Tiny willwips fluttered around my figure, leaving a wispy trail of vibrant color as if fine bristled brushes had drawn through opulent oil paint. I stood in a swirl of constellations. A moving galaxy of wonderment.
Pale violet twirled around my fingertips, and when I trilled them as if playing ivory keys, the tiny otherworldly creatures scattered in a shimmer of light before flittering back. The willwips were delightful and graceful and so sweet. I could hear the faintest sound of their excited chittering as they played with me.
The dark power in me surged up briefly with curiosity before settling down once more. It kept one ear cocked toward Varen, intrigued with the barest hint of other about him.
Varen stood across from me as willwips whirled around, spinning a halo of jade above his black hair and gilding his suit in icy blues and copper. I grinned at him and he flashed a smile that showed all his teeth.
I tried to sound stern and failed. "I should be mad at you."
"But you're not," he replied cockily, his long legs swishing through the thin blades of grass and tall dandelions. With his abrupt push into motion, the willwips streaked away from his figure like shooting stars.
Some small part of me was angry with him, but the rest of me was too enchanted with the beauty of the ethereal creatures. "I told you this morning I wouldn't go out on a date with you."
Inky hair slid to the side as he angled his head and pursed his mouth in contemplation. "A moment ago I believe I heard you say you wished you'd worn something else to your date."
"It was a moment of weakness," I shot back.
Godsdammit. When it suddenly struck just what this was, a date, I'd been horrified at my appearance. My summery dress was fine for a city jaunt, but nothing at all like what I'd daydreamed about wearing for my very first date. I would have wanted to take time with my appearance, reveling in the building excitement of spending an evening with a guy as I slicked on lipstick and dabbed mascara to darken my light eyelashes, and pondered over which dress to wear, how to accessorize it with costume jewelry and high heels.
Varen sauntered closer and his gaze slowly skimmed my figure in a languid caress that burned my skin. His deep voice rumbled across the narrowing gap between us. "Just so you know, Miss Catt, I think you look pretty. I think you'd look pretty in anything you wore."
Heat stole across my cheeks and flared inside my chest. A shy, pleased smile tugged at my lips. I threw my gaze over the rug with the cheerfully striped boxes of delicate Italian starters before returning to his as he stared back with hooded eyes. "I'm not going to be able to dissuade you, am I?"
"In this? No."
His choice of words sent me soaring back to Florin's oversized office where I'd knelt beside the Horned God while we argued gently over the stone tucked into the pocket of my peacoat.
A disturbing thought sliced through the loveliness of the evening.
Varen had broken my car to get me to go out with him on a date.
Which meant...
He'd been following me.
Worry knotted itself in the pit of my stomach.
How long had he trailed me in the city? Had he followed me to the Purveyor of Rarities?
The willwips floated back to perch in Varen's hair, and a soft rainbow gleamed across the locks, glancing down his forehead and over the high cut of his cheekbones. I searched his face for any hint of cunning, but there didn't seem to be any guile about him as he casually took the last few steps toward the rug where I stood. Maybe he hadn't.
And with the memory of Florin, and how he tried to let me down gently about not finding wyrmblood, black despair rose up to seep through my bones.
Gods, what am I going to do?
Craning my head back, I stole a moment for myself to hide from Varen's probing gaze. And the sparkling life up there, the willwips who celebrated the darkness and danced together for pure enjoyment, soothed my worried thoughts.
Drawing in a deep breath, I soaked up the vibrant explosion of colors above, letting myself just be. Tonight, at this moment, there was no room for anxious thoughts, not when we were in the midst of all this splendor.
When I lowered my gaze, Varen stood silent and patiently beside the cozy rug across from me. He lifted his hands, raising the bottle of wine and the two long-stemmed glasses. "Not every date is about romance, Miss Catt. Sometimes it's just friends sitting down with a glass of wine and food in good company. Besides, maybe I'll find you bore the hells out of me."
I shifted my weight, popping a hand on my hip. "Like you bored me to death?" I replied flatly, with a sour tilt to my lips. "Droning on and on about all the different ways to break kneecaps. Did I really need to hear all twenty-seven of them?" I fluttered a hand in front of my mouth while yawning. "I'm surprised I'm still awake."
His jaw slackened and his eyes bounced between mine. "Huh...? Wait, what?"
A grin bloomed upon my lips. He was so easy to tease.
Varen broke out into one of his charming smiles and tsked me. Folding his tall frame onto the rug, he sat with his legs bent before him, placing the wine and glasses down by his side. Glancing up, he asked, "What's it like working as a Between Maid?"
I loved my job. Freaking loved it. And frankly loved talking about it too. "It's really busy and I'm often running from one end of the house to the other putting out fires." I lowered myself on the rug, tucking my knees in and my feet to the side, squiggling about to get comfortable.
Varen reached for a starter. He pried the box open and offered it to me first. I bent over it and tendrils of basil-laced steam feathered over my lips and cheeks. So mouth-wateringly delicious. I adored pasta. Sometimes Markel and I would spend an afternoon of leave rolling thin sheets of pasta dough, cutting them up into slim strips or twisting them into spirals. On the stove, big pots of stock would sit, simmering away with its robust flavor filtering through the kitchen.
I dipped my fork into the box and spun fettucini glistening with buttery sauce around the tines. "I love the variety it gives me and the thrill of sorting out problems. One day I'm going to be Head Housekeeper." Pride rang through my voice because I shouldn't be ashamed about aiming for a position so high. I knew I was just a Between Maid, but once I'd been a Junior Maid, and I was determined to work my way through the ranks.
A loud pop scattered willwips when Varen uncorked the wine. Chianti poured in a thin red stream into a glass and he handed it to me. The lively wine warmed my throat as I swallowed and I couldn't help but smile at him over the rim of the glass while his attention was on filling his own. We'd talked with ease in the car and there was something unexpectedly relaxing about being in the heir's presence.
Heir...heir, Tabitha.
A heartbeat later, I completely forgot the warning I gave myself when Varen asked another question about my job. And then I carried on explaining my role as a Between Maid. I chattered onward about my aunt and the things we liked to do, what it was like to live in the Servants' Quarters, and sputtered with laughter at his sharp wit.
Somewhere along the evening we both settled down to lie on the rug, me on my back and him lounging beside me on his side, his head propped on his hand, while we polished off the pasta and wine, and gorged ourselves on the box of dessert. Though it was autumn and our breath should have clouded and the cold air nipped at our flesh, the heat given off from the swarm of willwips dancing across the clearing warmed us both. While lazily licking my spoon from the last of the sumptuous panna cotta, I told him of the things Oswin and I'd discussed while digging rosebeds and plucking out weeds—all the ideas and changes we'd make to the world of servants to make our living conditions better.
The willwips twinkled above us, flirting with one another as we did too. "As servants, we'll never own our own home. We were born in dormitories and we'll die there too." A wistful sigh left my throat as I put my spoon into the dessert box sitting between us and plucked out a cannoli. "It's a shame. It would be nice to have my own space. A place to come home to after a hard day's work."
A sombre note dusted Varen's tone. "I've never given much thought to what your personal lives are like working for us."
"I don't think any of the upper ranks have. Our way of life has been the same it always has, forever."
"I like the idea of apartments," he said.
I glanced at him sideways. "You do?"
"Sure," he replied with a firm nod. "We've all got the space for it on our estates as well as plenty of room for a shared lawn and garden."
Thinking how lovely it would be if the Houses changed their way of thinking in regard to their servants, I bit down on a crisply fried pasta with its creamy ricotta and zesty lemon curd. A moan left my mouth as I fell in love with the tastes rolling across my tongue. The cannoli was unbelievable. Slowly opening my eyes, I found Varen staring at me with that same look he'd given me in the glassware cupboard after our orgasm-war.
I frowned and silently raised an eyebrow in question.
He shifted uncomfortably on the rug and his voice cracked when he said, "There's Tiramisu left if you want it."
I glanced briefly over to the box, and I already knew it was empty because I'd stolen the last of the treats. "Nope, all gone," I replied, finishing off the last mouthful of my cannoli, not in the slightest guilty about not sharing. It was way too delicious.
Curiously, Varen cursed low and sent the empty box of dessert a foul glare.
Abruptly pushing himself upright, Varen rose, and I levered up by my elbows to watch him stride through the clouds of glittering willwips toward his car, wondering what he was up to. I snickered quietly to see the scratch marks running down the sides of his silver Bugatti. Seriously, what had he been thinking about taking his fancy sports car here?
Varen bent over and retrieved a floor mat, rolling it up as he approached to stand above me. There was a wicked gleam in his eyes when he asked, "When's the last time you had fun, Miss Catt?"
"I have fun all the time," I protested, scowling and digging the toe of my Jelly shoe into the soft rug.
I did have fun. I was a fun person. It was so stupid that everyone thought I was a workaholic. However, rather pathetically, when I thought back to when I last had a good time with friends, besides gardening with Oswin and gossiping with Marissa or Beckah, it was my birthday party, and before that... I really wasn't sure.
Varen tucked the rolled car mat under an arm, leaned down, and scooped up one of the torches positioned around the rug. He offered me his free hand and I hesitated for a moment before I reached up to slip mine into his, feeling strength and warmth as his hold tightened. An electric tingle—Zing. Crackle. Fizz—raced along my fingers, the sensation mirroring the earlier moment when his tongue had flicked my fingertip. A shiver ran across my skin. And as if he felt it too, his fingers flexed around mine in reply.
"There's somewhere else I want to show you," he added.
A thrill coursed along my bones. What else was out here besides the willwips?
He helped me to my feet and the willwips flowed around us like a brilliant meteor shower as we waded through the dandelions, moving toward the elegant willows swaying in a light breeze. Beyond the treeline and above the soft rustle of leaves I could hear bubbling water.
Darkness enfolded us as we ducked beneath the trees and the feathered leaves combed my hair as I carefully avoided jutting roots. Away from the willwips, the temperature dropped dramatically. Our breath clouded before us and chilly air bit at my body.
The torch's bobbing, lemony light illuminated the way ahead as he led me to the edge of a busy brook with river stones coated with algae, its fast waters flowing into a small cave opening. The rushing sound of tumbling water was louder inside the gloom of the cave.
The forest quietly breathed around us as I surveyed the opening, spying a luminescent green coating its damp ceiling and tinging the frothy water fluorescent.
"From here we can get to a cavern below," he informed me as he shifted his broad body about to peer in the same direction I was.
I cocked my head, confused. "The stream's running through there." I'd get my precious Jelly shoes wet, never mind how freezing cold the water would be.
"It's a waterslide."
Maybe it was the warmth of wine fizzing in my blood, but the intrigue of it all lit me up with excitement.
"My father used to bring us all here when we were kids. It was kind of our thing we used to do in summer for a bit."
"What's down there?" I asked.
"Magic," he replied mysteriously with a devilish grin.
Straightening, I turned a suspicious frown on him. "Is this an excuse to get me out of my clothes?"
He blatantly replied, "Yes."
His boisterous laugh at my scowl broke the quiet of the night. "I'm kidding. This is just two friends going on a waterslide adventure."
My eyes narrowed on him as I thought about it. I supposed friends did do this on occasion. Except I knew for sure, that this kind of fun between a boy and girl, even if it was innocent, wasn't tolerated by my peers.
He shrugged at my hesitation, as if my choice to come along, or not, didn't bother him. "It's only underwear, which is pretty much like beachwear."
I cast a glance of longing at the yawning mouth of the cavern.
When would I ever get this opportunity again?