Free Scarlet in the Snow by Sophie Masson Page A

. . if ever you cannot bear the sight of me, you must say so. Send me away. I will understand.’
    A lump formed in my throat. ‘Now why would I do that? Unless, of course, you start taking after Captain Peskov.’
    The anguish on his face was replaced by bewilderment, exactly as I had hoped. ‘Who is Captain Peskov?’ he asked faintly.
    ‘I will tell you all about him, if you want,’ I said briskly. ‘Now, if you do not mind, my feet are rather cold from standing about in this snow. Shall we go inside?’
    ‘Oh. Yes,’ he said, sounding rather dazed. But just before he turned to follow me, I saw him bend down furtively, pick up the petal that I had dropped, and put it away in an inner pocket of his coat. I acted as if I had not seen, though an odd little tremor rippled through me as I led the way towards the glass doors, gossiping about Captain Peskov as though I had not a care in the world.

    Luel met us in the corridor. She looked at us both with shining eyes. ‘It’s cold out there. Perhaps you would like some hot tea and fresh cakes sent to your sitting-room, my lord?’
    ‘Ah, um,’ he replied. His voice sounded a little choked, as if this ordinary request wasn’t something he was used to dealing with. Luel shot me a questioning look.
    ‘I think that’s an excellent idea,’ I said heartily. ‘And you’ll join us too, won’t you?’
    ‘Of course,’ she said, and smiled. ‘They will be my favourite cream cakes. I wouldn’t miss them for the world.’ Her eyes locked on mine, and I understood the meaning behind her words. This was a moment for great celebration, for everything has changed. Oh no,perhaps she assumed that it meant I’d agreed to marry him? I must disillusion her of that, and fast, because she might broach the subject in front of her lord and that would be too cruel. I was no longer afraid of the
abartyen
; my offer of friendship had been genuine, if nervous, and I felt instinctively that we could indeed become friends. But there was no chance I could ever feel
that
way about him. Not for anything in the world could I imagine myself as his lover or his bride, as Luel hoped. And yet not for anything in the world did I want to hurt him, one who had already suffered so much.
    To my relief she said nothing about it. We sat around the fire and drank fragrant steaming tea from a tall china samovar and ate little cream cakes that were piled on a gilded cake stand. At least, Luel and I did, she many more than I, for the bird-like little
feya
had the prodigious appetite of a blacksmith. But her lord hardly touched a thing, leaving his first cake untouched except for one bite. Yet he seemed, if not cheerful, at least not morose and brooding as before. And he listened as Luel asked me questions about my family, then after a while he shyly asked questions of his own. I answered in the most interesting and natural way I could, trying hard to bring the ordinary human world of my home into this enchanted exile. It wasn’t just for his sake but for mine too.
    Under all my bright chatter and my new determination, a nagging worry kept intruding. I was no longer a prisoner here. But I might as well be. If the spell was not broken, and Luel’s lord not returned to his own shape and his own life, then was I not, too, condemned to this place,unable to leave it because of what his enemy might do to me? Remembering the little Luel had told me, I knew enough to understand that the warnings I’d been given were not idle. There was a great evil prowling somewhere out there beyond the frail edifice of magical safety Luel had built, an evil thirsting still for the blood of its victim; an evil as ruthless as it was powerful, and one I had no hope of defeating or deceiving if a
feya
such as Luel could only just hold it at bay.
    But I said nothing of this, of course. There was no point in souring the tentative sweetness of those hours, the beginnings of an unlikely friendship forged in such an unexpected way. For