Page 127 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
Adeline started to break formation, slipping from the line, but a hand closed around her elbow and tugged her back. Thomas.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“But he’s—” She couldn’t leave him. Shecouldn’t.
“The Duke’s servants are with him. His eyes are everywhere. You are not his friend, not today. Not while he’s here.”
Adeline nodded, her jaw tight. She tried once more to catch his gaze, but he did not even raise his head.
For days after the Duke’s arrival, Adeline barely saw Dimitri. Thomas was sent to assist him, and he took his meals with his father and the rest of the guests, as more continued to pile into the manor. The house itself seemed to shake and constrict, gathering in whatever room the Duke was occupied, like he was some kind of inverted python squeezing the very bones of the building.
Adeline saw little of the Duke, too, but she heard his laugh in the drawing room at night. It was thunderous, an imitation of warmth, civility echoed and twisted.
Night after night, she thought of going to Dimitri’s room, but she was too afraid of being seen, and Dimitri hadn’t called for her.
He will call me if he needs me.
Thomas wasn’t the only one to counsel caution. Mrs Minton herself had politely suggested it was wise Adeline kept to herself for the duration of the visit. “Just in case,” she said.
She would not explain why.
“How long do you think he’ll stay?”
“Two weeks, at a guess? But who knows. This is his home. He may decide to stay.”
Two weeks without Dimitri, without speaking to him.
One winter when Adeline was a little girl, the cottage was snowed in. It was fun, at first, playing in the snow banks taller than herself.
But the winter had come too quickly, too suddenly, and the family was not prepared. The food started to dwindle, and ration it though they did, there were a few days of painful, hungry bellies before the snow melted enough to allow Mr Elsing to head to the village for supplies.
That was what this separation felt like; sudden, and cold, and the sort that tied her stomach in angry, painful knots.
It didn’t help that she was worried about Dimitri.
“Has he spoken to you at all?” she asked Thomas one evening, certain no one was listening.
Thomas went quiet, as if debating saying anything at all. “He isn’t talkative at the best of times.”
Dimitri, Dimitri, what’s going on?
“Don’t,” Thomas snapped.
“Don’t what?”
“Worry about him.”
“I can’t stop myself.”
“Just don’t act on it. Don’t go to him. If his father even suspects that there’s something between the two of you… it isn’t worth it.”
I risk losing him altogether if I go to him. I risk losing this job. I risk my family’s security, Leonie’s future. I can’t, I won’t, I won’t—
And yet a part of it all seemed worth the risk, if she could just ensure he was all right.
Two days before the ball, Adeline caved in the safest way she could think of; she slipped into Alexei’s room with a pile of fresh laundry and prayed to catch him alone. He was with his assistant at first, poring over papers on the desk, and neither looked up as she remade the huge bed by herself, taking as long as she could. Finally, Algernon went to fetch something.
“Your Highness,” Adeline whispered.
