Page 84 of Untempered
Audrey’s cheeks were flushed, and her skirts didn’t sit smoothly. The pillow she tossed onto the chair, then launched herself onto, I’d not seen since I’d helped move her into the tower.
If she’d been a friend, I’d’ve apologized and left. But I needed to speak with her, and she wasn’t my friend.
So I shut the door behind myself and walked further in, ignoring her quick breaths and the hands that trembled a little as she reached for the sheafs of parchment never far from her elbow.
As I warmed the back of my thighs and my behind, I considered that she and I probablycould’vebeen friends, under other circumstances.
She let out a frustrated sigh and shifted in the chair. Her cheeks were still flushed.
“Something wrong?” I asked innocently, in case she hadn’t learned her lesson. “Anything I can help with?”
The color in her cheeks deepened. Her gaze skittered away, settling on the hilt of my sword. “No. Thanking you.”
The breathlessness of those words went to my head. Or mayhap it was the way her lips were slightly parted. Irritated with myself, I considered calling her out.
She had access to five other rooms over two other levels. She could’ve grinded up against plenty of stuffed objects all over the place because there was onlyoneother person up there.
I didn’t bother pointing out any of that. If she hadn’t figured it out for herself, she was too foolish to use the information anyway. “Apologies for the interruption,” I said.
She nodded, as if her skirts weren’t all tangled around her calves. I tried not to think of how, if she liked to grind, it would be so wonderfully easy to angle her just so, and I hated that I even had that image in my head.Butcher’s daughter. The cause of the deaths of children. Magically bound to me against my will.
It worked to cool my blood until she said, “You didn’t interrupt anything, sir.”
I snorted. “Since I’m so clueless, you ought to probably just tell me straight. Next time, should I offer to angle the pillow differently to help you get off? Off the pillow, of course.”
A twist of guilt went through me as the words left my mouth. Shewasa gently raised woman, for all her matter-of-fact presentation. There was so much blood in her cheeks, I wondered if she’d grow dizzy from it.
“I doubt you have the necessary skill set, sir,” she said without missing a beat.
Humor twisted through me at her self-conscious attempt to one-up me. “Oh, I didn’t realize heirs to a duchy had unusually complex needs. My mistake.”
She waved a hand in a dignified dismissal. “Worry not, for I can manage quite satisfactorily by myself, allowing you more time to practice doing your job.” I stared at her, torn between wanting to laugh at her and shock that she’d actually engaged in the conversation so wholeheartedly. “Is there a reason you’re here, attempting to speak to me?”
There was. I tried to recall it, but her skirts were bunched around her calves and her chest still rose and fell in an exaggerated rhythm. My own breath was quickening in response.
“You said yesterday you wanted to see Ylva in the morning.” That was it.
The look she sent me was one of irritation, but she stood, scooped up her pillow, and said, “I’ll be down later.”
I didn’t watch her go. But I did see, from the corner of my eye, the spring in her steps and the curve of her neck.
I let out a long breath, and then another, moving away from the fire as the backs of my thighs grew too warm. They matched the rest of me.
It took her some time before she made it back downstairs.
It would’ve been faster had she stayed.
* * *
She’d movedYlva to a suite of rooms that had sun and air, at least. I figured the prisoner would escape at some point, when she got tired of toying with Audrey.
So far, she hadn’t, and I wasn’t quite sure why that was, but I didn’t overly care. I’d probably be blamed for it when it did eventually happen, even after warning Audrey.
Ihadn’twarned the guard. I’d rather Ylva break free and deal with the lecture and another stay in the dungeons. It was all I could do to stop myself from dropping the keys in the heir’s lap.
They sat in the sun around a chessboard, and I tried not to fall asleep in a chair. They didn’t speak. Audrey had asked basic polite questions for the first few days, but that had given way. They just sat in silence and played chess. Every day. For two weeks.
It occurred to me that Audrey was probably lonely.
