Kushiel's Mercy - Jacqueline Carey [113]
“Ah.” She rose. “Eloquence surfaces.”
“Belatedly,” I admitted. “Truly, your highness, I’m terribly sorry for the impropriety. And if you give me a chance to make amends, I will be most grateful.”
“Come tomorrow afternoon,” the princess said. “We’ll see how you fare at chess.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at her. “Very much indeed.”
She smiled back at me, sincerely, this time. “You’re welcome. And Messire Maignard, you may stop apologizing. There was somewhat I quite liked about the way my name sounded when you spoke it, although I couldn’t for the life of me say why.”
Nor could I.
I bowed again. “Then I wish you would do me the kindness of calling me Leander, and I aspire to the honor of using your name one day in earnest friendship.”
She inclined her head. “On the morrow.”
Thirty-One
I walked out of the House of Sarkal’s villa feeling more profoundly disoriented than I had in my life.
Sidonie.
Why in the name of all the gods and goddesses in heaven had she had such a disturbing effect on me? I’d played the most dangerous man in Carthage like a master, then tripped over my own tongue when sparring with a young woman who’d had a large piece of her memory ripped from her.
All my expectations had been wrong. Weak. I’d thought she’d be weak-minded. Why? Because she’d fallen prey to Carthage’s magic, I supposed. I was an idiot. I’d sought to flatter Bodeshmun, but the truth was, he had wrought a spell sufficient to impress even Ptolemy Solon. It had ensorceled an entire city. I’d have been a victim had I been there. And Sidonie . . .
Well, she wasn’t bound by the ghafrid-gebla. Not here. It was a simpler magic, awful and powerful in a different way. It was the very force of her love that had been turned against her. Two days ago, I’d doubted. I hadn’t been sure that love was genuine.
Now . . .
A girlish infatuation. Gods! No, no. If I’d ever met a woman who knew her own mind, it was Sidonie de la Courcel.
Except for the parts she didn’t.
It was in there, I thought. I could see it. That perplexity, a sense of something missing. Something withheld, something denied. Knowledge trapped within her. Like a butterfly battering its wings against a glass jar.
I wanted to smash that glass.
I wanted to free her. I wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. I wanted to taste her, to bury myself in her. I wanted, desperately, to find out what lay behind that quick, wicked smile.
I wanted to kill Astegal.
A rare man . . . gods! Oh, yes, it took a rare man indeed to set a country against itself, to abduct a young woman and turn her against her will with dark magics. All to further his own ambitions. Dreams of empire. And he’d been doing his best to get heirs on her. Soon he’d send for her again.
I gritted my teeth at the thought.
I was losing my damned mind.
“Halt!” I called to my bearers. They lowered the palanquin, and I climbed out. Kratos regarded me skeptically.
“Are you well, my lord?” he asked.
“Well enough,” I said shortly. “I need to walk. I need to clear my thoughts.”
He shrugged. “As you will.”
I stalked alongside the empty palanquin, reliving the encounter in my mind. All right. I’d acted a perfect dolt. That was good and bad. Harmless, yes. The gods above knew I’d reinforced that belief. I’d amused and distracted her. Bodeshmun would be pleased. From what I’d seen, he had cause to worry. A butterfly’s wings, battering. A considerable and plaguing curiosity.
She thought me a dolt.
I hated that fact.
But there had been that moment, that charged moment. When I’d crossed the line of propriety, called her by name as though we were intimate. Asked her a question I’d no right to ask. It had struck a chord within her. I’d seen it. And she’d never given an answer.
I whispered her name. “Sidonie.”
My heart leapt at the sound of it.
I pressed my own fist against my chest, willing my pounding heart to subside.