebellion, and dark-red ribbons had been woven through the heavy mass of her curling golden hair.
“Antonetta,” he said. He was close enough to smell her perfume, to see the ever-present locket nestled in the hollow of her throat. The locket that contained the grass ring he’d given her when they were children. He could hear his own blood pounding in his ears. “I didn’t think you’d be here tonight.”
“I’m an engaged woman now, Kel Anjuman,” she said lightly. “I have more freedom. I need not fear society’s scorn, only my future husband’s—and he is not here.”
“That will not always be true,” said Kel. He hardly remembered Artal Gremont; he had seen him only when he’d been a child, before Gremont had been exiled from Castellane. He’d been a big man, with slablike hands. When Kel pictured those hands on Antonetta—following the rise of her breasts, the curve of her waist, big meaty fingers digging into her silk-covered flesh—he wanted to throw up. Though Alys would make him pay for it if he ruined her carpeting.
“I know that,” Antonetta said sharply. “I will know the moment he sets foot on the Hill. Believe me. Until then...” She glanced around. “I might as well see the world.”
“This isn’t the world.” Kel was still looking at her; he couldn’tstoplooking at her. It was like not being able to stop eating when you were starving. Of course, people died of doing that. “This is a place of...”
“Desire?” she said lightly.
Kel shook his head. “Loneliness.”
She glanced away.
“Antonetta.” He took a step toward her. “Let us not be angry with each other. You do nothaveto marry Gremont—”
“Yes,” she said, and to his surprise, she looked angry. He was used to Antonetta giggling or being dismissive or even haughty; angry was new. “I do. You know the way things are for Conor. He must marry whoever is chosen for him. For me, it is no different. Two Charters will be united. He will hold the tea Charter, and I will hold the silk Charter, and together we will control both. That is all my mother cares for.”
“Conor could put a stop to it,” he said. “He could free you—”
She was wearing white silk gloves. Her hands gripped each other tightly, two still white birds. “I will not beg him for help.”
But you did ask him. I know you did.Though it had not been Conor she had asked. It had been Kel, bearing his talisman, pretending to be Conor. As was his duty. And he had answered her as he thought Conor would have answered her, because answering her as himself was not a choice.
But Conor had changed since then. “I will ask for you, then.”
The look she gave him was alive with ferocity. “You shall do no such thing,” she said furiously. “Do I want to marry Gremont? No. If I escape wedding him, will the next man my mother selects be just as bad? Most likely.” Voices rose in the main room—some kind of cheer that nearly drowned Antonetta out. “The silk Charter should be mine by rights. If the only way my mother will give it to me is if I marry, then he will do as well as another.”
“He is not a good man,” said Kel. “It is why he was exiled.” He wanted to tell her what Gremont’s crime was, but he had sworn to Merren he would not speak of what had happened to his sister.
“I know that. Of all people,” she added in a low voice, “I thought you, at least, did not believe me completely foolish.”
A feeling like despair seized him. She was so close that he could see her pulse beating in her throat, the rise and fall of her locket with her quick breaths, yet she felt as distant as she had ever been.
“You pretend to foolishness,” he said. “It is your armor.”
She raised her head at that and looked at him, her blue eyes so dark they seemed black in the low light. “We all have armor,” she said. “As if you do not have yours, Kel Anjuman.”
He choked on the words he could not say.I am the Prince’s armor. I cannot have my own.
“Antonetta—”
She took a step back. “You are not my father, not brother or lover,” she said. “You have no rights here.”
And with that, she pushed past him in a rustle of silk and was gone. Back to the main room, where he could not be seen to follow.
