The Betrayed, Page 4

  I noted Etan’s eyes weren’t on me anymore; they were on his mother. And he seemed to have a hint of a smile on his face as he watched her, his arms still crossed, head tilted to the side.

  I pulled a flower from the pile I’d set aside and walked over to him. When I was halfway to him, he noticed me, and his demeanor changed in an instant. Hesitant, on guard. I reached up and wordlessly looped a flower through a buttonhole on his chest. He scowled at it and then me with those slate-colored eyes. But he didn’t rip it out, and he didn’t make a comment.

  I tipped my head and went back to the ladies, happy to make my way through the garden and around the rest of the Northcotts’ lands.

  I’d been standing in my nightgown with my door open for quite some time now. Isolte was cold at night, and I needed to start a fire. If the maids wouldn’t light one, fine; I knew how to do it myself. But I’d used all the wood I had, and I didn’t know where to get any more.

  Finally, I crossed my arms and went over to Scarlet’s room. I knocked, but no one answered. I risked a quick peek in, but she wasn’t there. Her fire, I noted, was lit, but there were only two logs left over. I couldn’t take that from her.

  Closing the door, I moved to the empty room beside hers, hoping that perhaps it had been stocked in advance. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It seemed I’d only gotten my first cache of wood under the watchful eye of Aunt Jovana as she ordered an extra room to be prepared.

  I’d ask her for some, but I didn’t know where her rooms or Mother’s were. I was stuck.

  I sighed, looking across the hallway to Etan’s door. And I asked myself if I would rather speak to him or potentially lose a few toes to frostbite. . . .

  Shoving away my pride, I walked across the floor and knocked. I heard him springing up and was surprised when he opened the door so forcefully.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked urgently.

  I was temporarily distracted by the fact that his shirt was both untucked and untied, half of it slung off his shoulder. I could see at least three different scars on his chest, presumably marks from his time as a soldier.

  “Everyone is fine,” I said, holding up a hand. “No emergency.”

  He let out a long breath and nodded, as if needing to calm himself down. In a split second he had jumped to the worst conclusion, and he had to undo all the anxiety he’d built up. It was a sensation I understood too well.

  “It’s just . . . ,” I began, then hesitated.

  “Spit it out.”

  “The maids won’t bring me firewood, and I don’t know where to find it myself. Could I please have some of yours?”

  Ugh, I wished I could wipe the smug little smirk off his face. “So, the mighty Lady Hollis needs a favor.”

  “Don’t do this, Etan.” I tried to look brave in the midst of being humbled. “Imagine how cold I must be if I’m willing to ask you. Please, give me some of your firewood.”

  There was a long pause, and I waited for him to slam the door in my face.

  “Come in,” he finally said, and I followed him inside, holding my head high.

  In my mind I’d imagined him to be messy, but his things were mostly tidy. He had three books open on a desk, and a few extra cups that looked used on the table by his bed, but he didn’t have clothes strewn about the floor, and it didn’t smell in here.

  “Hold your arms out,” he commanded, and I did as I was told. He started piling split logs across my hands, and I watched them, adjusting my grip so I’d hopefully avoid splinters. “The firewood is out back, stacked between two trees. You can get your own tomorrow.”

  “I will,” I said.

  “You owe me one. I ought to make you go get your own now.”

  I sighed, finally looking up. “Etan, I don’t . . .”

  My words were stolen by the sight of something so both foreign and familiar, it brought tears to my eyes.

  On the wall, mounted just above Etan’s fireplace, was a sword with a large V-shaped chip in the blade.

  “What?” Etan demanded.

  I said nothing, passing him to get closer to the sword.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded, trailing behind me.

  I stopped in front of the fireplace, looking up at it. It was almost like I could feel Silas here.

  “What are you doing?” he asked rather loudly. “Need I remind you, this is my room?”

  “Do you know the first time I heard your name, Etan?” I asked in a whisper. “Silas was telling me about how he started working with metal, and he told me about a sword he made for his cousin. He said that even though he did a terrible job, you used it the entire tournament.”

  I managed to tear my eyes away long enough to look at him. His eyes were cautious as we both turned and stared up at the battered metal on the wall.

  “It’s all but unusable,” he replied, his voice soft. “If I hit that chip again, it’ll break, and the handle is so unreliable. But I can’t get rid of it. Even before everything happened, I couldn’t have parted with it. He was very proud.”

  I nodded. “I admired that, his pride.” I kept my eyes up, staring at Silas’s work, trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest. “My first impression of you, from that stolen conversation with a boy I was never supposed to know, was of someone with integrity, someone who was gracious.” I looked over to him again. “You are unrecognizable in comparison to the person Silas told me about. Or even the person Scarlet tells me about. You’re some stranger in that man’s place. Why?”

  There was a long breath of silence.

  “Get out of my room.”

  “I really want to understand. What is it that makes you so cold when your family has told me you’re not like that at all?”

  “I said, get out.” He pointed to the door, and after a moment, I obeyed. In the hallway, I turned back to look at him. His eyes were now both ice and fire. “Don’t you think you’ve taken enough from me?” he asked. “Go home.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know how else to show you, Etan. I’m here for my family. And I won’t leave them.”

  The slamming door I’d been expecting earlier finally came, and I hated that I wanted him to open the door again, just so I could look at Silas’s terrible sword. I went back to my room and used my candle to start a fire.

  I sat as close to it as I could, toying with my wedding ring on its chain and crying. And seeing as I could hear Etan huffing around his room in anger, I was sure he could hear me, too.

  Six

  EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I learned what a bread day was. The Northcotts made huge batches of bread twice a week for the families who tended their land. It meant that all the cooks, some of the maids, and Aunt Jovana herself were in the kitchen shortly after sunrise, working and baking throughout the day. It ensured that, even if someone who worked for them was sick, they had something to eat. It was one of the most generous and simple ideas I’d ever heard of, and I was eager to participate.

  If only eagerness could translate to skill.

  Scarlet stayed close as we watched the cooks folding dough in on itself so aggressively, I wondered if it would leave the whole thing bruised. We tried to mirror their actions, but neither of us were as strong as the women who’d been doing this for ages. Even Aunt Jovana was impressive, lifting up the dough and slapping it on the table with force. I was too afraid it’d fly from my hand if I attempted anything close to that.

  If I wasn’t daunted enough by the mastery of the cooks around me, Etan’s ever-watching eyes seeing me fail was making it a hundred times worse.

  “Son, if you’re going to be down here, why don’t you help us?” Aunt Jovana asked, darting her eyes to where he sat, legs wide on a counter and taking spitefully loud bites of an apple.

  “Nope. I’m here to be close to Enid, and that’s all,” he declared, a lock of his hair casually flipping across his forehead.

  “None of that nonsense!” the large woman beside me exclaimed, but I could see she was
amused by him flirting. Meanwhile, I was completely thrown by his behavior.

  “You’re the love of my life, Enid. I’d die without you!” he exclaimed, his mouth still full of apple.

  The women in the room laughed. Clearly, I was in a room of Etan supporters. It baffled me. Was this who he was when I wasn’t around? Was his natural state one of charm? And, in an entirely unrelated issue, why could I not figure out how to roll dough?

  “Give me that,” Enid said, pulling the dough from me. “If you don’t work it right, the bread won’t rise.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. I peeked over my shoulder, and Etan was watching me, shaking his head. If it was so easy, then why wasn’t he doing it?

  “Enid here has been making bread since she was tall enough to reach the table. You can learn plenty from her,” Aunt Jovana said, nodding at the head cook, who was now working away on my lump of dough. She smiled at the praise from her mistress, but not as brightly as she had when Etan said he loved her.

  “I’d really like to,” I said quietly, hoping this woman could see I was only trying to help.

  She didn’t respond but kept kneading, her hands bigger than any man’s I’d ever seen. I looked around, trying to find another way to occupy myself. I went over to the flour to start measuring out more for myself. It was unfortunate that the massive bag was right beside Etan. I stood there for a minute, floundering.

  “It’s four,” he said.

  “I know that,” I lied, digging the cup they’d used to measure into the bag. “If you know so much, why don’t you come and help me?”

  “Because it’s more fun to watch you struggle, obviously.”

  I huffed, picking up my bowl and taking it back to the table. I stood there, looking at the other ingredients and trying to remember what I was supposed to get next. Water? Eggs? I found myself standing still in a room of activity. Even Scarlet, whose dough looked worse than mine, was getting patient instruction from one of the under cooks.

  Etan’s words told me what everyone else’s actions already had: I wasn’t welcome here. It didn’t matter if our goal was to feed people who had nothing, my contributions weren’t wanted. When I looked to people for help, our eyes only met briefly before they returned to their task, ignoring me.

  I set the bowl down and wordlessly backed toward the stairs. The only person who might have noticed was Etan, but it didn’t matter; no one came after me.

  I tried not to cry as I scraped the wet flour from my arms into the washing bowl in my room. I’d been able to accept that I was going to be seen as other by the people of Isolte. What was unexpected was the aggression that came along with how that otherness was perceived. I hated it.

  The tears came as I felt the Isoltens’ distaste for me hit my heart over and over and over. Despite being with my only living family, I felt lonelier than I’d ever thought I could. It was a unique and unnecessary cruelty added on top of what everyone in the house knew: I’d lost everything.

  But then another wave of tears came, flooding into the first, for a different reason.

  Yes, I’d come to love a man from Isolte. I loved his family. I loved their queen. But I only loved them because I knew them. I’d laughed at Scarlet’s clothes the first day she walked into the Great Room, and I’d disliked Valentina for being as typically standoffish as I knew Isoltens to be. I loved them now, but I’d judged them on first sight. I’d thought myself more stylish, wiser. I’d thought myself better.

  I was only receiving what I’d happily handed out. Maybe they didn’t know about it, and maybe it wasn’t as blunt as this, but it was just as shameful.

  And when I thought about it all, one of two things was absolutely true: either I deserved to be treated this way, or no one did. Ever.

  I wished I had Silas to talk to. Ever the peacemaker, ever the thinker, Silas would have known what to do. I wiped at my tears and closed my eyes.

  “What would you say?” I whispered to the air. “How would you patch this together?”

  There was no answer, but I knew with a strange certainty that he wouldn’t want me to hide. I lifted my chin and walked the long path back down the servants’ stairs. I could feel the heat of the kitchen long before I arrived, inhaling the delicious scent of baking bread.

  The first set of eyes I saw were Etan’s, and they were painted with surprise.

  “Ah, Hollis! There you are. We were . . . Are you quite well?” Aunt Jovana asked.

  I shot a desperate look at Scarlet, who made excuses for me. “I sometimes cry without warning myself. It’s been hard since . . . since . . .”

  “Of course. Here, Hollis, come back to the table. Nothing eases your own pains like helping lift those of others.”

  I moved closer at Aunt Jovana’s suggestion, taking my place again by Enid, her massive hands still a little intimidating.

  “I think you might be right. Miss Enid,” I said, looking up to the woman, “seeing as this is my family now, I really ought to learn how to do this properly. Will you show me again?”

  She didn’t smile, didn’t even say yes. She picked up another bowl and set it in front of me, repeating her instructions from before. Delia Grace had always made it clear I was an awful student; it was still true. But I watched Enid’s hands with stubborn intent. If she was going to show me, begrudgingly or not, I was going to learn.

  And Etan stayed the entire time, never lifting a finger, never saying a word, but watching as if he was waiting for me to make a mistake. I didn’t think I made one, but no one said one way or the other, and that felt good enough for one day.

  I’d been so determined to prove myself, I stayed in the kitchens through the first batches of bread finishing. By the time we were moving the last bowls of dough to proof, a few of the women who worked on the Northcotts’ land were making their way to the back door of the kitchen to fetch their bread.

  As Aunt Jovana had promised, the gap in the trees now made sense to me. It provided a direct path for those who needed their master’s help without disrupting the pristine front lands, which, for the sake of their status, would have been expected to be maintained and private. It was a way around that expectation and so very thoughtful.

  Aunt Jovana took her time with each person who came, asking questions as she handed out bread. She knew names, knew stories. She checked on the children and made promises to stop by if anyone mentioned a particular problem. I watched in hushed awe.

  “Surprised?” Etan asked, his eyes on his mother as she handed out food and wisdom.

  “Yes,” I admitted, observing as her hands clasped those of a woman in dull brown clothes, looking at her as if any gap in their rank was imagined. “But I shouldn’t be. I’m not sure I know anyone as gentle as your parents. It makes me wonder how they managed to produce someone as angry as you.”

  “I’m not angry; I’m careful.”

  “You’re a pain,” I told him.

  He nodded. “I know it.”

  I risked peeking up at him. There was a quiet resignation in his face that I didn’t understand.

  “You could easily change that,” I offered.

  “I could. But not for you,” he said with a sigh. “We all have to make sacrifices. I must watch you like a hawk, Mother must work herself to the bone, and my father? Did you know it’s his birthday? But there won’t be any celebration.”

  I moved in front of him to get his full attention. “It’s his birthday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why in the world are we not making a special meal? Or dancing? Or anything?”

  “Because there are bigger issues at hand than a party.” Etan’s tone implied I was an idiot for not seeing that.

  “In a family where people die too soon, I can’t think of much more important than celebrating one of us making it another year,” I shot back.

  Something in those eyes, those cold eyes that had been watching me so closely, shifted. He looked like, perhaps, he agreed with me.

  “What’s the big tradition i
n Isolte? Silas and I never made it to a birthday, so I don’t know.”

  Etan huffed. “Sweets. We make little cakes to wish someone a year filled with sweetness.”

  I nodded. “Well, we’re in a kitchen, so that’s perfect.” I looked around the room until I found the wide hands of the head cook. “Miss Enid,” I began, getting her attention, “did you know it’s Lord Northcott’s birthday?”

  “I did.”

  “Then will you please help me make the appropriate sweets for him? Whatever the traditional ones are?”

  She looked to Etan, then smirked at me. “Did you not have enough work for one day?”

  “Not enough to keep me from celebrating someone I care about. So . . . if you please.”

  She shook her head. “Five cups of flour. I’ll get the sugar.”

  I bounced into action, thrilled. Was I a good baker? Absolutely not. But I was exceptionally gifted at making merry, and that was exactly what I was going to do.

  Seven

  WE WERE ALL IN THE dining room, ready to surprise Uncle Reid. We’d gotten more flowers from the garden for the table, lit extra candles around the room, and even had one of the servants who was handy with a lute come in and play. It was positively festive, and all we needed was our guest of honor.

  When I heard his footsteps, I was nearly jumping with giddiness. Etan was shaking his head, but he almost looked like he was pleased. Maybe not. He wasn’t the easiest to read.

  “Surprise!” we yelled when Uncle Reid came around the corner, and he clutched his heart and smiled as he took in the room and his family.

  “I told you I didn’t want a fuss,” he said as he walked to his seat, though his protest was half-hearted.

  “Happy birthday, Father,” Etan said.

  “Thank you, son,” he said, clapping his back as he came around. “You really shouldn’t have.”

  “It was Hollis’s idea,” Aunt Jovana claimed.