IWJACM Chapter 38

The black horse gave a glad whinny, rubbed its muzzle into Elise's hand. Elise smiled wide, stroked it.

"Big as he is, he's gentle underneath, isn't he? Behaves even with a stranger up on his back."

"Gentle?"

Not just Ruben—the knights watching on from a distance couldn't hide their shock either. The stablehand, still holding the muzzle-strap he hadn't managed to buckle in time, had already gone white.

Only Elise stayed perfectly calm.

"What's this one called, then?"

"Ah—His Grace never gave him one."

"Is that so…? Cold of him."

Not even a plain name, for a horse that rode the battlefield at his side. Just like him, that.

"Blackie."

At the fond nickname, Ruben's face—and every knight's—twisted up absurd. What the princess was petting right now, like some pup, was a legendary, vicious, willful beast that had already thrown and killed five riders.

Only His Grace had ever managed to tame this horse. "Tamed"—wrong word for it, maybe. "Beaten down to heel by main force" was nearer the truth. The men, remembering the sight of their lord wrenching the horse's head round into submission with his changed right arm, went white in the face.

"…Well. Suppose His Grace's horse counts as Her Highness's horse too, in a manner of speaking. Must recognize its own master's kin."

Ruben just barely talked himself into it. Whatever else, "Blackie" was a name dead wrong for the wretched creature that had been one step short of being put down.

Elise stroked the black horse as it made its pleased sound.

"Blackie. When in the world is your master ever coming to see me?"

The whole reason she'd come all the way out here, this early—only to make sure the man still existed at all. And even here, around the barracks, not a hair of him to be seen.

The one left wanting has to move first, they say—and she'd gone to all this trouble, come looking. To come away with nothing for it.

'"Surely he doesn't mean to just... leave her like this.'

There were things the two of them were meant to do. The duty of this marriage—set down plain, spelled out, right there in the contract.

He'd promised—if she reached for him, he wouldn't shake free of her grasp. Was that it—was he so afraid of it that he wouldn't even show his face? Keeping her shut up, near enough, in that sky-high room?

In truth Rezet had never once actually cut off her freedom—but unless she laid it at his door, this restless unease wouldn't lie down.

Besides—coming out here like this, now she saw it. Lothier Castle had no shortage of beauties, that much was certain. That fact needled her past bearing. So many women here, and not one single one of them had caught his eye?

Misreading Elise's wan look, Ruben ventured, careful,

"If Your Highness is bored, why not take a turn round the land? Shall I tell Alfredo to ready a carriage?"

"No need. Could I just borrow a horse?"

"Beg pardon? Ah—well, o' course you may pick out whichever horse you like, but… meaning to go out, are you?"

"Just thought I'd take a light turn round the hill behind the castle. No further than that."

As if he'd understood every word, Blackie shoved his head forward, eager. Looked for all the world like he was begging to be brought along. The fawning, so unsuited to his size, was endearing enough she burst out laughing.

"Want to come along too, then? Just half an hour or so—"

"You don't ride."

A cold voice cut in, just then.

Elise's back jolted, startled, hand still on the horse's chin. She turned her head up and sideways—and there he was, somehow come up right behind her.

As always, the first thing to catch her eye was the sharp line of his jaw. Next, eyes like blue crystal—no warmth in them at all. Then his hair, his collar, a little disheveled.

A frigid voice dropped over her.

"A woman carrying a child, out riding alone—isn't that dangerous?"

"……"

"Not to mention standing this close to a warhorse, like this."

Rezet snatched up the reins hanging under the horse's neck, near enough seized them. The black horse stamped a foot, as if greeting its master. He drew Elise back with one arm, finished off, hard-voiced.

"It's dangerous."

A full week, and this was the first time she'd properly heard his voice. For some reason, he was far more on edge than usual. The tail end of the short breath he let out came out rough. Enough to make Elise falter.

The gladness that had shyly peeked its head out withered, like it had never been there at all. She hadn't hoped for a warm greeting—but she hadn't expected to be met with a scolding, straight off, either.

Elise answered, grudging.

"Didn't occur to me riding might be bad for me. I'm sorry."

"I'm not asking you be careful for my sake. I'm asking it for Your Highness's own sake."

"…The whole world seems made up of dangerous things, doesn't it."

"Only where you're concerned.—All of you, turn your heads."

At the frost-edged command, Ruben and the rest turned away at once. While Elise stood bewildered, Rezet's eyes swept down over what she wore.

Having stumbled back, her grip on the shawl at her front had gone slack. Through the fabric's slight gap, frills that had no business on any ordinary daywear—and pale, smooth skin—showed through. A crack ran clean through Rezet's blank face.

"Have you been going about dressed like this—the whole time?"

"What?"

Elise checked where his gaze had fixed, at her own front. Her cheeks colored at once, ripe as an apple. She snatched the shawl shut properly, covering the swell of her chest.

"You startled me, that's why. Truth is, I wasn't even meaning to come outside at all—"

"Ruben. Go fetch my robe."

Elise's feeble excuse had its spine snapped clean in two by the cold command. Ruben shot off toward the castle like loosed from a bow.

Elise gathered herself and hurried to explain.

"The castle folk have hardly laid eyes on me at all. I've let Ruben and the other knights see me in far more casual dress than this, so it shouldn't seem so strange—"

"Your Highness."

Rezet cut her off, flat. Did she really call that an excuse.

In Argan, whatever the princess wore about, those beneath her would've known to quietly look away. Here, though—this was enemy ground. Crawling with people whose curious eyes tracked the princess's every move.

He found he couldn't hold the rising irritation back any longer. Rezet drove the words home, frost-laced.

"Show yourself dressed this way in front of me. Nowhere else—no one else."

"What?"

"Or before the maids who see to your bedchamber."

Rezet swallowed back the words that had very nearly slipped off the tip of his tongue. 

Unless it was her intent to bewitch every last man in this castle. Thinking of the slender ankle showing under her hem, the skin glimpsed through the shawl, catching in other men's eyes—displeasure surged up through him.

"…Doesn't matter, does it."

And yet the reply that came back was something else entirely.

Whatever it was that had struck her spite, Elise turned her gaze off into the distance, answered cold.

"You've no occasion to see this manner of dress either. So busy, are you, you haven't come anywhere near me all day."

She spat it out, then bit down hard at the inside of her lip. The sulk sat plain on her. Rezet pressed his thumb to her lip, stopping her before she could bite the soft flesh raw.

"Meaning to keep on this way, are you?"

"Honestly—if I don't say a word, no one would even know this is a nightgown."

Elise twisted her head away, dodging even that hand.

"If it were really that shameless, would I have been mad enough to walk myself into a den of men? I know that much shame, at least."

Rezet's face hardened, in an instant.

Unbelievable. A nightgown's a nightgown. Does the scrap of cloth's purpose change, just because it doesn't look like one? Whatever patience he'd scraped together, rendered pointless—his voice sharpened all over again.

"So you're well aware this is a place crawling with men. Knowing that—why did you come?"

"Is it a place I'm not meant to come to, then? You should've told me so."

Rezet didn't so much as feel the need to answer. Ruben cut in hastily, in her defense.

"It was my doing. Her Highness seemed to want to see you, and I brought her along without thinking it through. My apologies."

"Ruben Diarck. Come to the study later. Alone."

"Huh? Wait, just a moment…!"

Elise seized Rezet's arm, startled. By the look of it he meant to punish Ruben—but Ruben's only crime had been showing her round the castle. If that even counted as a crime!

But Rezet threw the robe over her before she could get the words out, and she lost her moment, still flailing to right herself.

Seemed this was his way of declaring he wouldn't hear one more word out of her. Elise's rebellious streak finally caught fire.

She yanked the hood off, irritated, then—out of pure spite—turned her mouth on Ruben.

"Ruben. When will you show me round outside the castle, then?"

"Your Highness? Ah, well, that is—"

"You promised to show me round. I'd like to go with Yvessa. Might I ask you to escort us?"

Half of it was pure spite. Elise put steel into her eyes, glared at Rezet.

"Don't tell me touring the land is one more thing I'm not allowed. Grand Duke—if I haven't even the say to choose my own company and escort, tell me plainly. I've no mind to stubbornly insist on it."

Rezet shut his mouth entire, dismissing her defiance with nothing but silence. Instead he swept her up into his arms and, without a moment's pause, turned his steps back toward the castle.

Even once they'd reached the study, he offered no word of why he hadn't once come to the bedroom, this whole while. No word for why he'd given her a bedroom he never used himself, nor for why he'd gone and blocked off the stairway down to his study on purpose.

'Every time he doesn't want to answer, he just shuts his mouth on me…!'

Elise pressed down her rising temper, best she could, in silence.