The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [74]
“And how d’you propose to do that?” Grist asked.
“I’m gonna do my best not to propose at all,” Frey said grimly.
Crake caught on. “Amalicia Thade,” he said with a grin.
Frey had the look of a man facing a firing squad. “Amalicia Thade.”
There was a long, grave, and meaningful pause before Grist said:
“Who?”
AMALICIA THADE—A WARM WELCOME—INVITATIONS—HOW THE RICH LIVE
he Thade estate sprawled across the forested hills, an island of carefully maintained paradise. Raked paths meandered round well-tended lawns and willow-fringed lakes, past fountains and gazebos built in pre-Revolution style. Statues of monarchs and dukes stood on plinths. A glass arboretum was perched on a hilltop. Next to it was a hunting lodge and an observatory with the lens of a huge brass telescope poking through a slit in the dome. At the center of the grounds, a vast manse sat foursquare and impressive, with walls of robin’s-egg blue, tall windows, and alabaster eaves.
Frey lounged in the back of the open-top motorized carriage and let the sun warm his skin. This far south, springtime felt like summer. A manservant sat on the driver’s bench up front, gripping the steering wheel as if it was something unfamiliar. He was dressed in a stiff uniform of white and cream and doing his best not to sweat and ruin it.
Frey ran his knuckles over the leather of the seat and looked out at the estate as they puttered up the drive. All of this was Amalicia’s. And this place was only a fraction of her holdings. He knew the Thade family was rich, but he hadn’t quite imagined the scale of it.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
What would their reunion be like, he wondered? He had to admit to a certain amount of trepidation. After all, he’d been indirectly responsible for the death of her father. But then, Amalicia had been rather keen on getting him hanged anyway. She hated him for cloistering her in an Awakener hermitage. That was also Frey’s fault, since he’d been the one who deflowered her, but Frey wasn’t about to take the blame for her father’s prudishness.
Gallian Thade’s death made Amalicia the head of the Thade dynasty and the inheritor of all that Frey saw before him and more. But still, girls were apt to get cranky when you got their dads shot by the Century Knights. He just hoped she was in the mood to look on the bright side.
The carriage pulled up in front of the house, where half a dozen manservants were lined up outside the grand double doors. As he was dismounting, the doors were thrown open and Amalicia walked through.
He caught his breath as he saw her. She was more dazzling than he remembered. She must have been twenty-three by now, or thereabouts, but she seemed unaccountably mature for her age. More the elegant young lady and less the frisky, fiery girl. Her long black hair had been cut short to show off her neck. She wore riding boots, hip-hugging trousers, and a silk blouse. There were hints of silver at her throat and wrist.
“Darian,” she said with a smile, as she descended the steps. Frey managed to get down from the carriage without falling. He gawked at her, awed. This was the woman he’d forgotten about, the woman he’d left behind in an Awakener hermitage without a second thought? This was the one whose letters he’d been ignoring? What was wrong with him?
She presented her hand. He stared at it for a few moments before realizing what he was supposed to do, then raised it to his lips and kissed it.
“Come inside, please,” she said.
He followed, dazed, wrong-footed by the change in her. She was confident, where before she’d been arrogant. Assured, where she’d been spoiled. She’d grown to suit her new role quickly and well.
The entrance hall was colossal, with a curving staircase of polished stone. Thin pillars drew the eye to the arched molding on the ceiling.