Moth and Spark (16 page)

“Tam,” he said. “If you will permit the informality. I’m sorry I made you wait so long. I only hope I’m worth it. You look far too lovely to be with such a lout.” His voice was pleasing, strong without being gruff or deep. She had been too flustered to notice it the day before. His eyes were a cool blue that probably changed color with his mood.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, my lord,” she said, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt, hoping he could not see the blood rising in her ears. Why had she put her hair completely up?

He took her hand and brushed his lips gently over it. Her skin tingled at the touch. “Corin,” he said. “Please.”

It made her feel suddenly shy at the same time that it sent heat to her stomach. She remembered a saying of her mother’s: Be careful what you ask for, you might receive it. There was a look in his eyes that told her if she did not want him to court her, she had better say so immediately. He was still holding her hand. Properly, reluctantly, she withdrew it.

He said, “I’ve made you wait too long for dinner too. Come with me.” He gestured her forward and stepped beside her. He was half a head or so taller than her, but he adjusted his stride to hers. Even though they were not touching, she was aware of his body close to hers, his easy strength and a gracefulness she was not used to seeing in men.

Feeling slightly awkward, she said, “May I ask where we’re going?”

“Just the Terrace Room. If I hadn’t been late we would have had a splendid view of the sunset, but otherwise it isn’t particularly notable. It’s simple and pleasant, that’s all. You don’t need to worry about any impropriety.”

The reassurance was touching, because it seemed to come from a much younger, more innocent man. Her usual response would have been to banter, but he deserved better than that. “Thank you,” she said, wondering if it meant she had mistaken his intentions in spite of everything else.

That question was answered almost immediately when they reached the stairs. They were wide, sweeping, very public stairs; two men were coming down, talking loudly about some other person they were unhappy with. Tam turned her head quickly away from them. Corin, entirely ignoring the men, took her arm in formal style to go upward; gentlemen did that on staircases. But he held her hand much longer than was necessary when he placed it on his forearm, and he looked at her with an intensity that seemed tremendously bold, especially in the presence of the other men. Oh yes, he was used to getting what he wanted. His shirt was silk and very soft. She was embarrassed to feel her heart quicken as happened in the dreadful novels that women like Alina adored. (
Dear Tam, you simply must read this, he rescues her from ever so many things
.) She dared not let herself fall in love.

He said her name, in the tone of someone who is repeating it. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I was thinking. It’s one of my faults.”

He made a sound that might have been suppressed laughter. “It’s quite all right, I was saying something banal about the architecture.”

“It’s very different from home. Dalrinia is cramped and shabby and the streets are all gnarls, everything is old and falling apart. It’s much more open here.” Of course the palace was different from her home, what an idiotic thing to say. She was babbling. She shut her mouth firmly.

“There are plenty of miserable crowded areas in the city,” he said.
“There’s a lot you haven’t seen, and there are places you should never go alone. Don’t let grandeur seduce you.”

She thought there had been bitterness in his voice, and wondered at it. They were on the second flight of stairs now, and the lighting was dimmer, more shadowy. The marble was slick against the soles and heels of her shoes. No wonder women needed a man’s arm. As soon as she had that thought she, predictably, stumbled.

Corin caught her exactly as he had in the library and held her up. “Careful,” he said, when she was steady again. “You’re starting to make this into a habit.” His hand was still on her back.

“It’s my shoes,” she complained.

They both looked down at her foot in the thin black silk slipper. The throat was low, almost to her toes, and the skin on the top of her foot looked very white against the dark fabric. For a moment she felt exposed. Then it did not seem to belong to her but to some other woman. He was still looking at it too, and she glanced up quickly, meeting his unabashed eyes a second later. Neither of them said anything.

Another person’s voice and clicking footsteps came hollowly up the stairwell. She adjusted her hand on his arm and took a step up. Stepping with her, he said lightly, “No one has killed themselves falling down these stairs yet. I would hate for you to be the first.”

“That would be an unpleasant end to the evening,” Tam said. “Well, I promise you I shall not run, not even when the clock strikes twelve. I wouldn’t want you to have to try a shoe on the foot of every maiden in the kingdom.”

“There are fewer of those than is commonly thought,” he said, “it wouldn’t take long.”

“For shame to think that,” she said, attempting to sound stern and failing entirely.

This time he did laugh. It was a nice laugh, not too loud. They went on in silence, a comfortable one. They had reached that comfort quickly, but then, she was sure that he had spent most of his life learning how to control the way people felt around him. When they left the stairs at the top of the second flight he properly lowered his arm. Guards there came to attention; the prince did not appear to notice. Tam, Tam, what are you doing? she thought.

They went down a marble hallway illuminated with glowlamps. Her reflection was a faint ripple of color on the marble. Arched doorways
were spaced evenly on either side. Some of the rooms they opened onto were dark, but in others there were lights and voices, music. A piano echoed eerily from somewhere. A few guards stood here and there along the corridor.

Corin stopped in front of one of the arches and looked in. There was gaslight on in the small room on the other side, dim, and two guards standing near the entrance. They both came crisply to attention. Their gaze seemed to linger on Tam longer than on Corin. She felt nervous and looked down. What would they think of her, what stories would they tell?

Corin motioned her into the antechamber and then through a set of double doors on one wall. Within, she recognized it as a room that she had been shown briefly when she arrived. It was rectangular, with glass doors on the west, the garden side. The doors opened onto a long clay-tiled balcony with slender curved arches of pale green stone supporting the roof. Fountain water cascaded down at the southern end from an open terrace above. The golden wood of the floor was covered with thick green rugs; there were three small tables near the glass doors and other chairs and a sofa arranged decorously in the back. Cina had told her, somewhat cursorily, that it was open to anyone (by which she meant courtiers) and could be reserved for private gatherings, a popular use. Nothing about it suggested a lover’s nook. It was neutral ground. If she reported having had dinner in the Terrace Room, no conclusions would be leaped to.

She glanced at him. He had been watching her, no doubt guessing what went through her mind. “Lucky for you it was available,” she said drily.

He shut one of the double doors. “In fact I did have to boot someone,” he said. “There will no doubt be great speculation about why, but I assure you the guards are sworn to secrecy and I am not known for trysting here.”

Are we trysting? she thought, but she was too shy to speak it.

He said something to the guards outside, and they laughed. They liked him, she realized. That augured well of his character and their silence.

Corin brought the second door almost to a close, the perfect combination of privacy and propriety. The middle table was already set. A cart was beside it with covered dishes and carafes of water and wine. A
servant standing near the cart, probably guarding it against hungry interlopers, bowed and slipped out the door on the other side of the room almost immediately. That door Corin latched.

He pulled a chair out for her, and she sat down. The plates were gold-rimmed with the royal crest in the center. She was not sure what was supposed to happen next and was about to speak when he began messing with the dishes, lids off, lids on, a stir here, a poke there. When he was satisfied with that it was the lamps, which he adjusted until there was a warm circle of light around the table but the remainder of the room faded into darkness. He lit several candles on the table. They flickered violently as he arranged them, flame leaping astonishingly high before it settled. He reminded Tam of a dog trying to make itself comfortable before curling up and going to sleep. Nervousness was about the last thing she had expected from him.

“And now wine?” he asked, finally sitting down. “Or are you in an abstaining mood?”

She held up her goblet and he splashed wine from one of the carafes into it. Expecting it to be excellent, Tam sipped. She was not disappointed. When she put the glass down, he placed his hand over hers, stroked it lightly with the edge of his thumb, then drew back. Something that could only be desire quickened in her belly.

Both of them turned out to be hungry, and they ate steadily without much talking, though their eyes met continually. She had been a bit afraid it might be something too rich for her stomach, but it was simple enough food: soft bread, soup, tender duck with sauce, fresh greens. He knew what he was doing in alluring her. That everything was so carefully planned did not bother her—even if he did it for every woman he wanted, it was much nicer than the usual clumsy overtures or unappealing directness most men in her experience had used.

She finished before he did and spent her time looking at him, tracing his face in her mind, marking how his hands lay on the table, gauging the breadth of his shoulders. He was not just handsome but assured without even being aware of his own confidence. He was entirely himself.

He finished and put the plates and tableware onto the cart, which he wheeled into a corner. The wine and water he left out. Tapping the carafe, he said, “More wine?”

“Not yet, thank you,” she said. He had not drunk all his own. She thought it would be wise to match him.

“Have as much as you wish,” he said, looking at both glasses. “I swear not to take advantage of you.”

“I could say the same,” she said, with a slyness she had not known she was capable of.

He smiled slightly. “If it were just you I would drink to abandon and let you do as you wished. But we could be interrupted any minute by some fool who can’t wait until morning.”

It had not even occurred to her that such might happen. “Isn’t that the whole point of having guards?” she asked. “To keep out the fools?”

“Most of it,” he said, looking into his glass. His hair had just a bit of curling unkemptness to it.

There was a heaviness in him that would pull them both down if she tried to pretend it was not there. Hesitantly, she laid two of her fingers across his hand, clenched on the stem of the wineglass. “You must be free sometimes,” she said tentatively. She did not want to talk about any of that yet, it was too serious.

“Not with—” He broke off, sighed. He put his hand over hers. He said, “I need to ask you this. I’m sorry. Yesterday, the book you dropped, it was about Sarium. Why did you have it?”

It was not at all the sort of question she had anticipated. He had meant it when he asked in the library, then. He had been staring at her in such a way that she had not thought it mattered. Something must be happening, or he would not be asking.

I know what killed Lord Cade.
She couldn’t say that, not yet. If there was some present danger from the Sarians, she would learn when it was time for her to know. The shadows in the room looked like clumps of moths. Glistening moving blood. No.

Carefully, glad of a story to tell, she said, “My father was there, years ago. Before he married my mother, and again eight years past.”

Corin interrupted. “Twice?”

“Yes.”

“That’s heroic.”

“He doesn’t think so,” she said truly. His eyes had changed, to a clear green. She went on. “Just determined. He has told me things about it. When we first heard about Tyrekh. He said to me once that we should
not call the Sarians barbarians. They’re cruel, but clever, and they know many things we don’t.”

“A wise man, your father,” he said, surprising her. “Go on.” It was an encourager, not a command.

She tried to frame her next words unalarmingly. Telling him the whole truth of it was too complicated. “Some of the things my father told me were horrible, and I wished he hadn’t told me. But once I had heard them, I couldn’t forget them. There are many, many ways of being cruel.”

“It’s parasitic,” he said. “The more you give it, the more it wants.”

Tam looked at him. He was speaking out of experience. He was not all soft silk and fine wine, then. He must have seen or heard of wretched things. The courtiers were a flock of bright silly birds, and he was not part of them at all. He worked. It would have been very nice to kiss him, but she was not bold enough for that.

She said quickly, “So when I saw the book—I was bored, I was browsing—I had to read it, to know more.”

“Of course.”

“It’s a fine library,” she said, and could have kicked herself. That was worse than idiotic, it was presumptuous.

“It ought to be.” She thought there was humor lurking in him. He shook his head as though he were shaking off water. “I don’t need to put this on you, and I will do my best to put it off myself tonight. Let’s start over. More wine?”

“Perhaps I will have some more,” she said, sliding her glass to him. He refilled it and slid it back. She drank, then said his name, feeling the way her mouth shaped it. She had not really expected him to let her use it.

“What?” he responded.

“Nothing. I’m just trying it.”

“Tam,” he said, lengthening it slowly as she had done his. “It’s an unusual name.”

She had wondered how long it would take for that to come up. It always did. People usually tagged something onto that phrase—“for an unusual girl” or “It’s pretty though” were the most common. She waited for him to say one of them.