Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(64)
There are many things Isbe used to believe.
But similes elude her now. All she can fathom currently is the proximity of Prince William’s very literal, semi-unclothed body. Which is, now that she thinks about it, coated in completely nonmetaphorical steam.
That’s because they happen to be hiding out in a stone-walled sauna, deep in the cellars of the faerie Almandine’s estate, where a servant insisted they’d be least likely to be discovered. They’re sitting on benches on opposite walls facing each other, and William’s doublet is currently lying discarded somewhere. They were told nearly an hour ago to wait here for Annette, the head housemaid, who was supposed to come for them and show them to a safe room to sleep for the day, before commencing their travels.
“Perhaps we could at least remove a few of the rocks,” Isbe mutters now. The sauna is heated with hot stones from a fire that are then dunked in water, creating the steam that heats up the enclosed space. She’s glad for once that she chopped off her hair—at least she doesn’t have to feel it sticking wetly to her skin. Then again, the shorter locks make her feel more vulnerable too. More exposed.
“You heard what they said,” William replies. The mistress of the house likes everything maintained, apparently. She’d notice if the servants didn’t keep the sauna heated throughout the day and night. “Still, I suppose it’s a bit unfair for you.”
“Why for me?”
“Well, I don’t need to worry about modesty. I could be sitting here naked and you’d never know.” There’s a bit of laughter in his tone, though his words make her feel even more overheated.
“It is unfair,” she admits. “I have a feeling if I were to undress, you might notice.”
“I’m sorry to admit it, but I definitely would.”
If there was any doubt before, Isbe is fairly certain now that the prince is flirting with her. They are, in fact, flirting with each other. This has been happening more and more recently. Their conversations will stray from political strategy to philosophical musings to quick-fire banter without her realizing how they got there.
“Anyway,” she says now. “It doesn’t matter. It’s women who are taught to be modest, not men. You can do pretty much whatever you want without impunity.”
“Now that I disagree with,” William responds.
“Really? Imagine my surprise. You never disagree with me,” she says. “But do tell. For what action would you, as a man, risk censure?”
“For one thing, I can’t play the harpsichord in public. I would definitely receive censure for that.”
She laughs. Sometimes it startles her the way William makes her laugh, even though they are on a potentially deadly mission. She shouldn’t be happy, she tells herself. Not when her sister may not survive the sickness. Not when their country is being invaded by the forces of an evil faerie queen. Not when she is stuck in a morbidly hot chamber with a distractingly interesting prince who does not belong to her, and never can, and never will.
Then again, she’s heard peasants laugh openly and freely even during the cold of winter, when their bones practically protrude from their thin shifts. She’s heard a dying orphan squeal with secret glee. Happiness is funny like that. It’s not bound to circumstance.
She adjusts her dress, feeling how it clings to her, wishing she could just rip it off her body like she might have done when she was a child playing in the stream with Gilbert.
Gilbert. There’s another source of painful confusion. How can she feel what she’s feeling now in the presence of William and still know in her heart that she has never cared for any boy the way she cares for Gil? It’s possible she may never know for sure whether he survived, may live in half mourning until the day she dies.
The playfulness evaporates from her heart, replaced with a tightness: guilt for joking about a harpsichord, let alone with Prince William, the man she is bringing home for her sister to marry. She fidgets, the heat starting to go to her head. It’s definitely hot in here . . . but she and William have become accustomed to hiding out in unusual places over the last week, ever since their rescue by Sisters Genevieve and Katherine. The two nuns had left them at a crossroads that night, just before dawn, with explicit directions to the first stop on the Veiled Road, though Sister Genevieve warned that if they didn’t arrive before sunup, they’d be as good as dead. Malfleur’s mercenaries in Isolé would by then have redoubled their efforts to locate Isbe and William, who wouldn’t stand a chance on their own in broad daylight.
And so for nearly a week they’ve been traveling like this, under the cover of night, from house to house along the Veiled Road, ushered in by servants who, increasingly, seem to have heard about them and their plans. Despite the fact that they previously understood the alliance to be deeply unpleasant to most of the serfdom, it turns out that the story of the bastard princess of Deluce and the third prince of Aubin has reached—and inspired—many throughout the land.
Many people no longer see Malfleur as a trumped-up threat invented by the council, but a real looming danger, thanks to her gruesome mercenaries raiding so many villages along the western and southern borders, threatening serfs, and killing nobles. And while the sleeping council is still out of favor among the masses, it seems many of the serving class are willing to look on an alliance with renewed optimism. It’s incredible, really, how terror can change the tides of a kingdom.