Enyo remained hungry. That peacock had been nothing more than a scrawny snack. Perhaps she should have let the zhi eat that stupid dog as well. With any luck, Elise de Commarque would have had Gitta and Enyo driven from the house, and then no one could blame Gitta for her failure to complete her mission. They could take off again—go somewhere new. Somewhere wild.
Instead of the pallet, Gitta took Enyo out into the forest beyond the fields and gardens surrounding the château, and slept with her there, her arm curled tightly around the animal’s throat. She’d only had the unicorn for a year, but Enyo had lived with hunters for all her life. She’d been given to Gitta by Sister Maria Artemisia when she’d left the order to care for her widowed niece. Gitta had recently lost her third zhi, Brunhild, to a village festival near Seville. The villagers had attempted to eat the meat of the corpse. Gitta had refrained from warning them against it, for which her superiors in the Order had reprimanded her harshly, though the villagers’ illness had only lasted a few weeks. Artemisia took pity on her, though. The old nun was pushing fifty, and knew what it was like to outlive one’s unicorns. Enyo, Artemisia had explained when she passed the animal over, was old and wouldn’t mind dying so much. Gitta soon learned differently. Enyo might be old and frail and nearly blind, but she was every bit as fierce as her namesake. Together, they’d survived three of these so-called hunts thus far.
How sad, then, that Enyo would be sacrificed for some petty ceremony that no one in this de Commarque house seemed to actually want.
This wasn’t what a hunter was, Gitta reflected as she lay in the dim forest and let the scent of the earth wrap around her. Not what it used to be, anyway. Once upon a time, her sisters had protected estates like this one. They’d come when the residents were threatened by wild unicorns. When a hunt was necessary. Now there was nothing but playacting. It was a disgrace, not only to the Order of the Lioness, but also to the families, whether truly of the blood or otherwise.
The unicorn moaned softly and kicked its hooves in its sleep. Its belly rumbled. It would need to eat something soon. Gitta hoped there were deer in these woods.
She curled her body around the beast’s for warmth. Gitta could speak seven languages and had traveled all over the continent. Why then, here in this little French woods, did she suddenly feel so small?
* * *
As he did every evening at sunset, Bernard de Veyrac appeared beneath Elise’s bedroom window with a flower twined round a little scrap of paper. And every day, Elise lowered a little basket for him to put the flower in, pulled it back up to the window, and read the poem he’d inscribed on the paper. Today’s was very good, comparing Elise’s breath to violets and her complexion to a lily’s. It was almost as good as the one that said she was more fair and lovely than a summer’s day. It would have been better, perhaps, had he thought to use a violet or a lily as the flower, but instead, he’d tied the note to a morning glory. Odd. Though Bernard seemed to have a way with poetry, her betrothed was sorely lacking when it came to that sort of planning. Foolish trifles of a boy in love, her father had said, but Elise knew better. She’d heard the way the servants talked about Bernard. She’d heard the stories about the peasant girls. Still, the poems were an unnecessary token, given their parents’ wishes. That he took the trouble gave her comfort. Theirs would be a pleasant marriage.
She blew a kiss to Bernard from her window, and he pretended to catch it and press it to his heart. “Six days, my fair Elise!” he cried from the garden, his eyes shining in his handsome face. “Six days until you’re mine!” And then he turned and left, and Elise smiled at him until she noticed he was trampling all the seedlings in her garden with his big brown boots.
“Bernard!” she shouted. “My tarragon!”
He leaped off the plants as if burned and landed squarely in the lavender.
Elise sighed and shook her head as she returned to her supper.
There was a knock at her door and a moment later, Adolphe appeared, powdered and wigged to within an inch of his life. Elise sat calmly by the window as he approached and stooped to kiss her hand. He towered over her, but it was an illusion. The heels of his coral satin shoes had to be at least six inches.
“My dear cousin,” he said. “How are your spirits this evening?”
“Well enough,” she replied. They would have been better had she not heard that five more of Adolphe’s men had arrived at the estate this evening. She hadn’t bothered writing to the Vicomte, though. He no doubt knew already, in that way he had of knowing everything that happened here. Her wedding couldn’t come quickly enough.
She tossed a piece of chicken to Bisou, who was still hiding beneath her sofa. Perhaps the treat would draw him out.
“I worry for you, my dear,” said Adolphe. “Left all alone, in this cruel world—”
“Not for long.” She toyed with the flower in her lap. “Bernard and I shall soon be wed and then—”
“Such a pity your poor father did not live to see that day.” Adolphe’s voice betrayed not the slightest hint of human pity, though he’d shown up quickly enough the day after they’d placed Le Seigneur in the ground. “Do you not think it wise to delay this marriage? We have hardly had the chance to set his affairs in order.”
“My marriage contract is in order,” Elise said, allowing her tone to betray no hint of her annoyance. “My father signed it the day before his accident.”
“Your father no doubt expected to live to see you bear him a grandson.” Adolphe cast his eyes about the room. Elise wondered if he was sizing up her belongings, setting a price on every vase and handkerchief. “But now...”
“Nothing has changed.” Elise’s voice wavered slightly. How she wished he would not address her without the Vicomte or her other friends present! The Vicomte had been most specific about what she was and was not allowed to say to Adolphe Dufosset. “And when I am married, the contract will be executed as my father intended. Will that not be nice?” she asked hopefully. “To see his last wishes carried out?”
Adolphe did not respond and as the silence stretched, Elise began to grow uneasy. Bisou darted out from underneath the upholstery and pounced on the scrap of meat. Adolphe looked at the pup with disdain, and Elise frowned.
“I believe I am a bit tired, sir. Perhaps I should rest.”
“Indeed.” But he did not move to stand. “So much weight on your shoulders, my dear cousin.”
Elise swallowed.
“It’s a wonder you have not been overwhelmed by it all. Indeed, it seems you hardly know which way to turn, now that your father is gone.”
Elise kept her eyes on her lap. “I trust in the opinion of the Vicomte. He was my father’s dearest friend, and he will be my father, too, once I am married.”
“The Vicomte would add you to his collection, and include our family lands if he can. Elise, do you not see this? It’s impossible that you are so stupid that you cannot.”
The stem of the flower crushed beneath Elise’s fingers. “I want only to fulfill my father’s wishes,” she said, though it felt as if her own throat was equally mangled.
Adolphe’s shadow fell across the silk of her dress. “We shall see, my dear cousin. We shall see if you marry this boy of the Vicomte’s, and we shall see, if you do, whether you take with you this estate.”
Elise raised her head. “Monsieur Dufosset, you would do well to remember that you are here on my invitation.”
“I am at that,” he replied evenly. “How curious that you fashion yourself the mistress of this house.”
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