Page 153 of The Ragpicker King
She took hold of the lapels of his ragged shirt. Pushing herself up on her toes, she kissed him, not gently, and he could not helphimself; he kissed her back. He slanted his mouth against hers and kissed her until his heart was beating like a drum through his body. In the last moment when he still had control, he felt his hands rise to clasp her shoulders. As if in a dream he broke the kiss, pushing her away, setting her back on her heels, her hair tumbling around her flushed face.
“Antonetta,” he said. “No.”
She stared at him for a moment with a mixture of shock and hurt. A slow dark-red color stained her cheeks. “But you said—I thought you weren’t angry?”
He thought of Jerrod warning him not to hurt Antonetta. As if Jerrod did not understand that all the power to cause pain was Antonetta’s. That she could hurt him far more than he could hurt her.
“I said I didn’t hate you. And I don’t. I couldn’t hate you. But you lied to me, Ana. You lied to me about who you are, you lied about what you know—”
“You know now,” she said. “You guessed. Isn’t that better than if I’d told you?”
A flash of anger went through him, coupled with the desire to do something, say something, that would make her understand. “It is not,” he said tightly, “better.I have no reason to think, Ana, that you wouldeverhave told me, no matter what happened between us. You did not just lie by omission. You manipulated me. It was useful to you, and why would I imagine you’d ever stop doing something that was useful to you?”
“I would have told you—”
“No, you wouldn’t. You were enjoying yourself too much, Ana. You like being Prosper Beck. And it’s been years, hasn’t it? To build up a reputation like Beck has—to grow your power in the Maze—”
“You will not make me ashamed of what I’ve done—”
“I would never assume anyone could make you feel shame, Antonetta,” said Kel, and watched the color change in her face as she realized the double meaning in his words. “I don’t even know you. That’s what I’ve realized. I cannot guess at why you becameBeck—perhaps because you were bored and spoiled and wanted your life to have some sort of meaning and purpose—”
She took a step back from him, and even through the blinding pain that had made him lash out, he ached to see her pull away. “I became Prosper Beck out of a sense of self-preservation,” she said, almost spitting each word. “I became Prosper Beck because my life was so small, and the choices available to me on the Hill were nothing I wanted. I became Beck because there was a real Beck once—a man I hired to teach me how to use a sword. Because Iwasspoiled and bored and I wanted to know how to fight, and he was a shoddy, minor sort of criminal, and when he got himself killed, I saw the chance and took his place.”
“There was a real Beck?” Somehow Kel hadn’t expected that.
“Iamthe real Beck,” she snapped. “He was nothing. Drank himself to death in the Maze. I took his name and made him a legend.”
“You think a lot of yourself,” Kel said, “for someone who was careless enough to mistakenly reveal their secret to me.”
Antonetta’s eyes flashed. She picked up a blackened fireplace poker and jabbed savagely at the logs in the fireplace, not looking at him. “Fine. Tell me. Tell me how you guessed. Tell me mymistakes.”
Kel gritted his teeth. He had not expected to be so angry. He had imagined confronting her calmly, ticking off the ways he had guessed who she was, explaining to her how at last he saw through her. Instead he felt as if he were looking at her through a haze of fire.
“It wasn’t one thing,” he said. “It was several. And if it makes you feel better, I thought I might be going mad at first.”
“Go on,” she said.
“When I went to see whoever that was—the man you had playing Prosper Beck—”
“Bron,” she said, a darkness flickering across her face. “He was one of my couriers.”
“He acted well enough,” Kel said. “It was the boxes of wine in his office.Singing Monkey.Not a name you’d forget easily. Then later, at the Roverges’ party, you deliberately got us lost on the way back to the main room.”
She swung on him with the poker in her hand. “Did I? Or was I just being foolish? Maybe I have no sense of direction. Maybe I’m just absentminded—”
“You are none of those things,” Kel said furiously. “That’s a part you’ve been playing all these years, no more real—”
“Than the part you play?” She looked over at him, the firelight dancing across her cheek. “As the Sword Catcher?”
Kel did not react, despite the racing of his pulse. He had wanted her to know at the Shining Gallery party, when she had looked at him as if she saw through his disguise as Conor, saw who he really was. There was nothing more intoxicating than being seen. He had wanted it so badly, and had let the dream go; he had learned long ago that dreams like that only caused pain in the end.
He had wondered again at the Solstice Ball. Her words had seemed so pointed, designed to hurt him. Even as he’d grown more and more sure she was Prosper Beck, he hadn’t been able to decide: Had she known she was talking to him and meant to wound him? Or had she thought it was Conor, and meant to betray him?
“No more real than that,” he said. “For instance, you know the Roverges’ house as well as you know your own. You brought me into the cellar, so I could see there were boxes of the same wine there. I asked Charlon about the bottles later. He said they’d been a gift. I tend to believe him. You knew I was looking for Prosper Beck’s funding on the Hill, and you wanted to throw suspicion on the Roverges.”
“Very good,” she murmured. “But not enough. You didn’t guess, not then.”
“Conor told me about the tunnels under House Alleyne,” he said. “That’s how you’ve always gotten in and out without beingnoticed, isn’t it? And then there’s the amulet.” He tugged at the gold chain around his throat. “Jerrod stabbed Gremont to death on Tyndaris— Why? He knew that the amulet Gremont was wearing was false; he’d been working with Alys Asper. But notforAlys Asper. Jerrod has always been your right-hand man. Loyal to Beck, which means loyal to you, Antonetta. And you were determined to marry Gremont. Jerrod wouldn’t have raised a hand against him unless he thought you wanted him dead, not when he knew how it would upset Merren. What changed your mind?”
