The Truth-Teller's Tale (21 page)

“I'm beginning to think you're as given over to triviality as your apprentice,” I said with mock sternness.

He smiled down at me. Devastating. “You know what I'd really like?” he said, and he actually sounded sincere. “I'd like your father's job. Running some sort of lodgings in a big town like Merendon. Making people feel welcome. Offering a valuable service and doing it well. I've stayed at more than a hundred inns from one end of the kingdom to another, and I've never liked one half so well as the Leaf and Berry. You can ask Alexander. More than one morning, I've gotten up and said, ‘I'm not leaving this place.' ”

I glowed a little to hear the compliment directed at my parents, but my practical nature couldn't resist seizing the opportunity. “Do that, then,” I encouraged. “Find some of your wealthy relatives who will invest in your enterprise, and build an inn on one of the main posting roads. I'm sure my father would be happy to tell you everything you need to know.”

“Maybe he'd give me a job,” Gregory said thoughtfully. “I wouldn't even have to go back to Wodenderry.”

At that, I just stared at him, feeling my blood turn to seawater.

He smiled at me, just the slightest touch of malice on his face. “Wouldn't that be fun?” he said softly. “If I were to live here year-round? You could see me every day. Wouldn't you like that?”

I could hardly think what to say, since the truth was ineligible and a lie would not pass my lips. He knew it, too. He knew I nursed a slight
tendresse
for him, and he had deliberately laid a trap with bland, harmless words.

“It might take some getting used to,” was all I managed. “Having another person at the inn. But of course, so far it's been quite pleasant having you around. And Alexander, too, naturally.”

He laughed out loud, wholly amused. I came to my feet, not amused in the slightest. “I think I might talk to your father this afternoon,” he said cheerfully, grabbing my packages again as he stood beside me. I was already in motion, so he had to take two or three long strides to catch up with me. “I'd be interested to hear what he had to say.”

And because I could not think of an answer to that, either, I merely walked on in silence.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The next week passed in much the same manner. In and among our usual chores of cooking food, cleaning rooms, weeding gardens, and waiting on guests, Adele and I continued with our dancing lessons in the afternoons and our flirtations during what opportunities offered. Roelynn, perhaps, didn't have the same chores to complete as Adele and I did, but she more than anyone appeared to enjoy both the dancing lessons and the random moments of dalliance.

She told us of some of her encounters with the young apprentice. He had gone riding with her when she carried messages from her father to a merchant in a nearby town. He had bought tickets to a comedy playing on the outskirts of Merendon, and pleaded till she accepted his invitation to accompany him. He had sat her down in the dining room of the Leaf & Berry one afternoon and taught her how to play two of the most notorious card games popular among the aristocracy (notorious because large numbers of young men lost half their fortunes through these games every year).

I suspected there were assignations she did not tell us about. She knew better than to lie to me outright, but her silence spoke eloquently enough to give Adele some idea of what was going on. I was sure there had been meetings by moonlight, kisses by starlight, teary partings at the first hint of sunlight. I started to notice that every day she wore the same gold chain barely visible at the neckline of her dress. I didn't know what pendant might be attached to it, but I was fairly certain that the piece had been a gift from Alexander and that she had vowed to never take it off.

For his part, Alexander seemed equally smitten with Roelynn. I could not help but think that such a beautiful, indolent, and no doubt spoiled young man had had more than his share of romances with gullible girls, and my first thought was that he was merely indulging in a flirtation in order to pass the time. But he seemed so happy when he was with her. I studied him as we stood in the parlor waiting for Micah and Roelynn to arrive. The expression that crossed his face the first time he saw her, every time I watched him, always stopped my heart. It was as if he had been touched by pure joy, visited by magic. It was as if he loved her.

The town was abuzz with rumors of the romance, for it was occurring so publicly. The dressmaker whispered to the brewmaster who whispered to the chef who whispered to the butcher.
Miss Roelynn is in love again, with that young dancing fellow. He seems nice enough, don't you think? Her father will never allow it, but it's a treat to see her so happy, I say.
Constance repeated it to Lissette who repeated it to Mrs. Haskins.
Miss Roelynn was here again today with that boy from the city. I swear they were holding hands till they caught me looking. Never heard a pretty girl laugh in such a pretty way.

Everybody knew, and everybody gossiped, but no one repeated any of the tales to Karro. I knew that was true, because none of the townspeople had ever betrayed Roelynn in the past, and there had been more than one illicit adventure that had unfolded under their noses.

I also knew it was true because the romance continued, and if Karro had even suspected such a thing was going on, he would have put a stop to it on the instant. There would have been a scene such as none of us had ever witnessed before. But there was no such commotion. The affair progressed in secret, after a fashion. Summermoon drew closer every day.

 

 

Gregory wanted me to accompany him to one of the entertainments held every night on the outskirts of town during the days leading up to the festival night. He did not seem picky about which one—he was willing to see singers, jugglers, acrobats, actors, anything I would happen to choose.

“I'm much too busy,” I told him, for perhaps the thirtieth time, as he once again sat with me in the kitchen, watching me chop vegetables. He and Alexander had started to have more free time now that Summermoon was almost upon us and their clients turned to other important duties: trying out new hairstyles, going for final fittings on their gowns, and choosing their accessories. They still gave lessons most mornings but were idle almost every afternoon. Gregory could usually be found somewhere around the inn, usually tormenting me; Alexander was nowhere to be seen. One could only guess where he might have gone to find amusement.

“You can't be busy every minute of the day,” Gregory objected.

“Yes, I could. At an inn there is no end of work,” I informed him. “That's something you should know if you decide to open your own establishment. There's always laundry to do and food to prepare and fires to make up and baths to draw and—oh, it's endless. We only have nine rooms, and they keep the four of us occupied from sunup till sundown.”

“But once it's sundown,” he said,“can't you get away for an hour or two? Won't Adele cover for you one night if you do her work the next? She gives you a night out with me, you give her a night out with Micah. It seems like a fair trade.”

I gave him one repressive look, for it was an understood thing that we never spoke of Micah and Adele in the same breath. He rolled his eyes and offered an amendment. “Oh, very well. You give Adele a night out with
some of her friends.
How's that?”

“I'm too busy,” I repeated.

“Are you afraid that your parents might object to your attending the fair with me?” he inquired. “I don't know what kind of rules you might have about keeping a formal distance between you and your guests. And of course, I'm a stranger from the royal city—they might find me an unacceptable escort for you for that reason alone.”

It was one of the times I really wished I could tell a lie. “No,” I said honestly, if a bit resentfully. “My parents think you're charming. You and Alexander both. ‘So polite and well behaved,' I think was what my mother said. They wouldn't mind at all.”

“Well, then,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “Let's see what our choices are.” He had some playbills that he had appropriated from various posts around town, and he now flattened these on the table before him. “‘Cozie Fleurs and His Amazing Acrobats,' ” he read. “Seriously, how can you not want to go watch someone named Cozie Fleurs? ‘They leap! They spin! They appear to fly!' They do sound most amazing.”

“Yes, they've been here before, and everyone said they were impressive,” I said.

“What about singing instead? We've got the Maritime Rhymers, who I believe are quite bawdy—I saw them, or some group with almost the same name, a few years ago. I thought they were quite funny, but you—hmmm, maybe the madrigal singers instead. Lovely music, so it says here—eight-part harmony performed by classically trained voices.”

“I think I'd rather see the acrobats,” I said.

“Yes, or—I know! Here's a theater troupe performing
The Princess in Love; Or, The Royal Mix-up
. I'm sure it's very light—no one wants to see high drama at Summermoon.”

He paused, and I realized he was waiting for me to answer. “I don't care much for theater,” I said finally.

He leaned back in his chair, his hands still pressed to the playbills. “But that was two years ago,” he objected. “Surely you can stand to see a play again? If you go with me?”

I had been standing at the counter, dicing carrots and onions, half turned so that I could carry on a conversation with him. But now I spun all the way around to stare at him, the paring knife still clutched in my left hand. “What did you say?” I demanded.

He didn't drop his eyes or sit up straighter or look sorry or embarrassed. He kept his blue gaze on me and repeated, “That was two years ago. Aren't you over him by now?”

For a moment, conscious of the knife in my hands, I seriously wanted to throw it across the room so it landed somewhere in the vicinity of his heart.

“You have no right to know that,” I said in a shaking voice. “And it's cruel of you to mention it now.”

He shrugged and tipped his chair back, but kept his eyes unwaveringly on me. “You can guess who told me, and no cruelty was intended,” he said. “If you like, I can make everything equal by listing for you all my own failed romances. They are not many, but one or two are spectacular. I am sure you would start to feel better immediately.”

I turned back to the counter and began chopping again, though my hands were unsteady enough to make this a rather dangerous enterprise. Roelynn, of course, had told the tale, since Adele would never repeat such a thing. And she probably had not even told Gregory; she had probably whispered it one night to Alexander as the two of them watched a group of out-of-town actors perform some farcical play.
Eleda was almost betrayed by an actor once—she loved him, and he pretended to love her, but Adele protected her and someone else was hurt instead.
How exactly had the story been told? I found that I didn't want to know which details Gregory knew and which he did not.

“No, thank you,” I said stiffly. “I find I don't have much taste for tales of love gone awry.”

“Well, then, we can scratch theater from our list of possibilities,” he said. My back was to him, but I could hear him crumpling up one of the cheap posters. “That leaves singing and acrobatics. I'm more inclined to the acrobats, aren't you?”

I opened my mouth, then shut it with a snap. Once again, he had laid a trap for me. If I were merely to answer the casual question, then truthfully I would have to admit that, yes, I preferred acrobats to singers. If I were to answer the deeper question, I would either have to perjure myself with a lie—
I have no interest in seeing any performers of any persuasion while in your company
—or confess that I would love to go with him to any entertainment he might devise.

Silence, as my sister had learned so long ago, was the only option.

“Tomorrow night, then?” he said. “Then the night after that, Adele can be free. The night after that is Summermoon, and who can guess what riches that particular evening will hold?”

“I don't know that I will be able to go with you tomorrow night,” I said in a low voice, and that was certainly the truth.

“I think you will,” he said comfortably. “I'm counting on it.”

 

 

The only person I could reasonably discuss all this with was my sister. Adele herself had been more unreadable than usual these past few weeks—though perhaps that was my own fault. Perhaps she had been just the same as ever, but I had been too wrapped up in my own story to pay any attention to hers. It had been an exquisitely painful kind of rapture for her, I knew, to spend so much time dancing in Micah's arms. There surely had to have been a way for her to excuse herself from the sessions if she really wanted to—if nothing else, she could have faked a twisted ankle, an act she would have been able to pull off so well even I would have had trouble knowing it was a lie. But she had wanted to dance with Micah at least as much as she had not wanted to dance with him, and every day, just a minute before the Karro siblings had arrived, she had stepped into the parlor to await them. She had appeared, always, wholly serene, but I could see the faint pallor of excitement pearling her cheeks. I could see the tension in the hands that she kept so carefully at her sides. I knew that she was anticipating delicious torture, but she could not make herself leave the room.

It was time for a heart-to-heart between sisters.

I waited till that night, when we had finished washing up and putting on our thin summer nightdresses. I climbed into my bed first. I saw Adele blow out the candle and heard her settle on her mattress. I waited till she had stopped arranging the pillows and sheets and lay quiet.