Page 116 of The Thirteenth Child
His tone was as warm and inviting as the bath I so desperately wanted to get to, and I balled my hands, grinding my teeth. He peeled himself from the column, crossing to me for a closer examination. The prince dipped his head, trying to catch my eye as his smile grew to a grin.
“You are! I’ve angered the healer!” He raised his voice in triumph, as if calling out to his companions, but they’d left him behind, doubtlessly unaware their prince was gone. His gaze flickered back to me when he realized it was just the two of us. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Just Hazel?”
I started to deny it, but he went on, rolling over my words, and any desire I felt to assuage him withered.
“I can’t understand it. They like me,” he said, pointing down the hall where his friends had vanished. He patted at his jacket, searching for something. Finding his gold case, he slipped one of his mother’s cigarettes between his lips. “They adore me. Everyone does. Everyone except for you.” His match lit, flaring too highbefore catching the paper wrap. He inhaled deeply. “It bothers me that you don’t. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.”
“There are many things about you that bother me too. We’reeven.”
He brightened. “Do I really take up so much space in your thoughts, then, healer?” His words came out in a rush of crimson smoke.
“That’s not what I said.”
He looked delighted. “But it’s what you meant. Isn’t it?”
“I thought you were going to quit smoking those.”
He held up the cigarette, studying it thoughtfully. “I had. Mostly. Did you know today would have been my mother’s birthday?”
I hadn’t.
“I suppose this is my way of celebrating. Birthdays are important times, don’t you think?” he went on, musing.
“I’ve never thought so.”
Leopold made a face. “They are, and anyone who says otherwise had something terribly traumatizing happen to them as a child.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“You should come out with us tonight. Come out with me, I suppose,” he corrected himself. “If they want to go on without me, damn the lot of them. We’ll find somewhere else and have a far grander time.”
“I think I’d rather go to bed,” I admitted.
His eyebrows shot up. “So forward, Just Hazel, but I wholeheartedly approve. Why should the men always be the ones doing the chasing? Women have every bit as much right to go out and take what they want, when they want.” He stamped out the cigarette, then held up his arms. “Go on, then. Take me.”
I sighed and took a step to the right, ducking past him, then paused.
He’d put so much effort into preparing for his evening, pomading his hair into perfectly disheveled waves and dousing himself with cologne. It wafted from him, an intriguing blend of musk and greenery designed to entice and enchant.
I knew that smell.
“What are you wearing?” I asked, whirling to him.
He tilted his head, grinning. “Are you mimicking me, healer?”
“Not your clothes, your cologne. What is that?”
He shrugged. “Just a little spritz of something.”
“But what? What’s it called? Where did you get it?” I dared to step closer to him, pressing my nose near the hollow of his throat and inhaling deeply. The cologne was obviously not the same as Bellatrice’s perfume, but there was a note in the blend that seemed a perfect match.
“Hazel!” Leopold stepped back with surprise, dropping his rakish façade just a sliver, alarmed by my advance.
“Hold still.” I grabbed his shoulders and pulled him to me. We were close enough that I could feel his breath at my temple, and I was sure he felt mine as I sniffed again. “This isn’t what you normally wear,” I observed.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve noted what I smell like?”
“No!” I protested, jerking my hands back. “Only…I’ve been trying to track down that scent for a month. I would have recognized it on you before now.”
