Page 42 of The Captive's Curse
In that moment, I hated myself a little bit, doubly so because of my twinge of disappointment that I hadn’t found anything that shed light on Enzo’s presence here in the Mad Lord’s castle. Regretting my nosiness in part because it hadn’t been fully successful felt…wrong.
With care, I put the rings back in the bag, tied the strings the way I’d found them—because even full of shame and remorse, I wasn’t going to risk Enzo noticing something amiss—and set the bag gently in the compartment. A bit of maneuvering and cursing got the drawer back on its rails and pushed into the table.
I stood back and cocked my head. Yes, it looked precisely the same. No one would ever know.
And Enzo had been almost forthcoming with me last night, hadn’t he? If we spent more nights together like that, would he tell me about his family and his past on his own? Then it wouldn’t matter that I’d snooped. It’d be like it never happened.
He’d sent me breakfast in bed. He had to like me a bit, didn’t he? He certainly enjoyed fucking me. I could build on that. When I wanted to be, I could be downright irresistible.
Yes. But a bath and a change of clothes and a bit of scent dabbed on my neck wouldn’t hurt my case.
I left the bedroom door closed but unlocked behind me, nodded at the guard—who’d been lounging in a very informal way against the opposite wall, not remaining alert for danger as I’d have hoped—and set off down the hall without a backward glance.
An hour later, I sallied forth from my own bedroom, with a spring in my step only slightly hampered by absurdly tight trousers, my lute slung over my back, and the faint aromas of roses and orange blossoms about my person. A touch of kohl smudged on my eyelashes, my lucky earring in place, and I was ready for anything.
Well, ready to find Enzo and show him how lucky he’d be to “waste” more of the day with me in his bed, at least. Not that I intended to allow him to put me back in it for what remained of the afternoon, of course. That would seem desperate.
And so it was with great, if mostly false, insouciance that I sauntered toward Enzo’s study, passing through the great hall with only one wary glance upward in case of ghosts lurking on the stairs.
But Enzo wasn’t there.
The silence deafened me. The chaise taunted me. I stuck my tongue out at it and retraced my steps, passing by the room where we’d met Enzo’s messenger from Bruno and emerging from the shelter of the wooden overhang into the courtyard. I blinked up at the sky and glanced around. Snow limned the edges of the roofs and lay in thin, slushy piles around the sides of the muddy yard, reflecting the overcast glare.
A few people were outside, engaged in various busy, practical tasks: a woman with two buckets of water crossing from a well to presumably the kitchen; two boys mucking out an area of the courtyard given over to a squawking gaggle of chickens; a cluster of soldierly fellows examining a sword at a blacksmith’s forge across the way. The large double doorway behind them seemed likely to lead to a barracks and the armory Enzo had mentioned before.
He could beright over thereat this very moment. My belly tightened, a low-down quiver making my breath catch.
Crossing the courtyard felt like stepping onto a stage, that same thrill of knowing everyone watched with bated breath, eager for your smallest gesture, the first note of your song.
The fact that no one shot me so much as a casual glance didn’t seem to matter to my nerves.
With every self-conscious step, my legs grew stiffer and my lungs more constricted. The chickens clucked and squawked, the boys hooted and laughed, and the chilly wind stung my burning cheeks.
At last I’d almost reached the double doors, where I could simply step through and—
“You won’t find ’im in there,” boomed a cheerfully, painfully loud voice, and I jumped and twirled, settling on a red-faced, grinning man-at-arms by the forge as the source. His three companions had all turned to stare at me too. “He’s gone.”
Gone? What the hell did he mean,gone?
“Gone? Gone whe—I mean, who’s gone? I’m not looking for anyone!” All four of the men’s faces bore widening grins, and one of them shook his head and laughed. My teeth ground together. Knowing that everyone in the castle would know, andknowingeveryone in the castle definitely knew, were two rather different things, as it turned out. “And if I were looking for anyone, which I’m certainly not,” I added loftily, attempting a recovery, “he’d be a lucky fellow.”
“No doubt,” said the bandit closest to me, nodding. “We saw a lot the other night when you were waving your ass at Enzo. I mean, no offense and all. But you were right there in the hallway where anyone could see.”
“None taken,” I managed, only slightly choked. Where the fuck was Enzo? Why were they babbling about my ass?
“So do you want to know where he’s gone or not?” said the original speaker. “We don’t have all day.”
Warring impulses pounded in my temples, and my fists clenched.
“I haven’t the slightest interest in his—dammit, fine, where the fuck is he?”
“Out on patrol,” he said, and shrugged, turning back to the sword his friend was holding. The other three did too.
Dismissing me. Just like that.
And then one of them turned his head, smirked, and winked. “Very lucky,” he mouthed.
Well, all right. I tossed a wavy lock of hair out of my face and smiled back. He flushed and glanced down at my body, quickly turning away again.
