Fawkes by Nadine Brandes

Author:Nadine Brandes [Brandes, Nadine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsChristianPublishing
Published: 2018-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Four

Emma’s chin lifted. Defiant.

A dark curl stuck to her inky skin—pressed there from her masque. A line of freckles ascended from her left upper lip and ended beneath her eye . . . like a constellation on a night sky.

I stared like an imbecile, unsure what to think. What to say. I couldn’t mess this up, but all that kept repeating in my head was, Slave skin. Slave skin. Slave skin. I wanted the words to stop. They didn’t feel like my words—they certainly weren’t my heart.

Because Emma wasn’t slave or servant.

She was . . . Emma. Powerful. Masked. Artist. And I imagined everything she’d been hiding and how long she’d been hiding. How alone she must have felt.

“I can see it in your eyes.” She held my gaze, fury in hers. “You see only a lesser vessel. Slave Emma.”

I shook my head. “No.” Finally, my thoughts and emotions clicked into place, aligned in my mind. And I had the words—the only words. “I see my Emma.”

Hesitant, I pulled her to me. Her stiffness melted away and she wrapped her arms around me.

My Emma. My Emma. My Emma.

I finally understood and felt no shame for declaring the words. We were spoken for . . . by each other. Something beyond both of us led us to each other, wove our stories into one, and on this night I realized they were too tangled to ever be separated.

That was fine with me.

“You’re not disgusted?” she mumbled into my shirt.

The idea of finding her disgusting almost incited a laugh, but I swallowed it down. “No. Never. I was surprised, but it changes nothing.” I didn’t think I could have said those words a year ago, or even a few months ago. But because Emma never let my plague affect how she received and treated me, she unknowingly taught me how to think the same way.

“Henry and the Baron are the only ones who know.” She stepped away. I drank in her features. Wide eyes ringed with white powder.

She gestured to the powder. “To keep my skin hidden.” She tugged at a curl. “I lighten my hair as well with color power. It’s been rather draining.”

That was why she’d started looking so much thinner and ragged. “You’re stunning.” What else could I say? Her very soul was leaking out and I couldn’t look away.

“In my own way, I suppose.” She tucked a curl back into place.

There was no comparison. To see her skin and body was to glimpse merely a shell. As though rating a pearl by its oyster.

She lifted her masque back to her face.

“Wait . . .” I stopped her. “Why? Why must you hide?” It was illegal for anyone in England to make her a slave. What did she fear? Did she think someone might sell her to Spain?

“That’s a story for another day, Thomas.”

“Is it Henry?” I didn’t want her to put her masque back on. What I once found beautiful now seemed only a slip of drab cloth compared to the beauty that lay underneath.

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