Page 9 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
“As you wish.”
She picked up where they stopped, and read for so long that Mrs Minton eventually came up to ask if everything was all right. It was long past supper time.
“Wait,” said the Young Lord, as she moved from the room.
“Yes?”
“Your name,” he asked, “what is it?”
Adeline smiled, and it felt like the first real one she’d had in days, the first one that came without her having to force it, to remember her mouth was capable of such an action.
“Adeline,” she told him. “Adie.”
“Well, Adeline,” he returned, and the ghost of something—hardly a smile, but something,somethingother than cold indifference—flashed across the human half of his face. “I bid you good evening.”
Chapter Four: A Game of Chess
The following morning, Adeline took the tray up to the Young Lord’s room. He was awake already, lounging on the chaise in his fine brocade dressing gown. It was open slightly at the front, showing the divide where flesh met fur.
“Morning,” he said, the first time he’d ever offered such a greeting. He sat down at the table, folding away his book. It was the same one they’d been reading together yesterday, the one she’d forgotten to take, but the ribbon showed little progress. “I’d like to have a bath today,” he said, picking at his toast. “Please draw one for me.”
“As you wish.”
There was a large claw-footed bath in the corner of the room. Adeline pulled the screen across and started to run it, discovering vials of sweet-smelling, creamy liquid in a basket beside the tub. She went to fetch fresh towels from the airing cupboard.
By the time she returned, the Young Lord had abandoned his breakfast, and slunk to the other side of the screen. She caught his silhouette as he hung up his dressing gown, the thin, torn shape of him.
“My Lord?” she said, announcing her presence. “Will you require assistance?”
A long, shaky pause followed. “Yes,” he said eventually. “But I will require you not to speak, or hum, or make any kind of noise until unless I say anything to you first.”
“Of course.”
Adeline was used to all manner of instructions when women were brought to childbed. Ones who wanted quiet and darkness, others who wanted you to talk, to distract them. They were all ways of doing the same thing, of covering up pain and vulnerability, of creating a safe space. She did not question it.
She heard him drop into the tub on the other side of the screen and slowly slid behind it. He sat in the middle of the bath, knees drawn up to his chest, hugging his legs. The bulge in his back was more prominent shirtless, the thick fur descending all the way down his torso, stopping just below the water. Both of his legs appeared human.
She almost startled when she saw the long, winding appendage at the base of his spine.
A tail. He had a tail.
He must have kept it curled up underneath his loose shirts, because she’d never seen a suggestion of it before now.
It would have been very impolite to mention it, but she couldn’t help but stare. It ended in a long, furred point, but it wasn’t as shaggy as the rest of him.
No wonder he needed help bathing. His bath would have been difficult to do by himself.
She lifted her jug and began to scrub at his skin, rinsing fur and flesh. Her fingers drifted subconsciously to the place they met, to the raised bumps in his skin. The flesh was knotted angrily together. She wondered if it hurt.
He flinched underneath her.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Are you disgusted?”
“Actually, your attitude has really improved this last day.”
“I meant…”
