For a moment, all I could do was stand and breathe, my hands pressed to the silk of my bodice, to the stays of my corset. This could not be, I thought, the protest filling my mind as rain in a river. Cartier was a passion. Cartier was a Valenian.
And yet, all this time, he had been something else.
Cartier was Theo d’Aramitz . . . Aodhan Morgane . . . a fallen Maevan lord.
I could not take my eyes from him.
The sounds of the hall began to melt away as frost in sun, the firelight flickering into a dark gold, as if it were laughing, laughing at Cartier and me. Because I saw it in his gaze too, the longer he drank me in. He was shocked, alarmed that I was the mademoiselle with the silver rose, that I was Amadine Jourdain, the one to retrieve the Stone of Eventide, the one he had been admonished to keep an eye on, to assist if trouble should befall her.
His eyes rushed over me, hung upon that rose in my hair as if it were a thorn, something akin to pain flaring across his expression. And then his gaze returned to mine, the distance between us thin and sharp, like the air just before a steep incline.
Oh, how, how had this happened? How had we not known about each other?
The shock of this was about to blow our covers.
I turned away first and stepped directly into a man who caught me by the arm before I spilled his chalice of ale down his doublet.
“Careful, Mademoiselle,” he said, and I forced a shy smile to my lips.
“Forgive me, Monsieur,” I rasped, then darted away before he could hold me captive.
I was seeking a place to run, to hide until I could recover—I wanted shadows and quiet and solitude—when I heard Cartier following me. I knew it was him; I recognized the heady sensation of distance closing between us.
I stopped before one of the empty trestle tables, pretending that I was admiring the heraldry on the wall, when I felt his leg brush my skirts.
“And who might you be, mademoiselle?”
His voice was soft, agonized.
I should not look at him, should not talk to him. If Allenach happened to glance this way, he would know. He would know there was something between Cartier and me.
And yet I could not resist it. I turned to face him, my body waking to how close he was to me.
“Amadine Jourdain,” I responded—polite, detached, disinterested. But my gaze was bright, my heart smoldering, and he knew it. He knew it because I saw the same in him, as if we were mirrors, reflecting each other. “And you are . . . ?”
“Theo d’Aramitz.” He gave me a bow; I watched as his blond hair gleamed in the light, as his body moved with grace. Beneath that polish and passion, he was steel and cold wind; he was the blue banner and the horse of the House of Morgane.
A rebelling House. A fallen House.
His father must have been the lord to join with MacQuinn and Kavanagh, because Cartier would have been only a child twenty-five years ago. And even as I began to weave together the threads, I knew there was still more that I needed to know. He and I needed to find a way to speak, alone, before the mission completely rotted beneath our feet.
“Which room is yours?” I whispered, and enjoyed the way his face flushed from my brash inquiry.
“The flying stoat,” he returned, so low I almost didn’t hear him.
“I will come to you, tonight,” I said, and then turned away, as if he had lost my interest.
I merged back into the crowd just in time, because Allenach entered the hall, his eyes finding me immediately. He strode toward me, and I waited, hoping that the color in my face had cooled.
“I would like for you to sit at my table, at the place of honor,” Allenach said, offering me his hand.
I took it, let him walk me to the dais, where a long table sat heavily laden with chalices, plates, flagons, and platters of steaming food. But it wasn’t the feast that drew my attention; it was the two young men who sat waiting for us there.
“Amadine, allow me to introduce you to my oldest son, Rian, and my youngest son, Sean,” Allenach said. “Rian and Sean, this is Amadine Jourdain.”
Sean nodded politely at me, his hazelnut-colored hair cropped short, his face freckled and sunburned. I guessed him to be a little older than me. But Rian, the firstborn, merely looked at me with eyes of flint, his thick eyebrows cocked, his dark brown hair loose and long at his collar as he impatiently tapped his fingers along the table. I made a note to avoid him in the future.
I curtsied to them, even though it felt awkward and unnecessary in such a hall. Rian sat at Allenach’s right—signifying he was the heir—and Sean sat on his left. I was to sit on the other side of Sean, which was probably the safest seat in the entire hall for me at the moment. I was cushioned from Rian’s suspicious gaze and Allenach’s inquiries, and I was on the other side of the hall from Cartier.
But as I sat in my appointed chair of honor, my gaze helplessly roamed the trestle tables set before us, seeking my master out despite my better judgment. He was sitting to the left of the hall, three tables away, yet he and I had a perfect view of each other. It felt like a chasm had opened up, cracking the tables, the pewter and silver, the tiles that stretched between us. His eyes were on me; my eyes were on him. And he raised his chalice ever so slightly and drank to me. Drank to my fooling him, drank to my reuniting with him, drank to the plans that entwined us not as passions but as rebels.
“So, my father says you are a passion of knowledge,” Sean said, trying to engage me in polite conversation.
I glanced at him, granted him a little smile. He was regarding me as if I were a flower with briars, the grandeur of my dress obviously making him slightly uncomfortable.
“Yes, I am,” I replied, and forced myself to take the platter of dove breasts that Sean handed me. I began to fill my plate, my stomach revolting at the sight of everything as it had been crunched all day by my corset. But I had to appear at ease, grateful. I ate and spoke to Sean, slowly adjusting to the cadence of the hall.
I was just asking Sean about the hunt and the hart when I felt Cartier’s gaze on me. He had been staring at me for a while, and I had stubbornly resisted, knowing that Allenach was also watching me from the corner of his eye.
“Has anyone seen the hart yet?” I asked Sean, dicing my potatoes and finally meeting Cartier’s gaze from beneath my lashes.
Cartier inclined his head, his eyes flickering to something. I was just about to follow his silent order to look at whatever he was perturbed about when the warmth of strings filled the hall. A violin.
I would know her music anywhere.
Startled, I glanced to the right, where a group of musicians—passions of music—had gathered with their instruments, their music beginning to claim the hall. Merei sat among them, her violin obediently propped on her shoulder, her fingers dancing along the strings as she began to harmonize with the others. But her eyes were on me, dark and lucid, as if she had just woken from a dream. She smiled, and my heart about escaped my chest.
I was so overcome I knocked over my chalice of ale. The golden liquid spilled down the table, onto my dress, onto Sean’s lap. The youngest son bolted upright, but I could hardly move. Merei was in the hall. Merei was playing. In Maevana.
“I am so sorry,” I panted, trying to catch my breath as I began to mop up the ale.
“It’s all right; these were my old breeches anyway,” Sean said with a crooked smile.
“Does music always affect you like that, Amadine?” Rian drawled from his end of the table, leaning over to watch as I helped Sean clean up the mess.
“No, but it is a pleasant surprise to hear it in a Maevan hall,” I replied as Sean resumed his seat, looking as if he had wet his pants.
“I like for my Valenian guests to feel at home,” Allenach explained. “The past few years, I have invited a consort of musicians for the season of the hunt.” He took a sip of ale, motioned for a servant to come refill my chalice although I was utterly finished with eating and drinking and trying to appear normal. “As one passion to another, they should make you feel at home.”
I chuckled, unable to help myself. Steam had been building in my chest ever since I had come face-to-face with Cartier. And now it was escaping, along with Merei’s music.
I had known she would travel the realm with her patron. But never had I imagined that she would cross the channel and play in a Maevan hall.
Merei, Merei, Merei, my heart sang along with its pulse. And as her music flowed over me, explored every corner and eave of the grand hall, I suddenly realized how dangerous it was for her to be there. She was not to know me; I was not to know her. And yet how could I sleep under such a roof, knowing she and Cartier were both here, so close to me?
Cartier must have already experienced this, the first night at Damhan, when Merei had unexpectedly emerged with Patrice Linville’s consort to play in the evening. Cartier must have told her to pretend that she did not know him, and so all I could do was pray she extended the same act toward me.
I thought of a myriad of ways to approach her under pretense, to find a way to speak to her alone, to explain to her why I was here. But all I could do was sit and listen to her, the hall growing quiet in appreciation of the music, my heart thrumming with longing and fear. Should I move or remain frozen?
I wanted to look at her; I wanted to rush to her. But I rose to my feet and glanced to Lord Allenach, smiling as I requested, “Will you escort me to my room, my lord? I fear I am exhausted from a long journey.”
He stood at once, the golden circlet over his forehead winking in the firelight. As he led me down the aisle, my eyes brushed over the tables to the left of the hall, one by one.
Cartier had disappeared.