Page 35 of The Ragpicker King
“Andreyen didn’t ask us to be here,” Merren said, his pale-gold hair falling into his face. He pushed it back. “It’s a fact-finding mission, that’s all.”
“Well, Ihaven’tseen her,” Kel said. “Where Antonetta goes, Magali usually follows, but I haven’t seen Antonetta, either. You know who I have seen? Artal Gremont.”
Merren still didn’t look at Kel, but hisliorgave off an agonized twang as he fumbled at it. “He won’t recognize me,” he said. “It’s been too long. I think he only saw me once, anyway, out the window of a carriage.”
“Still, being in the same place with him, are you sure—”
Jerrod interrupted. “If you are looking for Demoselle Alleyne,” he said, “she is behind that curtain.”
He pointed toward a curtain of ruched ivory silk that hung against a nearby wall; Kel suspected it concealed an exit from the ballroom. He frowned at Jerrod.
“Are you sure?”
“Quite. She’s been there for a while,” Jerrod said, though he was looking not at Kel but at Merren’s bent head.
Kel considered arguing, but there seemed no point. He’d already been up at the stage for too long; he would soon draw curious eyes. Also, Jerrod was notoriously stubborn, and it wasn’t as if Kel was going to be able to convince the three of them to abort their mission at this stage.
Besides, Kel admitted to himself as he walked away, his interest in Antonetta was stronger than his suspicion that Jerrod, Ji-An, and Merren were looking for trouble. He placed his still-full wineglasson an ormolu table and—with a quick look around to make sure no one was watching—ducked behind the ruched curtain.
He did not see her at first—the curtain was thick, the light dim—but he smelled her perfume. Lavender and honey. He pushed deeper into the tunnel between the curtain and the wall and there she was, turning to look at him, her eyes widening.
“Oh,” she said, pitching her voice low. “I thought you were Lin.” She frowned. “What are you doing back here?”
For a moment, Kel couldn’t speak. The way she looked seemed to cut at him like a blade. She wore the deep rose of the Alleyne family—a close-cut dress that held her body like a lover’s hands. Over her hair was a shimmering gold net threaded with diamonds, and the pupils of her eyes had been turned to diamonds by posy-drops. Around her throat was clasped a goldcollierset with rubies and trailing gold chains hooked to a belt around her waist. It looked to Kel as if the chains were meant to skim the curves of her breasts where they rose above the neckline of her silk dress. He could not help but imagine her naked, rising from her bath wearing only the ruby-dripping collar, like the Goddess Cerra rising from the sea to seduce Aigon, God of waters.
“Isaid,” Antonetta whispered, “what are youdoingback here? Did Lin tell you where to find me?”
“I haven’t even seen her,” said Kel, glad for the dimness of the enclosed space. He hoped it hid his expression. “And I could ask you the same. I’m sure you’re supposed to be attending this party in a more... visible capacity.”
She glared at him.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You’d resigned yourself to marrying Gremont. But now that he’s here, you’ve had to face how horrible he really is. Sadly, you can’t spend the rest of your married life hiding behind this curtain.”
“Don’t be so sure. It’s a very nice curtain.”
“Antonetta—”
“Shh.” She put her finger to her lips, painted carmine pink. “Bequiet.”
Kel lowered his voice, which made her lean in closer to hear him. He breathed in lavender honey. “Ana. You say you have to marry Gremont. You say you have no choice about it. But Iknow you,” he said with an almost savage force. “You have spent the last ten years lying with your smiles. With your every breath. What prevents you from pretending now? Why are you hiding? You’ve never hidden from anything.”
For a moment, her diamond-pupiled eyes seemed to glitter. “You can be cruel, Kel Anjuman.”
“Not like Gremont.”
“You really want to know?” She hissed the words between her teeth. “Even though there’s nothing—nothing—you can do about it?”
“Yes,” Kel said. “Tell me.”
Antonetta said, “Gremont has insisted that, as a term of the engagement, he be given the right of first night. That there be witnesses to the consummation of our marriage.”
Kel said nothing, but put a hand out to steady himself against the wall.
“All eleven are supposed to watch us,” she said. “All the other Charter holders.”
Kel said, through what seemed to him a mouth full of acid, “That’s barbaric. He has no right to ask for that.”
“He has every right,” she whispered, and he could not help but remember her words in the Caravel.You are not my father, not brother or lover. You have no rights here.Perhaps that was why she was telling him this. Because there was nothing he could do, nothing he could say to anyone.
