The Duke of Snow and Apples by Elizabeth Vail

Author:Elizabeth Vail [Vail, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781633750630
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2014-08-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Frederick’s decision to keep the ransacking of his room a secret proved wiser in more ways than one. The Seven Dowagers considered their annual masquerade a celebration for all, staff included. Still, silverware couldn’t serve itself, so at around noon a veritable army of waiters hired especially for the occasion arrived and marched in neat, black-clad ranks toward the house steward’s office.

Mr. Lutter and Mr. Gelvers would have their hands full managing the influx of anonymous faces, providing them with proper direction, and re-warding the most valuable china, glass, and silverware with protection spells known to every self-respecting butler who valued his position. How could one stolen ducal ring compare to that in importance?

Frederick, meanwhile, kept his head bent toward his work, hauling baskets of candles and cases of glow-stones and fire-charms to decorate the Old Hall. In Charmant Park’s earliest days, the Old Hall had witnessed elaborate feasts, weddings of human and Fey, summonings and councils and celebrations of hunt and harvest. Centuries of dancing feet had worn the floor to unevenness, and over the years the wind’s teeth had gradually gnawed drafts through the older stone.

Therefore, Lady Balrumple’s grandfather-in-law had commissioned the construction of a new ballroom in a newer wing of the house. The Seven Dowagers’ guests would celebrate there, bowing the steps of the Giovonese earth-dance across smooth marble floors and sipping honey wine beside elaborate columns carved with dragons’ faces. The Seven Dowagers’ staff would content themselves with the more historical hall, which suited them just as well—so long as they finished cleaning and preparing it in time.

Frederick could only hope the masquerade demanded enough candlesticks, tablecloths, and polished silver to keep his crowding weaknesses at bay. How could he even look at Charlotte now that he recognized the hot, squirming, demanding creature growing inside of him, stretching his insides until he felt paper-thin with lust and wanting?

At the back of his mind, insistently jabbing him, was the theft of his ducal ring. Nothing else in his room had been taken. However, that could have been because the ring was the only thing of value he’d possessed, the only scrap of his old life he’d retained. The only proof that the Seven Dowagers employed a footman who possessed one of the truest-blooded lines in the kingdom.

Why did it have to happen now? With his painstakingly constructed cold place crumbling about his ears? With the new duke and his stepfather sniffing around? Panic seized the joints of his fingers, and he nearly tore the delicate garland of woven firebell stems and pine boughs clenched in his hands. Did either of them take my ring?

“Easy,” Tall John warned. He twisted the other length of the garland around a sconce so that it hung prettily along the wall of the Old Hall. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Frederick kept his head down so that Tall John, standing on his ladder, wouldn’t see the tension contorting his features. Does Sir Bertram know who I am? How did he

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