Page 43 of The Captive's Curse
Maybe Enzo had threatened them all with the hanging-by-their-toes thing.
Somewhat mollified, I spun on my heel and set off in the direction that I’d seen the girl going with the buckets. At least I could visit Beatrice in the kitchens and have something to do. Maybe more pastry would fill this empty, twisting space in my belly that felt a lot like disappointment.
Hurt, even.
On patrol. He hadn’t said anything to me about leaving. Shouldn’t he have…kissed me goodbye? Of course, he’d have to kiss me at all, first.
If there’d actually been any risk of a Calatrian invasion, perhaps he wouldn’t have told me…but wouldn’t all of his men be a bit more alert, rather than lounging around staring at a sharp piece of metal? No, I didn’t need to worry. He’d be back within ten days, wouldn’t he? I couldn’t believe he’d leave me here at the mercy of my curse or in bed with one of his men, and beyond that, it was none of my business.
Just as his family and his past were none of my business. Damn it.
Anyway, I wouldn’t ask again, I wouldn’t think about him, and I certainly wouldn’tworry.
Chapter Sixteen
“But why has he been gone so long?” I demanded for the third time, having to trot surprisingly quickly to keep up with Leander. My legs were incredibly long for my height, and yet somehow he moved like the wind.
Or like someone who really wanted to get away from me.
Whatever. It wouldn’t be that easy, as he was coming to learn.
“He’s only been gone for two nights,” Leander said—also for the third time. He rounded a corner and barreled on toward the dining hall, and I stuck doggedly right to his shoulder. “I’ve told you and told you, he does this all the time. Fuck, Cyril, will you stop harassing me!”
So maybe it was the third time I’d asked in this particular conversation, rather than overall.
This particular conversation might or might not have been the tenth or so we’d had that covered more or less the same ground, too.
But it had been two nights! And two full days, including the one on which he’d left without so much as a word of farewell.
I’d spent much of that time in the kitchen, when I wasn’t visiting the study or the armory to ask Leander for an update on Enzo’s doings. Gossiping with Beatrice and her friends and playing through my repertoire of historical ballads and love ditties and (carefully selected and edited, due to the presenceof a surprising number of friendly children) drinking songs had been both amusing and informative.
In return for the entertainment I provided, I’d learned much about the Mad Lord that had never made it into the stories. Everyone had their own accounts of the ghost’s bad behavior.
“No one with magic can go upstairs, you remember I told you about Gerta? And he’s an old bastard to most women, in general,” Beatrice said, in between thumping an enormous round of dough on a floured board. She paused and grinned at me. “But I think he knows I’d give him what for, because he never shows me anything but his back as he runs away.”
“Well, he’s always going on about his ‘bitch of a witch wife,’ ain’t he?” put in one of the stable hands who’d been lounging in a corner and snacking. “So that all makes sense, I suppose. As much as a ghost makes sense. I’ve only heard him, never seen him. But he’s always screaming away about how she should’ve taken a tonic to get rid of the—”
“Hush your mouth,” Beatrice snapped, with a wary glance in my direction. “As if anything you’ve heard can be depended on. Put down that ale and get to work, speaking of.”
With a few discontented grumbles, the fellow slouched out of the kitchen, and none of my wiles succeeded in bringing Beatrice, or anyone else, back around to that conversation.
But it thrilled me all the same. I had confirmation that he’d been married, an enormous question left by all of the tales. And at least a suggestion that the witch wife had borne him a child before she cursed him, from a pregnancy he’d wanted her to end.
How Enzo had found the castle, and why no one else could, was a topic that seemed to be as taboo as further discussion of the Mad Lord’s possible child, much to my frustration.
But I had quite a bit to think about, including the tidbits that only Enzo was able to truly drive the ghost away, and that Vincenzo really detested Leander, despite leaving most men alone.
And aside from their obnoxious reticence about their leader, everyone treated me kindly, chatted with me freely, and expressed a flattering degree of awe and admiration for my musical skill.
By the middle of the second day, all the servants had begun hanging about the kitchen while I played, laughing and singing along where they knew the words, and I even heard some of the men humming my songs as I walked through the stables to visit Agnethe.
But none of that, however gratifying and distracting and even cheerful, kept Enzo out of my mind completely. Where was he? What was he doing? Had he spared me so much as a thought?
The two nights of lying alone in my chilly, narrow bed left me achingly lonely, and the prospect of that asshole ghost kept me there instead of in Enzo’s bed, where I’d certainly have gone if nothing had been stopping me.
At least then I’d have had softer pillows to muffle my moans as I fucked my own fist and remembered Enzo’s thick length driving into me.
Now it was the early morning of the third day, not that I’d have known it from the glowering, glooming overcast and the occasional flurry of snow. It’d been practically pitch black in my bedroom when I woke up far too early from unsatisfying sleep, and I’d sat up, heart pounding, certain for a moment that I’d heard Enzo’s footsteps in the hall outside. But of course I hadn’t, and I doubted he’d come looking for me as soon as he returned, anyway.
