The Duke of Snow and Apples (26 page)

Charlotte’s heart twisted. It was so small, and so alone, buried beneath years of solitude and insecurity. It fit within her palms, round and perfect. An apple, buried in snow.

Precious and secret, unknown to anyone. Except her.
It’s too much. I’m not worthy.
Her hands released the apple, but a small slice peeled off and clung to the palm of her hand. Without thinking she brought it to her mouth, tasting its sweetness and feeling the burn of him sizzle all the way down her throat to settle in her chest like a hot coal.

…

Frederick licked his lips, tasting blood, but he was beyond caring. He’d fought the Gray—and
won
. Charlotte flared to life before his eyes, her cheeks flushed, her teeth bared, glorious, beautiful rage glittering in her eyes. Inwardly, she burst into flame, and the Gray vanished like so much smoke.

Pure Charlotte—Charlotte as no one had ever seen her—as no one but him would ever see her. A great, glowing ball of dancing flame-colored light, vibrant and burning—eye-searing yellows, oranges, reds, and flaming blues. He wanted to touch it, feel it, grasp it.

Ah, God. He felt her, all of her—her joy slid past him, thick and amber as honey. Elation and humor, an eye-searing pink, that whipped through his fingers like water. She was liquid fire. He swam until he saw all her colors, all her visions—she had a secret core of shyness, the faintest pink like mother of pearl. Currents of temper, swift and orange. Trickles of fear in varying shades of yellow-white. Great still pools of lust and wanting, rich as burgundy, waiting to be plumbed.

He surfaced with a gasp. Two spots of red burned on Charlotte’s cheeks, and she blinked slowly.

“I’ve never done that before,” he said, wincing as he spoke. Blood continued to bead on his lip.

Charlotte stared at the blood. “Neither have I.”

“I didn’t mean for this happen to you,” he said. “The Gray. That’s what happens when I interfere. That’s why I’ve always hidden from it. I’ve hurt people, people I cared about. I couldn’t stay by and let it take you—I couldn’t…”

Charlotte’s hands moved, clutching, pulling, one at his lapel and the other hot against his neck until her mouth was on his, soothing the small wound she’d inflicted with her tongue. The sweet sting spurred Frederick on with a muffled groan. Words bubbled out of him, squashed between them as their mouths tangled, but understood all the same.
Beautiful. Beloved. Mine.

He pulled apart. “I fought against my magic for so long, Charlotte. Because it does this. It’s wrong.
I’m
wrong. I hurt you.”

Charlotte gazed at him, her lips moist and swollen but her eyes narrowing in understanding. “How can you call your magic wrong? You
rescued
me.”

“Only because you fought like the Mirror Queen herself.” He drew away from her, ashamed, and ignored her whimper of protest. “Ever since I was a small child, I could see the colors of a person’s heart. But the magic came with a price. The people around me, their colors, they grew dull, gray, and trapped. I didn’t know why. I still don’t.” A sliver of hope entered his voice. “But I can fight it now.”

“You fought it today.” Her lips found the corner of his neck where it met his jaw. Her words brushed across his skin, heightening his desire. “And you won.”

“I won,” he agreed. “And I’ll fight the Gray as many times as it takes, because I love you.” His heart strained and nearly burst with the enormity of the truth. He’d defeated the Gray. He loved Charlotte. Moreover, Charlotte still loved him, still accepted him despite knowing what he was. It was too much. Nothing could be this good without a price.

Somewhere behind him, he thought he heard a slow scrape and
click
, like metal gears sliding into place, but then Charlotte reclaimed his attention.

Her chair was too small to accommodate both of them, so sliding a hand under her bottom, he lifted her against him and spun, silencing her squeals with kisses as he sat down in her place, with her in his lap. Holy Maiden, he burned for her—and given their position and the seemingly instinctive way she arched against him, she knew how much.

Panting, she fumbled with the brass buttons on his waistcoat, then the smaller buttons of his shirt. She let her hands explore the smooth expanse of his chest, laughing breathlessly.
I made her laugh,
Frederick thought with a burst of absurd pride.

“Surprised there’s a man under all that blue satin?” he said.

Charlotte laughed, but before she could reply, a strident voice filtered through the door.

“…been moping for days, and that’s just unacceptable! If there’s one thing I forbid in my household, Charlotte, it is bad temper! And you’re going to be cheered whether you like it or not!”

“Oh no.” Charlotte looked down at the scandalous placement of her hands on his chest.

“We have time,” he replied. “I locked the door. We—”

Before either Charlotte or Frederick could move, the door to the parlor swung open, revealing Lady Balrumple, still in full Angel regalia, followed by Sylvia, with most of the house party’s guests lined up behind. Mr. Gelvers took up the rear, leading Tall John and Ben bearing mugs of something sweet, steaming, and meant to be comforting.

Lady Balrumple, overcome with the righteous determination to cheer her grandniece out of her inexplicable doldrums, managed five lengthy footsteps into the parlor before she could quite comprehend what she saw—which left enough room for nearly everyone else invited to the Dowagers’ house party to file in and witness the scene.

Lady Balrumple and Charlotte both froze at the same time, and for a few moments the only movement was the increasing rush of color to Charlotte’s face matched by the draining of color from her ladyship’s.

Out of the corner of his eye, Frederick saw Mr. Gelvers slip a key back into the pocket of his waistcoat.

“Looks like she’s already been cheered,” Lord Noxley spoke into the sharp silence. A moment later he yelped as Mr. Oswald drove his heel into Noxley’s foot.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Charlotte took her hand off Frederick’s chest, very slowly, as if Aunt Hildy were a large, predatory animal that did not like being startled.

Her great-aunt stared at Frederick with a face like a white death-mask—pale teeth, bloodless skin, widened eyes. “Get—your—hands—off—my—grandniece.”

His obedience required Charlotte to remove herself from his lap, which she did with the same slow, careful manner. She moved languidly in a small attempt to delay the inevitable. It didn’t help anyone’s case that Frederick’s inappropriate interest in his employer’s grandniece was now visible to everyone who cared to glance at the state of his breeches.

“Not an inch!” Lady Balrumple shrieked, as Frederick made to cross his legs.

“It’s not his fault, Aunt Hildy,” Charlotte said. Every place Frederick had touched now burned under the crowd’s scrutiny, until she felt half convinced he’d left bright red handprints on her throat and her shoulders and her bottom.
He saved me
. How could she explain?

Aunt Hildy turned her bone-dead stare upon her. “Now is the time to be silent, child.”

“I didn’t see anything untoward,” the Earl of Enshaw declared, too loudly. “I believe my sons would agree.” Mr. Colton and Viscount Elban bobbed their heads in acquiescence.

“Really? Were you looking?” Snowmont said, faint confusion wrinkling his features.

“Quiet,” said Sir Bertram. His features pinched as if stifling a strong urge to laugh.

Sylvia began to cry.

“Gelvers,” said Lady Balrumple to her butler, voice deadly soft, “send one of your footmen to pack up Mr. Snow’s things and leave them by the stable entrance. Mr. Snow will exit by the same door. When I am done with Mr. Snow, I will permit him five minutes, and no more, to strip himself of the livery he has besmirched and into a change of his own clothing.”

“Of course.” Gelvers nodded toward the taller of the two dumbfounded footmen—John, was it?—and all three exited.

Aunt Hildy turned back to the scene. During the brief lax in her attention, Frederick had eased himself into a standing position, leaving several feet between him and Charlotte. “You are very fortunate, Mr. Snow, that the only things violent about me are my affections. Else I would tear you apart piece by piece—beginning with my least favorite.”

Then the viscountess turned toward Charlotte, and the sudden glimmer of moisture in the elderly woman’s eyes made Charlotte want to curl up inside some camouflaged shell like a shamed hermit crab. “You realize I’m going to have to write to your father.”

Proving Stepmama right all along—that the Dowagers were vulgar, loud, and intimidating women who flaunted their disdain of propriety. Once Aunt Hildy sent that letter by sylph, Papa would come and bring her home where she would very likely never return to Charmant Park again.

And Aunt Hildy knew it.

But how could Charlotte regret what had happened with Frederick? Everything stung, as if her heart were as raw as the new skin under a scab—shame, despair, hope—but it was far better than the listless Gray that had overcome her before.

“Excuse me.” Somewhere in the back, the crowd of guests wavered and parted as someone pushed their way through, finally admitting the gangly, fair-haired form of Edward Grubs. “Excuse me!”

“Excellent,” said Aunt Hildy. “You can escort Mr. Snow to…wait.” She blinked. “You’re not one of ours.”

Noxley scowled at his valet. “Of course not, he’s mine. What are you doing here? I didn’t send for you.”

“And you never will again!” Edward shot back. “I quit!”

Noxley blanched, evidently contemplating a future full of crumpled cravats. “You can’t quit—how am I supposed to continue without a valet—”

Blithely, Edward interrupted, facing the couple under the most scrutiny. “I came as soon as I heard, Your Grace.”

“I’m over here,” said Snowmont.

“Your ladyship…I think I have a solution to your problem,” Edward told Lady Balrumple.

The viscountess raised an eyebrow, Charlotte’s future taking priority over social niceties. “Go on.”

“Let them marry.”

The room erupted in a chorus of consternation from all sides except the guilty party—and, oddly enough, Dorothea. The seventh Dowager, all in black, watched the proceedings with a small smile that spread gradually to light up the entirety of her face.

Edward, the picture of calm, dipped a hand into his pocket and drew out a small, bright object, which he lifted high into the air.

“Should’ve known,” Frederick muttered.

Charlotte risked a glance in his direction. “What do you mean? It’s just a ring.”

His mouth pressed into a thin, long line. “I never thought I’d have to tell you.”

“What?”

His mouth opened, a stuttering explanation tried to emerge, but before he could manage it, Lord Enshaw stepped forward and took the ring—an old-fashioned piece set with an ostentatious ruby—from Edward’s hand. The earl brought the piece of jewelry close to his face, his blond mustaches bristling.

“I’ll be scales-cursed,” said Enshaw. “It’s your ring, Snowmont.”

“I already have a ring,” said Snowmont, raising a hand to display a thin gold band fitted with tiny rubies, a flimsy modern frippery against the magnificence of the one Enshaw held.

“No, my boy—the
first
ring. The original ducal band of Snowmont forged by the Fey,” the earl said. “Back when were only eighteen duchies in Allmarch. The Fey made eighteen rings for the eighteen dukes, including
your
ancestor. My tutor kept me in the schoolroom for hours as a lad making sure I knew all the names. Didn’t they teach you anything about your own family before putting you under the bloody Entailment?” He ran a finger around the inside of the band. “It even has the original charm inscribed on the inside.”

“But it was lost when the last duke drowned,” said Sir Bertram. The duke’s particular friend, so reserved and quiet before, now seemed almost frantic, and had been so all day, even by Charlotte’s tainted recollection. The unsettling color of his eyes made her turn away without probing further.

“Give me your hand,” Enshaw said to the duke. The earl slid the ring onto the third finger on Snowmont’s right hand. It immediately slipped off and landed on the carpet with a small
thud
.

“It’s not his ring,” Dorothea said.

Enshaw face’s tightened in confusion before he tucked it under a blander expression. “Then it’s an exceedingly cunning forgery. Where did you find it, boy?”

The valet bent and picked up the ring from the floor. “I found it in Frederick’s room, my lord.”

Sir Bertram’s head jerked up at the name, and he stared at Frederick as if he’d never truly noticed him until now. His jaw sagged open in surprise, and those oddly familiar eyes gleamed. Charlotte blinked against a sudden sense of disorientation, as if she ought to remember something important about him and those strange green eyes of his.

“No,” Sir Bertram said. “He’s dead.”

“We shall see,” Edward said. He snatched at Frederick’s wrist. Frederick pulled it out of the valet’s grip, his body tightening like a coiled spring as if only moments away from fleeing as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.

“Frederick.” The soft, plaintive tone in Charlotte’s voice startled even her. Somewhere in her mind, pieces of a bizarre puzzle began to fit together with sharp little clicks, and she needed Frederick to deny it, to prove Edward wrong, before the puzzle finished and she discovered something she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Her Frederick, her footman, looked at her, and the light in his eyes dimmed as he relaxed in defeat. Edward slipped the ring onto his hand.

As everyone watched, the ducal ring gave a soft series of bell-like chimes, shuddered, than shrank to fit Frederick’s hand.

…

The ducal ring clasped Frederick’s finger as if he’d been born to wear it—which, of course, he had—but it carried with it a burden of memories, fears, and responsibilities that would crush him beneath its weight if he lost control for even a moment. The sudden silence crackled with unspoken questions, ravening curiosity, disbelief, and hostility, arching across the room like bolts of rainbow lightning.

He pushed his magic back, not all the way back to his cold place, but away from his eyes. He didn’t want to see what everyone was feeling—it was clear enough by the dumbstruck looks on their faces.

Edward knelt and pressed Frederick’s hand to his forehead. “Your Grace.”

For one moment, Frederick contemplated curling that hand into a fist and planting it a little more firmly between Edward’s eyes.

Edward rose. “May I present His Grace Lord Frederick Adam Phineas Calvin Cleighmore, Fifth Duke of Snowmont, Marquess of Pilsby, Earl of Lowton.”

“That’s impossible!” Noxley blurted. Pushing himself forward, he jabbed an imposing finger at the newly revealed peer. “You expect us to accept that this footman is really a duke? Enshaw himself said it was likely a forgery.”

“But the ring fits,” said Viscount Elban, looking to his father the earl.

“I have several rings at home that fit, but that doesn’t make me a duke.”

“It was forged with song-magic,” said Lady Tamsin, her young face pinched in thought. “That’s the little chime it made as it worked. You can’t imitate that sort of Fey magic.
We
don’t even understand it anymore.”

Charlotte stared at Frederick as if he had transformed into someone she’d never met—or someone she knew all too well. Another person who had lied to her. From the first, she’d demanded truth of him, his true emotions, his true life, unsatisfied with a companion content to say one thing and mean another. Just a few minutes ago—was it really only a few minutes?—he’d shown her the most hidden core of himself to rescue her from the Gray, only for her to learn that even his name wasn’t his own.

“Well—how long as he been working here?” Noxley demanded.

“Ten years.” Lady Balrumple gave a shocked, dry cough. “He’s worked for us for ten years.”

“For ten years he polished my writing-tables. All of them,” said Lady Alderley, lowering herself into a chair.

Her granddaughter Lady Tamsin moved to take up one of her hands. “Personally?”

“I have no idea—but it’s always been the footmen’s duty to do so. He must have done it at one point or another.”

“Then that means he helped ensure I was seated at the highest chair at dinner,” said the diminutive Lady Enshaw. “That was very kind of you, Freddy.”

Embarrassment squirmed in Frederick’s chest. “It was Mr. Gelvers who always arranged that.”

“You’re all mad,” said Noxley. “Sir Bertram—you were his stepfather. Surely this isn’t him.”

Sir Bertram gave Frederick a slow look, his brow deeply furrowed. Was he frightened his freakish stepson was still alive? Angry? Did he feel anything at all?

After a moment’s pause, Sir Bertram nodded. “It’s him.”

“What does that mean?” Snowmont asked.

“It means you’re back to being Mr. Charles Littiger thanks to the capriciousness of a footman,” Noxley said.

“Oh,” was all Mr. Littiger said.

A half-dozen voices all started speaking at once.

“How could you let your family think you were dead…?”

“A footman! I wouldn’t have been so cross with you over spilling gravy onto my new fichu if I’d known you were a duke…”

“There’ll be charges for this, I have no doubt! Dodging an Entailment is a crime!”

“But to be a
servant
? I’m under an Entailment, and I assure you I’d take a hundred Entailments over having to wear one of those hideous wigs.”

Amidst the flood of words, Charlotte remained a treacherous still water of silence, her complexion white as salt. Frederick longed for an excuse to drag Charlotte off to a quiet corner so that he could explain to her properly—about his mother, about the darker side to his powers, about the river that he’d never really escaped from until he’d met her.

“Enough!” At Lady Balrumple’s shout, the ruckus died. “I’m sure that, when appropriate, we can examine this new scandal and all of its delicious angles to our satisfaction, but we have more important matters to discuss. Frederick.”

“Your Gr…” Edward’s admonishment withered in the face of the viscountess’s acidic glare.

“Duke or not, I care about you as little as I did when you polished boots for a living,” she said. She’d regained some of her composure, but a sharp metal wire of malice hummed beneath her words. “But my grandniece’s future is at stake. I’m not going to ask you whether or not you will marry Charlotte Erlwood, for that is a given. I’m not going to ask you to care for Charlotte above your own life, and to treat her with the level of respect and affection she deserves—a level as far above your own as it is possible to be, I’ll add. I’m sure you realize by now that the Seven Dowagers have very powerful friends who can influence the changeable nature of your place in society, and whether or not they do it for your benefit will remain up to them.”

“I won’t marry him.”

At Charlotte’s pronouncement, Lady Balrumple blinked and turned to her guests. “I believe the enjoyment of this public spectacle has worn thin, don’t you?”

Taking the hint, the rest of the Dowagers and guests left the room, trailing embarrassed coughs and excited whispers.

Charlotte crossed her arms tightly under her bodice, splotches of red staining her cheekbones. She refused to look at Frederick. “How can you make that decision so callously, without even asking me?”

“This isn’t the time for games,” Lady Balrumple said. “Your reputation has been compromised. I know you think I’m your delightfully loosy-goosy Aunt Hildy, but I know if you walk away from this, you may regret it.”

“Of course I will,” Charlotte said. She uncurled her arms until they lay stiffly by her sides. “I’m impetuous and flighty and emotional. I know everything about regrets, and very little about common sense, or what people are really like beneath the bland faces they show us. Tomorrow or the next day or the day after that, I may very well accept marrying Fr—Duke Snowmont. I know I have little choice in the matter. But can I at least have one day to be foolish and angry?”