Free Snow by Deborah M. Brown Page B

of pleasure as she pressed her palm against him there.
    “Gracious, my lord. It appears that you feel a great deal for me.” She patted him again, letting her voice drop to a purr. “A very great deal indeed.”
    “You have no idea,” Charming said huskily.
    Rising to her feet, Anais shook out her skirts. “Until tonight then, Charming.”
    “I am counting the hours.”
    He remained sprawled on the seat, watching her with heavy eyes. Anais could feel his gaze locked on her back as she walked away.
    If you love me, you will do this for me…
    She didn’t realise she was weeping until she reached her apartments and met the startled eyes of one of her ladies-in-waiting.

    Anais dismissed her women and lay upon her bed with a cold compress upon her aching forehead. Something startled her awake some time later. She sat up, gasping, her eyes widening with fear as she took note of the man sitting in a chair by her bed. He held a dagger in his hands which he was turning over and over in his hands. At Anais’s gasp, he lifted his head.
    The tallest dwarf, the angry one. He studied her with expressionless black eyes. Where Snow White’s other dwarves clung to her side like leeches, this one had not been seen about the court for many days. One side of his face was a patchwork of fading yellow and green bruises. There was a half-healed scab on his bottom lip.
    He could mean her nothing but ill.
    “What do you want? What are you doing here?” Anais forced the words through a throat gone tight with terror.
    “I won’t hurt you.” His low, husky voice, although soft, did nothing to reassure her.
    Anais’s hands fisted in the bedclothes as she scuttled across the bed. “Leave. Immediately. Or I shall scream.”
    “Scream if you want to,” he said tonelessly. “It won’t do you any good.”
    For no reason that she could fathom, Anais believed him. She didn’t scream. “You are her creature. Do you mean to kill me?”
    Anger flared deep in his eyes. “I am no one’s creature. And I told you. I won’t hurt you.”
    “Then what do you want?”
    Rising from the chair, he sheathed the dagger at his hip and held out his hand. “I want you to come with me.”
    Anais shook her head.
    A brief, humourless smile touched his mouth. “Don’t you wish to see how your lover besports himself when he isn’t in your bed? Don’t you wish to know where his heart truly lies? If he says he loves you, then he is a liar.”
    His words struck Anais like blows. “You are the liar,” she said, her voice trembling.
    “Mayhap. But have you courage enough to put that to the test?”
    “You are mad! Return to your mistress and be assured that she will hear of your audacity.”
    Again that unsmiling smile. “It is not my mistress who means you ill. You have invited a rabid dog into your bed, my Queen, and he will turn on you and rip out your throat…”
    “Get out,” she hissed. “Go. Go!”
    He merely held his hand out to her again.
    Anais would never know why, with a despairing sob, she lurched across the bed and took his hand. His fingers were warm and dry in hers. Instead of leading her from the room, he moved to the wall, stretching up on tiptoes to press his fingers against a carved wooden rose. With a soft snick, a section of the wall swung inwards, releasing a whiff of stale air.
    Letting go of her hand, he took a small tinderbox from a pouch at his waist and lit one of the candles that sat on a chest by the door. With a faint look of challenge on his impassive face, he took her hand in his and led her into the passageway.
    She balked after a few steps, pulling against his firm grip. “What is this? Where does it lead?”
    “You have been here in the palace all these years and you haven’t yet discovered the secret ways that honeycomb it? I must admit to a sense of disappointment. I thought you more enterprising than that.”
    She bridled at the mockery in his voice. “Perhaps, unlike you, I am unaccustomed to scuttling