The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles, #1)(53)

She lifted a pitcher of warm rosewater. “Now?”

I stood and she let the fragrant water trickle over my head and down my body into the tub. I wrapped myself in a towel and stepped out, still reliving every moment, especially that last brief exchange looking into each other’s eyes.

“A farmer,” I sighed. “Isn’t that romantic?”

“Yes,” Pauline agreed.

“So much more genuine than a stuffy old prince.” I smiled. He worked the land. He made things grow. “Pauline? When did you—” And then I remembered it wasn’t a subject I should broach with her.

“When did I what?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

She sat on the end of the bed, rubbing oil onto her freshly bathed ankles. She appeared to have forgotten my half-said question, but after a moment she asked, “When did I know I had fallen in love with Mikael?”

I sat down across from her. “Yes.”

She sighed, pulling her knees up and hugging them. “It was early spring. I had seen Mikael several times in the village. He always had plenty of girls around him, so I never thought he’d noticed me. But he had. One day as I walked by, I felt his gaze on me, even though I didn’t look his way. Every time I went by after that, he stopped, ignoring the attentions of those around him, and he watched me until I passed, and then one day—” I watched her eyes looking at the opposite wall but seeing something else. Seeing Mikael. “I was on my way to the dressmaker, and he suddenly fell in step beside me. I was so nervous I just looked straight ahead. He didn’t say anything, just walked beside me, and when we were almost at the shop, he said, ‘I’m Mikael.’ I started to reply, and he stopped me. He said, ‘You don’t have to tell me who you are. I already know. You’re the most exquisite creature the gods ever created.’”

“And that’s when you knew you loved him?”

She laughed. “Oh, no. What soldier doesn’t have a posy of sweet words at the ready?” She sighed and shook her head. “No, it was two weeks later, when he’d exhausted every posy at his disposal, and he seemed so dejected, and he looked at me. Just looked at me.” Her eyes glistened. “And then he whispered my name in the sweetest, weakest, most honest voice, ‘Pauline.’ That’s all, just my name, Pauline. That’s when I knew. He had nothing left, but he wasn’t giving up.” She smiled, her expression dreamy, and resumed massaging oil into her foot and ankle.

Was it possible that Pauline and Mikael had shared something true and real, or had Mikael just drawn from a new well of tricks? Whichever it was, he had gone back to his old ways and warmed his lap now with a fresh supply of girls, forgetting Pauline and tossing aside whatever they had. But that didn’t make her love for him any less true.

I bent over and rubbed my hair with the towel to dry it. I want to feel your skin, your hair, run every dark strand through my fingers. I pulled the wet strands to my nose and sniffed. Did he like the scent of rose?

My first encounter with Rafe had been a contentious one, and not by any stretch had I been smitten the way Walther was when he saw Greta. And Rafe certainly hadn’t wooed me with sweet words the way Mikael had Pauline. But maybe that didn’t make it any less true. Maybe there were a hundred different ways to fall in love.





From the loins of Morrighan,

From the far end of desolation,

From the scheming of rulers,

From the fears of a queen,

Hope will be born.


—Song of Venda





CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE



I nearly burst with joy watching Pauline dress in the new clothes I’d bought her, a loose peach-colored shift and delicate green sandals. After weeks of wearing the heavy clothing of Civica or her drab mourning clothes, she blossomed in the summer hues.

“Such a relief in this heat. I couldn’t love it more, Lia,” she said, admiring the transformation in the mirror. She turned sideways, pulling on the fabric to judge its girth. “And it should fit me through the last spike of autumn.”

I placed the garland of pink flowers on her head, and she became a magical wood nymph.

“Your turn,” she said. My own shift was white with embroidered lavender flowers sprinkled across it. I slipped it on and twirled, looking at myself in the mirror and feeling something akin to a cloud, light and liberated from this earth. Pauline and I both paused, contemplating the claw and vine on my shoulder, the thin straps of the shift leaving it clearly visible.

Pauline reached out, touched the claw, and shook her head slowly as she considered it. “It suits you, Lia. I’m not sure why, but it does.”

*

When we arrived at the tavern, Rafe and Kaden were loading the wagon with tables from the dining room and cases of Berdi’s blackberry wine and preserves. As we approached, they both stopped mid-lift and slowly set their heavy loads back down. They said nothing, just stared.

“We should bathe more often,” I whispered to Pauline, and we both suppressed a giggle.

We excused ourselves to go inside and see if Berdi needed help with anything else. We found her with Gwyneth in the kitchen, loading pastries into a basket. Pauline stared longingly at the golden-crusted blackberry scones as they disappeared layer after layer into the basket. Berdi finally offered her one. She nibbled a corner self-consciously and swallowed.