I jolted as if deafening thunder boomed right overhead. The moment my gaze landed on him, every cell within my body cracked awake as if white-hot lightning razed through my veins. My body went lax and taut, and heat and cold flushed my skin all at once. My heart raced as a myriad of conflicting emotions fluttered beneath my skin, skittish and wild like delicate wings of moths fluttering against glass. Not even my heaviest of crushes had made me feel so alive, and react as intensely as Varen Crowther. Godsdammit!
I was distantly aware of the thud of a soccer ball being kicked, followed by gales of laughter and cheers of encouragement, but my entire being was wholly ensnared by the man I'd just spotted through a curved window pane as he climbed a spiral staircase within the Deniauds' mansion.
Two days ago, when Varen had left the Deniauds' for good, I'd been instructed by Mr. Volkov to pack his belongings and send them back to their owner. I'd stood alone in the guest bedroom, inhaling the scent of anise and masculinity, silently cursing myself for the way my throat thickened. I'd left abruptly, asking the Purcell sisters to take over for me. In the hallway outside the room, I'd slumped against the wall, blinking back miserable tears, trying to suppress the sense of loss and being cheated out of a man who liked me just as much as I liked him. I tried to convince myself that this was best for both of us. That he'd forget me soon enough and eventually marry someone from his own rank. I'd fully expected never to see Varen Crowther again.
How freaking wrong was I?
There he was, right behind Mei Purcell, with a formidable stride and an equally formidable glare. The ends of his wild hair brushed against broad shoulders encased in black armor that embraced his body like a second skin. Like parched earth, I drank in that big, brawny body I'd wrapped myself around in a dark stairwell, my fingers clutching packed muscle as he had showed me just how much he liked me with that hardness pressed against my stomach and his kisses shifting from sweet to dark and fierce.
I silently cursed myself for how quickly heat and want had pooled in my lower belly and molton pleasure brushed down my spine at the memory of him grinding up against me, how the cold wall had dug into my spine. Glorious...
"Did you hear anything I was saying?"
I blinked, startled out of my thoughts. Oddly, I swayed from side to side, strangely lightheaded.
Oswin stood in front of me. He suddenly lurched forward to grab hold of my arm and steady me. His red-tipped nose was scrunched and his blotchy cheeks were rounded as he eyed me with concern. "Are you even breathing?"
Holy Zrenyth, I'm not.
I sucked in a lungful of freezing autumnal air, and then another, gasping to catch my breath. All the while, I rapidly slapped the flat of my hand against my chest as if that would help me take in more oxygen.
Oswin tilted his head and frowned. "Are you alright?"
In truth, I didn't know what I was feeling right at this moment. Excitement. Anger. Worry. Despair. Annoyance. Nervousness. Completely freaking turned on! Everything was a conflicting tangle and I desperately tried to shy away from the truth that buzzed with warmth beneath it all. Pleased—if I were being honest.
An heir, I reminded myself.
A godsdamned heir to a Lower House!
Catching my breath, I blew out a puff of air that set the tendrils around my temple wavering. My hand fell back to my side as I straightened my shoulders and steeled myself against what a mere sighting of the gruff heir had inspired. "I'm good," I told Oswin, managing to scrape together a fake, bright smile. Besides, if Varen Crowther was using this mysterious work he was doing on behalf of Master Sirro as a pretense to see me and mess with my life once more, he was in for a major wake-up call. I'd already begun my plan to make his stay here as uncomfortable as possible, starting with the guest bedroom I'd assigned him. Admittedly, a somewhat childish and spiteful move on my behalf.
I half-turned away from the mansion to focus on the fun right in front of me. Young boys and girls chased down the black and white ball being kicked from adult to adult. Brown hair whipped around Wallace's face as he grinned, quickly dodging around tall legs to intercept the rolling ball and retake possession with a joyous shout. He clumsily kicked it to Freddie, who missed the ball altogether with a startled cry. Good-natured laughter erupted across the make-shift playing field on the servants' lawn with goalposts marked at either end by chairs. The abrupt noise startled blackbirds from their perch in the thick hedge of trees enclosing the servants' quarters, and they burst upward to scatter across the sapphire-blue sky.
My gaze fell on Aunt Ellena, who had a silver whistle clutched in her hand. She caught me looking and waved out, beaming just as widely as the children while she kept up the antics on the playing field while reffing the soccer match. I hadn't seen my aunt so alive and carefree in years. It warmed my soul and a deep settled feeling sank through me that everything was going to turn out all right for the both of us.
There'd been so much horror, heartache and grief over the past few days, my aunt, with Romain Deniaud's approval, had arranged an impromptu soccer game between the children under her charge and their parents to lift everyone's spirits, if only for an hour or two. And while the game was going on, a small team of gardeners were busy reseeding patches of barren earth where wildfyre had scorched the great lawn.
Oswin shifted to stand flush with me, our shoulders almost touching. "I was asking if you wanted to help me mulch our rose garden after you're done with work."
Oswin had joined me on the sidelines, taking a break from tending to the front gardens, his overalls already dusted with dirt and kneecaps muddy. He bent his head when I silently waved a curled hand, indicating him to do so, and I ruffled his curly hair to dislodge the leaf litter stuck amongst the blond locks.
Here, outside at a soccer match, the mixing of marriage-aged boys and girls was tolerated only because of the myriad of watchful eyes. However, my aunt had given Oswin a free pass to my company, mostly because he was my best friend and utterly harmless. My aunt liked Oswin immensely. She'd been fond of him from the moment as a tall, lanky child, he'd stomped over to speak with me. I'd been quiet and reserved, curious about gardening and delighting in the feel of rich earth brushing against my fingers as I dug out weeds. I sat beside my aunt in the small enclosed outdoor space in the servants' quarters while she nursed a cup of tea, and I silently studied Oswin, copying what he did as he pulled straggly weeds from the flowerbed. With a gruff grunt of annoyance, his forehead creased into a scowl, he'd grouchily approached with boots thumping heavily against the flagstone. I'd gazed up, wide-eyed and worried, upon a giant boy with masses of bouncing blond hair, who grumbled I was to come help him with the formal rose garden and learn the basics of gardening since I'd accidentally been pulling out flowers, not weeds.
Oswin cleared his throat pointedly, and I blinked, coming back to the here and now.
"Of course," I replied. I'd worked well into the evening the past few nights for the Deniauds, and comforting those who had lost loved ones. There had hardly been a moment to spare for myself. I'd rushed to and fro, dealing with the clean-up and funeral arrangements, and overseeing the wake for so many people attending, as well as the tedious daily duty of hunting small forest creatures to keep the krekenns fed. A spot of tucking a bed of pungent mulch around roses, getting my fingers dirty, and clipping back thorny stems wouldn't go amiss.
Flicking up my collar, I hitched my shoulders higher to snuggle deeper into my thick woolen jacket, but the collar still couldn't reach the tips of my ears, reddened and aching by the chilly air. I rubbed my hands together and blew on my fingertips trying to warm them up as I shivered within the long, bleak shadow cast across the lawn by the Deniauds' imposing mansion.
My gaze slid sideways to find Oswin's gaze locked on someone on the playing field and I followed his line of sight. Dolcie's cheeks were flushed a rosy hue by the nippy air and from chasing down a wayward toddler who was heading toward where Romain Denaiud stood speaking to Mr. Volkov. I rolled my eyes to see the servants from old family lines that liked to go on and on and on about how long they'd served the Deniauds, preening at standing so close to the Head of our House.
When my gaze returned to Oswin, my heart melted at the bittersweet longing in my friend's open gaze.
Oh, Oswin...
He really had such deep feelings for Dolcie, an unrequited love, since she'd never shown any interest in him besides friendship.
And it wasn't just Oswin either with such unguarded yearning, Mr. Volkov's son, Malone, was lingering nearby and stealing glances at the girl he was in love with.
Malone was just as tall as his father with a wiry frame and heavily freckled alabaster skin, but the similarity ended there. Fortunately, he didn't share his father's temperament, yet he didn't have the backbone to go against him either. Which was a shame because Malone had fallen in love with Josie Calder when they were five years old and she'd purposely fed him a mud pie.
We'd all expected them to marry.
Josie was a Junior Maid who often worked under me. I liked her. Though, sometimes I got the feeling she wasn't particularly fond of me. I mean, her polishing technique wasn't as effective as mine, and if a silver teapot needed to be repolished several times to get it just right, well that's just what you had to do.
There were distinct lines of division between servant families even at the edge of a soccer game for children. Some families considered themselves elite in a manner not unlike the upper ranks, because of the positions they held and the high moral standing of their families.
They barely held back their disdain for fallen women, and all the girls in the family were tarnished with the same brush, considered inappropriate for marriage. They hardly spoke to them in the Servants' Quarters, and often sneered, whispering behind their backs, just like they were doing to Josie and her family standing at the sidelines watching the younger members of their family chasing down the soccer ball with whoops of joy.
Josie and her younger sister stood on either side of their mother who cradled a gurgling baby in her arms. In a few months' time, Aunt Ellena would look after her son when his mother went back to work. My aunt was looking forward to it. She loved babies, and I'd often wondered if she'd ever regretted not marrying and having a family of her own.
I smiled to see the older woman with her head bent, cooing at her son. The snugly-wrapped baby made gibberish sounds back to her, his tiny fingers poking at her mouth. He shared her brown eyes with a mop of dark hair, but in truth, we all knew the child in her arms was actually her grandson.
Josie had been deemed almost worthy of Mr. Volkov with a marriage of alignment between his family and hers, as they were in charge of the household accounts, and kept the tally on the servants' expenses. Not any longer. Not the moment he'd discovered Josie's younger sister had fallen pregnant out of wedlock.
I barely held in the contemptuous snort. It was ridiculous that we passed judgment on one another. The outside world of mortals had left that way of thinking long ago, and yet we clung to this old-fashioned set of rules.
And then I caught sight of someone that had distaste souring my mouth the instant I spotted him.
I made an ugh sound, stamping my feet into a wider stance.
My mouth curled downward and my blood sparked with annoyance.
Tomas sauntered around the edge of the lawn. Admittedly, he looked rather beaten up and sore with the white bandage across his bruised and swollen nose. A nose Varen had broken on my behalf. But Tomas had deserved it for calling me uptight and frigid, mocking his drunken pass at me.
Tomas shoved his hands into his denim jacket's pockets as he wandered past Rosa Battagli and her excitable puppy. Fluffy yapped and jumped up and down on his hind legs, eager for more attention from Marissa who was crouched down petting him. The Lhasa Apso was adorable with his long creamy fur, but the godsdamned puppy had chewed through every cushion in Rosa's guest bedroom. Which had made my life a little bit more hectic, continuously searching the cobwebbed attic for older cushions we didn't mind being ruined.
And maybe because I thought of Fluffy and his affection for gnawing pillows, I realized that I was chewing on my thumbnail, and my mind was once again on Varen Crowther, wondering just what the hells he was up to.
Oh my gods, Tabitha—I scolded myself—who cares!?
Tomas glanced around, rising up on his toes to look over the line of servants watching the game, obviously looking for someone—Dolcie I assumed.
Hellsgate!
Dolcie!
Suddenly worried about how Dolcie was going to react to Tomas's unwanted presence, I went to warn Oswin. My ponytail swished through the brisk air as I jerked my head around in surprise at discovering my friend no longer stood next to me. Every breath was visible as it wisped from my mouth in white streams while I hastily made my way to Oswin, who was slyly shuffling closer to the long tables that had been borrowed from our Dining Hall and set up near the hedge. Markel and his team had been bringing out water and natural fruit juices, as well as a few simple snacks of sandwiches and sliced oranges and apples for the players at half-time. And once full-time was called, then the more delicious savories and sweet pastries would be shared.
Oswin ducked a swift look over his shoulder, searching for Markel, who was striding through the kitchen's back door, followed by a few of his brigade. With the way clear, Oswin quickly snatched up a small triangular-cut sandwich.
"Oswin," I hissed, both hands clenched and propped on my hips. It wasn't even morning tea time, and breakfast had only been a few hours ago.
He caught my frown and glared back. "I'm hungry," he grouched, before biting off a mouthful of bread and ham.
"You're always hungry," I shot back.
Oswin pulled a face at me, then stuffed his mouth with the rest of the sandwich, lazily chomping it back.
I half-twisted away, about to point out Tomas.
My eyes narrowed upon the puffy-lipped boy, anger brewing inside my chest.
And the bloodhound inside me stirred as if readying to rise to a hackled stance and growl.
Tomas tossed his head. Frost-tipped locks of floppy hair swept away from his vivid, blue eyes. Only days ago, all I had wanted was for Tomas to notice me. For him to ask me out on a date and kiss me. I mentally shook my head at myself, wondering why I'd found him so attractive. Now, after encountering his vapid and selfish personality, he just looked ugly.
As if he felt my surly glower, Tomas's gaze snapped to mine. Irritation burst within my blood as his vibrant blue eyes brightened in appreciation. He even had the audacity to tip his hand at me, his lips curving into a pouty smile as he winked.
My mouth fell open with shock.
He'd gotten my friend's sister pregnant, refused to own up to the responsibility, and there he was moving on and giving me a flirty smile?!
What the freaking hells has gotten into Tomas?