Page 54 of Heart of Snow
“You needn’t... lie for your father.” His voice was slow, uncertain.
“I speak the truth.” I flicked a hand over my wet cheek.
“But you’d have no reason to. What could you possibly gai—”
“I lied to protect another. I never could have foreseen such a consequence. I didn’t know the town was already against your mother, but it was my words that led to her death, and I will forever burn with the guilt of it.” I flattened my palm against my heart. Whatever warmth had been trying to penetrate it had already drained away.
A long, wintry silence passed as I watched Friedrich’s doubt shifting, his eyes growing cold and his back straightening. “If this is true,” he finally spoke, “then maybe you’re right to go to Brussels.”
I bit my lip, nodding as I tipped my head back, blinking against the rain.
His voice was bitter when he added, “Since you come by deception naturally, I have no doubt of your success at court.”
His words were the last shock of ice, the final freeze of my already chilled heart.
“Goodbye, Countess.” He gave a low bow, then paced across the courtyard to the castle gates.
As I watched him leave, three words turned around in my mind like thread on a spinning wheel.
Belinda was right. Belinda was right. Belinda was right.
Chapter 24
Friedrich
The rain dripped from myhair, rolling down my forehead before I wiped it away with the back of my hand. The wet cold was a relief, an antidote to the anger burning through me as I relived the countess’s words. It had been she all along, and not her father, who was responsible for my mother’s death. And all her accusations were lies! She’d admitted as much, knew full well it was her deceit that had killed my mother.
But the count was not blameless.
Kicking a rock down the muddy hill, I remembered the easy way he had discarded my mother’s letter, dropping it in a crumpled heap on the ground. He could have saved her if he’d cared enough. Or did he truly believe her to be a witch? She’d had a gift with healing, or so Ernst told me. Most considered it to be from God, but when the plague ravaged the town, people needed something to blame. Accusing the healer of consorting with the devil was too easy, but what if the count believed the rumors? What if he thought my mother’s death would save his people from the awful sickness?
Then the blame sat squarely on the countess.
Mud splashed over my hose as I tromped down the hill. A niggling in my mind whispered that she had been but a child, one who’d lost her mother and sister, but there was a pattern with her. She’d admitted to lying to protect another, just as she’d admitted to using me for Samuel’s sake. Had she learned nothing from my mother’s death?
I pulled to a halt, rain soaking my shirt and jerkin. Margaretha’s face filled my mind, her blue eyes pooling with tears, rain streaming down her cheeks. What had I done? What should I do? My heart was bloodied, torn by the sharp fangs ofpainful, lonely memories, of years without my mother. But was it fair to blame a child?
Squatting down, I rested my head in my hands, taking deep breaths to calm the confusion and turmoil and ache. My soul was not peaceful, not forgiving, but I couldn’t think of the countess without remorse. It wasn’t right to send her away with such cruel words. Where was I even going, storming from the castle in the dead of the night through the pouring rain?
Cold drops slipped off my nose and eyelashes as I took a few more breaths and forced myself to stand. The walk back to the castle was not long. Hopefully it would give me the time I needed to form the words I should say to the countess. Not words of forgiveness. Not a request that she stay. But something to soften the brutality of my last goodbye. If I could find her. She’d probably gone inside already, but I couldn’t let her leave like this.
Tucking into the castle gates, my arm was immediately seized in a strong grip while a hand covered my mouth. I twisted, blinking against the rain at Ulrich as he mouthed, “Soldiers.” Behind him a pair of horses stood in the courtyard. When had those arrived? They would have had to pass me up the hill. Was I so lost in my thoughts to have been blind to them?
Ulrich slowly lowered his hand from my mouth. “You must leave,” he whispered. “Carrera’s in the kennels searchin’ through your things. He’s out for blood.”
“I can’t go until I’ve spoken with the countess.”
Ulrich’s grip squeezed my arm. “He wants you dead, man. You don’t have time for goodbyes.”
As if proving Ulrich’s point, voices sounded from the kennels, the windows dancing with torchlight as something crashed inside.
“Hurry. Leave.”
But where would I go? How could I ever speak with Margaretha? “Ulrich, tell the countess—”
“Go!”
Footsteps grew louder, men’s voices moving to the entrance of the kennels, and I turned from the castle and ran, unsure if I would ever see Countess Margaretha again.
