Traitor's Masque by Kenley Davidson Page B

Told himself he was a fool. Took a deep breath. “Except this.” He took her hand and said, without preamble or explanation: “Donevan.” And then he waited. Hoping for he hardly knew what.
    “Donevan,” she repeated, wide-eyed, as if testing it for fit. Unsure of her response. In silence, she untied her horse. Used a nearby rock to mount. Turned back, bit her lip, and answered.
    “Embrie,” she said. Then turned and rode away as if she could escape the consequences of what they had done.
    But there was no taking it back now. And Ramsey would not wish it back, even if he could. He had a name, and he carried it with him as a promise that he would, no matter how unlikely, see her again. Even if the seeing could bring him nothing but heartache in the end.

  Chapter 4  

    Trystan made it home before the party-goers were awake enough to demand breakfast. Or lunch. Or whatever one called the first meal of the day when it happened not long before tea-time. She was changed and grubbing industriously in the garden before a dressing-gown-clad Malisse peered out of her window with a satisfied smirk on her lovely coral lips. Trystan could not help feeling a bit gratified when her stepmother winced directly afterward, having perhaps underestimated the effect of the sun on a champagne headache.
    In the past, Trystan might have occupied herself for some time with the satisfaction of having outwitted her tormentors once again, but on that day she could not seem to content herself with such a dull emotion.
    She was thoroughly on edge, tense with some indefinable blend of fear and anticipation. A half-formed scream lurked in the back of her throat, borne of joy, frustration, and the urgent suspicion that she no longer fit her own life. She could remember its rhythms, its shape, and her own place within it. But even thinking about her quiet, contained existence made her itch, like clothes that were too small. She could not possibly have changed so much in a single morning, but she felt as if she had.
    And she wasn’t even sure how it had happened. When had she decided to trust him? She had broken nearly every rule, told him so much she had never intended to say. She had told a truth and ten more had followed and before she could stuff her tongue back behind her teeth she had told him her name.
    Malisse would have her drawn and quartered if she found out. No, that was too messy. Malisse would simply follow through with the threat that had held Trystan helpless since her father died: she would be turned out of the house, accused of some crime, or saddled with the hint of a ruined reputation. The rest of her very short life would be spent either locked in prison or walking the streets, depending on how great a scandal her stepmother was willing to have associated with her own precious daughters. Though Trystan considered it unlikely that her stepmother would court scandal of any sort, she was not certain enough to ignore the possibility, and the fate of friendless young women in disgrace with society was not one she cared to experience.
    Straightening from the border she was trimming to stretch her back, Trystan tried reasoning with herself. There was really no reason for Malisse to know. Trystan doubted if very many people outside the family remembered her existence, let alone her middle name, and since she never went out, she would never encounter her friend in public. It was possible, she knew, that she would never encounter him at all.
    Her friend. In spite of her dour imaginings, the thought produced an irrepressible smile. Glancing around to make sure no one had noticed, Trystan stuffed the grin back where it belonged and kept on trimming.

    That afternoon, Trystan was summoned to the sitting room to read improving lectures aloud while her sisters stitched and Malisse plotted. She almost fell asleep in the midst of a long passage on virtue and was jerked awake only by a pointed “Ahem!” from Anya. Before Trystan could continue