Читать книгу Queen of Hearts Complete Collection: Queen of Hearts; Blood of Wonderland; War of the Cards - Colleen Oakes, Colleen Oakes - Страница 23

Exactly one month since her whispered conversation in the Box, Dinah rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she glanced wearily at the ticking clock tucked into her bookcase. Today is the day, she thought, pushing herself onto her elbows. She sat up in bed, holding her cool palms against her warm cheeks, and allowed herself several deep breaths. I must be calm or this will never work, she thought. It must appear as every other day to everyone except Wardley and me. She gave an exaggerated yawn as Emily came bustling in with her fluffy bathing towels.

“How are you, Your Highness?”

“Just fine, thank you.”

The morning dragged on: an elaborate bath followed by dressing and chatting idly with Harris and Emily. As Emily laced up the back of her gown, Dinah cleared her throat. “I’ve been invited to have tea today with Vittiore. I think I might attend in the afternoon.”

Emily stopped lacing. “With Vittiore? But …?” Emily was well aware of Dinah’s deep hatred of Vittiore.

“It might not be a terrible idea to get to know her better. I’m to be queen soon, and I should make peace with her. I can’t resent her forever. She is my subject.”

Dinah felt her voice edge up as the lie felt sour against her tongue. Harris stared at her from across the room in shock.

“I’ll make sure to dismiss Palma and Nanda.” Emily bit her lip angrily. She hated Vittiore’s two silly, stupid serving girls, which made Dinah love Emily even more. The servants never spoke to each other, not even on the palace rounds of gathering sheets, dresses, and daily linens. Dinah didn’t understand the deep hatred that the women had for each other, but for today at least, it was perfect that they wouldn’t even look one another in the eye. Harris hopped in happily from the other side of the room.

“Did I hear that you will be taking tea with Vittiore today? Dinah, that is a magnificent idea. How wonderful! It is time that you two put aside your differences. You might see that she is the sister you always wanted.”

Ribbons tightened around Dinah’s ribs as Emily laced her up.

“A little lighter, Emily. I don’t want to seem strained at tea today.”

Emily gave a frown. “I didn’t think about that, Your Highness. My apologies.” There was a heartbeat of silence, and then the pressure was relieved. “Why don’t we skip the corset for today, especially if you will be seated for a long period of time. But let’s go with a brilliant gown then, something that will remind the duchess that you are the future queen.” Emily opened Dinah’s white wardrobe and pulled out a magenta silk gown, all rosettes and layers. “This will make your black hair look radiant.”

Dinah made a face—to do otherwise would be out of character.

“Don’t frown, Princess, just put it on.”

As the gown slipped over her head, Dinah cleared her throat. “I’ll be at the library all morning doing private studies with Monsignor Wol-vore.”

Wol-vore was the language tutor. Dinah spent several days a week with him, learning to mimic the tongue of the Yurkei Mountain tribes and to hum the strange lilting sounds of the Western Slope accents. It was utterly useless in Dinah’s eyes, and mind-numbingly boring. That particular day, however, Monsignor Wol-vore would be visiting his mistress, a lovely lady of the court who lived just outside the palace. Wardley was finding that gold and gems bought a bounty of information on the various dark vices of the court.

“That sounds lovely, Dinah, just lovely. I am so proud of you.”

Harris looked so happy, all puffed up and red-cheeked. A stab of guilt shot through her. Dinah stared at herself in the mirror. Black eyes, many lies, she thought. Dinah cleared her throat.

“Both of you—I officially free you of all your duties for the day. Emily, you should go visit your family, and Harris—what better time to take in the rose garden or play some croquet? I heard our white vendela roses are starting to bloom …”

Harris’s eyes lit up. “I suppose I should. A bit of nature acts as a tonic for the soul.”

That was easy, she thought. Emily finished dressing Dinah, and she quickly ate her breakfast, making sure to have double helpings of both eggs and sweet peach breads. She would need it. As she headed out the door, Dinah grabbed a thin muslin bag.

“My books,” she mumbled.

Emily and Harris didn’t even look up. Dinah could see that they were excited at the prospect of a day with no responsibilities, which was rare for servants and guardians. Two down, Dinah thought, as she made a point of taking her time walking to the Great Hall, greeting Cards as they passed, and any court members who always seemed to be lollygagging in the hallway without purpose. She would be seen today, wearing this ridiculous gown and seeming oddly friendly. Dinah strolled past the Great Hall and noted the three Heart Cards standing watch in front of the door. Fellen, Roxs, and Thatcher, just as she and Wardley had calculated. Dinah gave them a gentle nod as she passed.

Guarding the Great Hall was a low honor among Heart Cards. Those with the most skill and loyalty guarded the king, then Cheshire, then Dinah, and so on down the court line. Those who were either new to the Cards or had a questionable record of service guarded the palace’s many doors and rooms. Nothing happened in the Great Hall most days of the Wonderland year, and so the Heart Cards sent to guard its doors and hallways were ruthlessly mocked. As Dinah walked past them, they bowed lazily. Dinah removed a small pouch from her bag. Then she stumbled, sending the little bag flying out in front of her. A wealth of gold coins—more than enough to feed their families for a year—spilled out in front of them. The muslin satchel stayed tight on her shoulders. She saw Roxs’s eyes light up. Of course they would: he had not one, but two families to feed. He bent down to help her pick up the coins, and Dinah saw him slyly pocket a few. Perfect, she thought.

“I’m so sorry. So clumsy.”

“’Tis never a problem, my lady.”

Dinah swiftly picked up the remaining coins, making sure to give the men a clean glimpse of all the coins inside the bag. The price of a necklace, she thought guiltily, just one of the many jewels that sit idly in my drawer, more than enough to feed a family. She often found herself feeling shame at such things. She nodded her head at Roxs, and then at the other Cards.

“Thank you. Good day.” Lowering her eyes, she made herself fidgety and breathless before them. She hesitated a second and leaned forward, letting her hair swing down over her face, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. “Could you please tell me where the cloak room is?” Dinah absolutely knew where the cloak room was.

Roxs gave a nod. “Not sure why you would need that, Your Highness. You aren’t even wearing a cloak.”

Dinah put a hand on her hip. “It’s none of your business, and above your station to ask.”

Roxs’s eyes narrowed. No Heart Card liked being reprimanded by the royal family—it was an ultimate shame from those they swore to protect. “Forgive me, my lady. I will walk you there.”

“No. Just tell me how to get there. I can walk there myself. Time is of the essence.”

Dinah could see the confusion playing across their faces. Why is she in a hurry to get to the cloak room?

“Follow this hall, past the oratory, and around the corner. It’s a small door on the right, across from the servants’ privy. There is an iron-and-glass window on the front of the door.”

Dinah clutched her purse tightly against her chest and let a blush rise to her cheeks. “Thank you.” She hurried quickly past the Cards. The cloak room was very simple to find. Dinah had been there many times as a child, retrieving a winter cloak for her or for Charles. It was a long room, filled from ceiling to floor with every kind of cloak in every kind of color, all for the royal family or their distinguished guests. Steam hissed out from a fountain in the middle of the room—a porcelain whale that spewed mist periodically, making sure that the cloaks were always warm and soft, whatever the weather. Dinah quickly found a simple, brown, hooded cloak.

She set her muslin bag down on the ground, yanking open its cords. Inside was a gray cotton dress, a tiny white heart embroidered on the sleeve. It was the kind of dress a maid or servant might wear on her day off. Dinah had swiped it from Emily earlier that month. She quickly shrugged out of her elaborate magenta gown, the ruffles swimming around her like puffy clouds. She carefully folded it and placed it into the bag. The cloak room door opened, and she gave a shriek as she stood with only a thin white slip on.

“It’s just me,” Wardley hissed.

Dinah turned her back to him and started to pull the gray dress over her head. Wardley crossed the room. “No. Wait. Leave it off.”

Her heart felt like it was plunged into icy water.

“They will be in here any minute. I saw their faces when I asked for the cloak room.” He shook his head and began grumbling. “The king should never have men like this in his service. In his attempt to build a strong set of Cards, he has taken even the worst of men. His ever-lowering standards are weakening the kingdom.”

“Shhh—” Dinah heard heavy footsteps and the clanking of metal outside the door. Quickly, Wardley wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her against him. His lips traced down her neck, his breath scorching as it passed over her creamy skin. She closed her eyes and surrendered, aware of how every curve of her body showed through the thin fabric, so close to him, so close to being just her skin pressed against his. The heat from his body washed over her, their breath becoming one in the small space between them. Dinah’s body pulled toward him as she raised her lips to meet his.

Wardley watched her silently as he gathered her thick black hair in his hands, his eyes tracing down her bodice before he looked away sharply. “Let’s not oversell it,” he murmured.

The door burst open. The three Cards stood in front of them, grinning like fools. Roxs stepped forward. “Well, well, Princess; it seems you have acquired a taste for the stable boy.”

“Get out,” growled Wardley. “Don’t come near the princess.”

“You should have taken that advice yourself. Seems like you have quite the handful there. She’s not to my taste—that leans more to the Lady Vittiore and those blond curls—but there is a certain appeal to her. I heard she’s feisty like her father and crazy like her brother. She has fire in the blood.”

Roxs circled Dinah, his lecherous eyes taking in entirely too much of her. “So, you’re plucking the princess. This secret tryst of yours, what’s it worth to you?”

Dinah gulped. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, how much gold was in that purse of yours? Two hundred? Three hundred? That would buy me land, girl, and food for my families.”

Wardley laid his hand across his sword. “You may not blackmail the princess. The king will have your head on Execution Day for this.”

“Well, let’s go tell him, shall we?” Roxs headed to the door, his two henchmen grinning like idiots beside him.

“Wait,” Dinah said quietly. “How much do you want?”

“Everything that’s in that purse, miss, and nothing less to buy our silence.”

“That is a fortune,” breathed Dinah angrily.

“And that’s what I’m asking.”

Dinah reached for her bag.

Wardley stepped forward. “Let the lady and me discuss this, then we’ll talk.”

“Some lady,” grunted Fellen, but the Cards stepped out, shutting the door behind them. She could hear their greedy laughter outside the door.

“That went well,” whispered Wardley. He pulled Dinah close to him again and pressed his lips against hers.

The Cards barged back in, unable to wait. “Can’t keep your hands off each other, eh? I remember being young and lusty—you can’t keep your manhood down!”

The Cards jostled with glee. Wardley raised his hand and they fell silent. Even when they assumed he was just a stable boy, he commanded attention. “Here is what we propose. The princess and I never have time to, let’s just say, be by ourselves. We will give you all the gold in this purse, along with—”

Dinah pulled out a large amethyst ring. The Cards’ eyes lit up.

“This, if you allow us to stay in this room for as long as we desire and make sure that no one, no one comes in. That includes you. If anyone asks where the princess is today, you are to say that she is having tea with the Lady Vittiore and studying in the library. You never saw us here. Do you understand? We’ll give you the coins now, but the ring we will give you after we are … finished.” Wardley let a naughty smile play across his face. “And we’ll need all day.”

Roxs stepped forward. “And why should we do this for you?”

“Because who will the king believe—a drunken Card accused of stealing the princess’s gold or his daughter?”

Roxs considered it for a moment. “Done.”

Wardley handed him the bag. “Remember. No one comes in or out. We want at least until nightfall together. When we come out, you will get the ring.”

Fellen gave a snort. “You think you can last that long, son?”

Wardley leveled him with a gaze. “Without a doubt.”

The Three Cards exchanged an envious look and backed out of the room. “We must keep our watch over the Great Hall, but we’ll hear you if you sneak out. Don’t cheat us, boy!”

“Fine,” replied Dinah. “Keep your promise and I will keep mine, and I will not take your heads for your silence.”

The Cards left. Wardley glanced at Dinah with a bemused grin. “Men of questionable character can always be trusted in situations that involve gold.”

Dinah didn’t have time for banter. “Did you bring the breastplate? The uniform?”

“I did.”

Wardley also had a bag. Out of it he pulled a white breastplate with the gray Club symbol etched on it. He slipped the armor over a gray tunic and fastened his black cloak with a tiny glittering Club pin at his right shoulder. “How do I look?” he whispered.

“Like a Club,” Dinah replied. “Me?”

“Like a servant, only cleaner.”

Dinah quickly braided her hair and then started pushing back the cloaks in the corner of the room. They moved cloak after cloak aside until they saw it: a small wooden door, expertly camouflaged with the wood around it.

“I still can’t believe this is in here,” Dinah whispered, running her hand over the minute cracks.

Wardley nodded. “This was how your great-grandfather snuck out of the Great Hall to meet his Yurkei mistress, a serving girl of the king. The tunnels through the castle are well-known among the Heart Cards.”

“Except mine,” Dinah said softly.

“Except yours.” Wardley took a deep breath and pushed open the door. “Let out a cry.”

“What?”

“Let out a cry, a loud one.”

Dinah did as she was told.

“That should keep them satisfied for a while.” Wardley laughed. “Let’s go.” They ducked under the door.

The passage—a sort of hallway between wooden wall brackets—led them directly into a niche in the stone that pushed out into the Great Hall. Checking that the massive room was empty, they quickly ran up the steps and past the throne. Dinah led Wardley into the narrow foyer bordering her father’s privy.

“This is the way into the tunnels? Through the privy?”

Dinah didn’t reply. She was too busy turning over tapestries. The last one, an elaborate work of art depicting her father’s victory over Mundoo—the chief of the Yurkei—showered them with dirt and dead spiders as she yanked it back. There, there was the door—the one she remembered from that terrible day when Vittiore had arrived and her father had led her bastard sister out proudly like his prized steed. The day Cheshire had shown her the tunnel and she accidentally wove her way beyond the palace gates.

The door inched open with a loud creak. They slipped through it, making sure to leave the door unlocked behind them. Dinah led Wardley down into the damp stone tunnels that ran parallel to the Great Hall and then, with a sudden plunge, down underneath it. The tunnels were dank and cold, much more unpleasant than the last time Dinah had been down there. The buildup of winter snow around Wonderland had turned them into long, wet slabs of frozen mud and cracked rock. Dinah watched her breath freeze and fall to the ground in front of them with a loud tinkle.

Wardley grabbed a torch from the wall and lit it with his flint. Pink flame danced over his face. “We ought to hurry. You could fall asleep down here and never wake up. The cold is just cold enough …” He trailed off, his lips turning a deep shade of blue.

They ran. The tunnel became deeper and colder the farther they spiraled into the frosty earth. Several times Dinah had to backtrack, trying to remember all the twists and turns she had taken six months ago. It was nearly impossible; she had been so deeply wounded that day, running blindly through the weaving catacombs. Did she turn here, at that strange cat etching on the wall? Or was it up there, when the tunnel split into four hallways and then returned to itself? She gave a shiver through her cloak.

“We should have grabbed more layers,” Wardley whispered. They had been down in the tunnels for almost an hour by Dinah’s pocket watch, lifted easily off Harris the day before. “Are we almost there? Maybe we should head back.”

It seemed darker than before, and a sudden rush of panic enveloped Dinah. “I’m not sure. It’s so dark down here.”

“And cold,” added Wardley. “Don’t forget cold.”

Dinah bit her lip as she took in her surroundings. “It’s so much darker because we are deeper underground—the same reason it’s getting colder. Hold the torch up to the ceiling.”

She looked up and trailed her fingers across the dirt. Wardley held the torch above her. The light flickered and jumped against shiny black roots running the length of the tunnel. Every once in a while they gave a tiny pulse, as if alive, and they seemed to move ever closer.

Dinah grinned in the darkness. “Roots! That happened the first time. I remember thinking they looked like black bones. We’re almost there!”

“I pray you are right,” muttered Wardley, his teeth chattering. “Otherwise, we are turning back and I will spend the rest of my day warming my toes by a fire while you feed me tarts.”

The stone walls started to narrow; Dinah and Wardley turned sideways as they squeezed through, their faces damp with sweat. They turned one corner and then another, a maze of barely visible walls and dirt. There was a downward slope, and then suddenly they were there. The dirt circle. The collision of the three passageways.

Wardley let out a long breath and waved the torch at the drawings. “Incredible. This is old, Dinah, very old. Ancient.”

Dinah ran her fingers over the wavy triangle. “When I was down here before, I thought this was a symbol for the Yurkei Mountains. But it is so clearly the Black Towers.”

Wardley wrapped his hand around her fingers with a friendly squeeze. “You wanted to escape what your father had just done. It makes sense that you wanted it to be the Yurkei Mountains—it was anywhere but where he was.”

Dinah’s black eyes glittered in the darkness. “Do you have the chains?”

Wardley gave his bag a shake. Dinah heard metal clang against metal. “Let’s go, Princess.”

“You can’t call me that anymore,” replied Dinah as she crouched on her hands and knees and began crawling through the tunnel. “Once we get inside, you can call me any name other than that one. Be as cruel as possible.” She paused to catch her breath. “Pray that this goes to the Black Towers.”

Wardley grunted behind her. “I’m praying that it doesn’t.”

The tunnel sloped upward steeply, the air growing oddly stifling, almost humid. The warm dirt felt good underneath her freezing palms as they began their ascent.