Dragonsbane (Book 3) by Shae Ford

Author:Shae Ford
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2014-07-28T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

The Lurch

Countess D’Mere couldn’t sit still. She paced back and forth through her chambers, listening to the surf as it crashed against the rocks beneath her window. The rhythm reminded her to breathe deeply. She tried to time her breaths to match the waves.

And she waited.

The high-pitched moan of her door stopped her pacing. One of the twins had come to fetch her. She glanced to see which hip he wore his sword on. “Is it done, Left?”

He turned sideways, and she knew he meant for her to follow.

D’Mere’s heart beat faster with each step through the winding halls. She didn’t know who that cripple was, but he wasn’t Aerilyn’s husband. The pirate captain she’d written about in her letters was a handsome man — she remembered his face had been drawn on the back of one of the pages.

The man Aerilyn was with now was a scowling lurch — probably one of her servants. Had he been the Captain Lysander she loved so dearly, D’Mere might’ve considered sparing him.

But the lurch knew too much.

Left broke from the side passages and led her down the main hall. She grew more frustrated the closer they got to the ballroom. “You had very specific orders to keep things quiet …”

Music drifted over the top of her words. It wasn’t part of a ballad, or even a ballroom dance. No, this song coursed through the halls like a single, powerful thought — the inner musings of the man who played it.

Left walked straight into the ballroom, turning to glance at D’Mere over his shoulder. He caught her eye and led her with his chin. Then he marched to join his brother.

It was the lurch who played the piano. He was hunched over the keys; sweat hung thickly in the creases of his tunic. That horrible stump of a leg creaked each time he shifted his weight. The rough red on the back of his neck stained him against the finery of the room.

And yet … that music.

It covered over everything else — it hushed the councilmen and slowed the servants’ work. Ladies wandered in from all corners of the castle, peeking at him from behind their fans. Slowly, the ballroom began to fill.

They pulled chairs from the tables and turned them around so that they faced the piano. Councilmen in their gold-embroidered garments sat next to merchants’ wives. Maids gathered at the back of the room, their chores half-folded in their arms. All were united in their gazes, their silence. Every ear equally captivated by the music’s spell.

While the lurch sat under the watch of so many eyes, there would be no dealing with him. So D’Mere resolved to wait.

The front of the room had suddenly become the back. She took her place at a table near the head and turned her chair around. Before long, Chaucer appeared. The music seemed to have no effect on him: he strode straight through the crowd, arms clasped behind his back, and halted beside the piano.

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