“But we just met!”
“Yes, and got off to a good start.” He suddenly reached and took her hand. “You’re the lady who rode down the Snake like a madman. There’s nothing cautious about you, Princess. I kissed you, and I’ve kissed enough to know you liked it. If I’m wrong, tell me so, and off I’ll go. If I’m right … why don’t we try it again?”
She folded her arms and cocked her head, trying to think of a good response. He didn’t give her time.
“I brought you this.” He held something out to her. She reached for it and found herself clutching the stem of a flower.
“I cut off the thorns for you,” he said. “It’s a black rose.”
She gasped, genuinely surprised. “Where did you find it?”
“I bought it from a sea captain, who got it in Liery.”
Anne breathed in its strange scent of plum and anise. “They grow only in Liery,” she told him. “My mother talks about them all the time. I’ve never seen one.”
“Well,” Roderick replied, moving a little closer. “I got it to please you, not to remind you of your mother.”
“Shh. Not so loud.”
“I’m not afraid,” Roderick said.
“You should be. Do you know what will happen to you if we’re caught here?”
“We won’t be.”
His hand found hers, and she suddenly felt her head go funny. She couldn’t think anything. She felt frozen, almost uncomprehending, as he pulled her against him. His face was so near she could feel his breath on her lips.
“Kiss me,” he whispered.
And she did. A sound like the sea rushed into her ears. She could feel the hard muscles of Roderick’s back through his linen shirt, and a prickly, itchy sort of heat. He took her face in his hands and stroked lightly behind her ears as his lips pressed hers, now nibbling, now opening greedily.
He whispered things, but she hardly heard them. All sense of words dissolved when his lips crept down her neck, and she thought she was going to cry out, and then the guards would hear her, and then—well, who knew what would happen then. Something bad. She could almost hear her mother now …
“Anne. Anne!” Someone was calling her.
“Who’s that? Who’s there?” Roderick panted.
“It’s my maid, Austra. I—”
He kissed her again. “Send her away.” He said the words right into her earlobe. It tickled, and suddenly she giggled.
“Um. No, I can’t. My sister Fastia will check my bed soon, and if I am not in it, she will raise the alarm. Austra is keeping watch of the time. If she’s calling, I have to go.”
“It cannot be, not yet!”
“It is. It is. But we can meet again.”
“Not soon enough for me.”
“My sister’s birthday is tomorrow. I’ll arrange something. Austra will carry the word.”
“Anne!”
“I’m coming, Austra.”
She turned to go, but he took her by the waist and spun her into the crook of his arm, like a dancer, and kissed her again. She laughed and gave it back. When she finally turned and left, she felt an ache beneath her breast.
“Hurry!” Austra took her hand and pulled her insistently. “Fastia may be there already!”
“Figs for Fastia. Fastia never comes until eleventh bell.”
“It’s nearly eleventh bell now, you ninny!” Austra practically dragged Anne up the staircase that wound to the top of the orchard wall. On the last step, Anne cast one more look down at the garden but saw only the inky shadow of the looming keep on the other side.
“Come on!” Austra commanded. “Through here.”
Anne clutched the back of Austra’s dress as they rushed through the dark. A few moments later they tripped up another staircase and emerged into a wider hall lit with long tapers. At a high, narrow door, Austra fumbled the key from her girdle and pushed it into the brass lock. Just as the door swung open, the sound of footsteps echoed up from the stairwell at the far end of the hall.
“Fastia!” Anne hissed.
They ducked through the door and into the anteroom of her chambers. Austra closed and locked the door, while Anne kicked off her damp slippers and dropped them into the empty vase on the table next to the divan. She fell back onto the little couch and yanked off both stockings at once, then ran barefoot through the curtained doorway to her bedchamber. She flung the stockings on the other side of the canopied bed and began trying to reach the fastenings of her gown. “Help me with this!”
“We haven’t time,” Austra said. “Just throw your nightdress over it.”
“The train will show!”
“Not if you’re in bed, under the covers!”
Austra, meanwhile, shucked her own dress right over her head. Anne stifled an amused shriek, for Austra wore no underskirt, no corset; she was naked as a clam in soup.
“Hush!” Austra said, wriggling into a nightgown and kicking her discarded dress under the bed. “Don’t laugh at me!”
“You’d think you were the one out to meet someone.”
“Hush! Don’t be sick! It’s just faster this way, and it’s not like anyone was going to notice I was uncorseted. Get under the covers!”
A key scraped in the lock. Austra squeaked, pointing to Anne, and pantomimed letting down her hair.
Anne yanked the netting from her locks, threw it vaguely toward the wardrobe, and dived under the covers. Austra hit the mattress at almost the same instant, hairbrush in hand.
“Ouch!” Anne yelped, as the curtain parted and the brush caught in a tangle.
“Hello, you two.”
Anne blinked. It wasn’t Fastia.
“Lesbeth!” she exclaimed, leaping out of bed and rushing to embrace her aunt.
Lesbeth gathered her in, laughing. “Saint Loy, but we’re almost the same height, now, aren’t we? How could you grow this much in two years? How old are you now, fourteen?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen. And look at you—a Dare, through and through.”
In fact, Anne realized she did look like Lesbeth. Which wasn’t good, because while Lesbeth was very pretty, Elseny and Fastia and her mother were beautiful. She would take after the wrong side of the family.
“You’re warm,” Lesbeth said. “Your face is burning up! Do you have a fever?”
That drew a stifled giggle from Austra.
“What?” Lesbeth asked, her voice suddenly suspicious. She stepped back. “Is that a dress you have on under your nightgown? At this hour? You’ve been out!”
“Please don’t tell Fastia. Or Mother. It was really all very innocent—”
“I won’t have to tell them. Fastia is on the way up.”
“Still?”
“Of course. You don’t think she’d trust me with her duty?”
“How long do I have?”
“She’s finishing her wine. She had half a glass when I left, and I asked for a moment alone with you.”
“Thank the saints. Help me out of this dress!”
Lesbeth looked stern for a second, then laughed. “Very well. Austra, could you bring a damp cloth? We’ll want to wipe her face.”
“Yes, Duchess.”
A few moments later they had the dress off, and Lesbeth was unlacing the corset. Anne groaned in relief as her ribs sighed out to where nature perversely reckoned they ought to be.
“Had that pretty tight, didn’t you?” Lesbeth commented. “Who is he?”
Anne feared her cheeks would scorch. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Ah. Someone disreputable. A stablehand, perhaps?”
“No! No. He’s gentle—just someone Mother wouldn’t like.”
“Disreputable, then, indeed. Come on—tell. You know I won’t let on. Besides, I have a big secret to tell you. It’s only fair.”
“Well …” She chewed her lip. “His name is Roderick of Dunmrogh.”
“Dunmrogh? Well, there’s your problem.”
“How so?” The corset fell away, and Anne realized her undershirt was plastered to her with sweat.