Midnight in Everwood(72)
‘What is that?’ One of the crafters was looking at the package. The faceless guards turned their heads to look, their movements stiff and unyielding.
‘They are her dancing shoes,’ Legat drawled in a bored tone. ‘Forgive me, I had not realised the interest you held in women’s footwear.’ His expressionless face formed his own mask as he slotted back into the role of captain
Marietta glanced at him. It wasn’t him; wasn’t the light shining in his eyes, tender smiles and deep, feeling words she had come to cherish. The same way she wasn’t herself in the tearooms and ballrooms of high society. Since she had discovered the real Legat underneath his fa?ade, rawer and vulnerable, she wondered at how she had ever considered him distant and impassive. He had never not cared for her situation; he had simply cared too much. She ached for the distance between them now, the kiss that had never been.
One of the faceless guards came closer, looming over Marietta. ‘It’s a large package for a mere pair of shoes,’ he said tonelessly, reaching for it.
‘Obviously it contains more than one pair.’ She fought back her panic, not allowing her voice to waver as she glared at him. The guard’s hands fell to his side but he stayed before her. Beneath the soldiers’ livery beat hearts strong and human and capable of fathomless love. She shuddered at what skulked beneath the guards’ blank masks. She sensed a coldness to them, obeying the king’s orders as automatons. If the captain’s suspicions proved correct and the faceless guards were investigating the soldiers then she feared the consequences for them. For him and the dangerous double game he was engaged in, carrying the weight of the rebellion on his shoulders.
‘We’ve been searching the palace for you,’ the other crafter said, oozing with suspicion. ‘There have been murmurs of rebellious activity within these walls.’
‘And now you have found me. Kingsman Fin, return this woman to her suite so that she may prepare what we discussed for the king. I shall deal with this matter.’
Fin jerked to attention, guiding Marietta up the staircase. ‘That was close,’ he murmured, swiping a hand at the back of his neck. As they continued ascending the stairs, Marietta glanced back to where Legat was standing on the swirl below and opposite them. The crafters were now descending in a golden cage, one of them staring at a small clock face he’d pulled from his collar, the other tapping a foot on the gilded floor. It appeared as if the captain had dismissed the guards, who were now marching onwards and upwards on the spiral. Legat threw a brief look up at Marietta. She wished she was close enough to read it. Instead, she continued with Fin, the spiral whisking them out of sight.
The suite door was unlocked to reveal Pirlipata and Dellara poring over an armoire. The instance Marietta was locked in with them once more, they dismissed their conversation.
‘Well?’ Dellara demanded.
Pirlipata examined her face. ‘Did something happen? You look whiter than a winter’s day.’
‘Nothing happened, I assure you I am fine,’ Marietta said. She pressed a hand to her stomach, forcing it to calm.
‘Never mind that now—’ Dellara flapped a hand at Pirlipata ‘—what do you have in there?’ She reached for the package.
Marietta relinquished her hold on it. ‘We must hide it at once.’
Dellara tore into it, shimmering lilac nails slashing the brown paper open. They all leant forward. A striped red and white fabric lay inside. Dellara’s teeth gleamed. ‘It looks as if the captain does possess a fondness for you after all,’ she said to Marietta, who was trying to regain her composure after her intimate moment with Legat. Even if their encounter had left her longing for him, it was too dangerous a notion to even consider. She could not call the faintest hint of suspicion on herself, not when it could jeopardise everything. A faint clunk froze the three of them into a tapestry.
Someone was unlocking the door.
In a heartbeat, Pirlipata snatched up the parcel and ran with it into the bathing chamber. After she’d whipped through the gauzy drapes, Marietta heard her bank right, into the private section of the bathroom. Dellara shoved Marietta onto a cushion, diving onto the carpet beside her and opening a nearby box of paints to the crimson shade she had slicked on Marietta’s lips, retouching them just as the door swung open.
A server marched through, deposited an oversized silver tray on the carpet beside Dellara, who ignored her, and marched back out as Marietta’s lips gained a third coating. Dellara tossed the paints aside and called out to Pirlipata in a low voice. ‘You can come out now.’
Pirlipata emerged, the opened package still in her hands. ‘Where shall we hide it?’
‘Is it possible to conceal it within a cushion or one of the chaises longues?’ Marietta considered the tight seams of the nearest one.
‘We’re lacking the necessary tools for that,’ Dellara said.
Marietta glanced towards the armoires. ‘What about the cape you wore to the buttercream ball? The raspberry-pink shiny one you were so enamoured with?’
‘I am not sure I follow,’ Pirlipata said, exchanging a curious look with Dellara.
‘That night you spilt a snowberry crème on it but it did not stain despite your worry, the fabric repelled it …’ Marietta went to rummage in the armoire. After locating the cape in the glittering rainbow of Dellara’s wardrobe, she spread it out on the smooth, lilac stone floor and rolled the uniforms inside, forming a tight seamless bundle which she then stuffed inside a pair of glossy stockings and knotted shut. She strode through the drapes and dropped it into the bathing pool.