Later that night, Sera tugged at the hold the young guardsman had on her arm, but he refused to let her go. She had to run to keep up with him as he dragged her through the palace.
"I apologize for the inconvenience, Miss, but orders is orders, and I'm not to let you go until I deliver you to the king. Again."
In this, her third attempt to escape and her third capture, she was beginning to recognize the statues on the way to Nicholas Rostov's study. The guard marched her past the Apollo Belvedere on the right pedestal and the small, blind Laocooin covered in writhing serpents on the left Chippendale table. Tentatively, he rapped at the door of the study. A deep voice called "Enter", and Sera found herself standing once again in the daunting glare of Nicholas Rostov's disapproval.
"Where did you find her this time?" He moved around his desk, put down his papers, and sniffed once. With a frown, he pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and held it to his nose.
"Don't tell me, Edwards. Let me guess. She used the sewers."
"I'm afraid so, Sire. She was on her way to the woods behind Musgrove's stables, where, as I reported last night, she'd put the horse. We tried to rinse her off at Musgrove's, but the night was cool, and we thought it best to return her lest she take a chill."
"Well done, Edwards. Notify the kitchens that she will need a warm bath immediately."
The guard bowed. "If that is all, Your Majesty, I'll wait for her and return her to the stables. My tour isn't through for another hour."
"Whose is the midnight watch?" Nicholas Rostov asked.
"Bellows has it, Sire."
"When she smells presentable, return her to my study," said Nicholas Rostov with a slight curl of disdain to his mouth. "Bellows will accompany her back to the stables afterwards. You may take a well-deserved drink and tidy yourself as well."
The guard looked positively overwhelmed with gratitude. Sera rolled her eyes.
The clock chimed half past eleven o'clock when the young guard brought Sera back into Nicholas Rostov's study. She was wearing one of the head cook's long white nightgowns, belted with a worn stock tie to keep her from tripping over the voluminous hem, and a worn but clean blue cloak. Her hair was braided loosely and hung down her back.
"What took you so long?" Nicholas asked in a clipped voice. He'd begun by thinking of reasonable openings for this latest standoff between Sera and himself and ended, as the clock chimed the next hour, in getting angry all over again.
"Sire, I apologize. Cook, you see, is young Ned's mother, you know, the stable lad, and Miss Sera here, she helped Ned learn all sorts of things Master Raymond doesn't have time to tell him. When Cook learns she's in the kitchen, nothing would do but she must come down to see to the bathing. And then Cook wants to feed her, because Miss Sera missed her dinner, what with running away and all. Then Cook says Miss Sera's got to dry her hair before the fire or she'll catch her death. And that's why," the guard finished, breathless.
"Thank you, Edwards. You may go."
So. The stable boy and the cook fussed over Sera. And Katherine ran about the palace with a smile on her face. The guards, of course, treated her as though she were a princess, when all the while, she gave them extra duty following and capturing her. It seemed that Nicholas was the only one in the palace who found Sera a constant source of frustration.
Perhaps Andre was right. If he could take her to his bed, he might look at her as just another woman and not a siren so soft and warm that all he could think of was his overpowering need to get closer to her.
Sera braced herself, wondering when Nicholas would finally pronounce her fate. As the small ormolu clock on the mantle ticked the minutes away and he still refused to look at her, Sera's anxiety and resentment grew. She knew he must do this on purpose, just to set her on edge. He was perusing something of seeming major interest out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. Soon, he would turn, and she would suffer one of his lectures yet again. She was sick of them.
"If you ordered the guards who watch my every move to accompany me home, I would be safe in my Hills, and you would be rid of my inconvenient presence."
His back stiffened. "No."
"Just ... no?" Suddenly, she felt she couldn't go on without crying, and she hated him for making her feel that way. She never cried. Did he think she enjoyed this contest--that she liked going down into the rank-smelling sewers populated by rats and snakes, and Zeus knew what other horrors? How could he do this--imprison her for no reason at all except her supposed safety? What game was he playing with her?
"I cannot spare the men." Still, he did not turn to look at her.
"You already spare the men to watch me. Dear Heaven, why won't you let me go?"
It always caught her off guard, his ability to wheel so quickly, so gracefully, like a large, sleek panther. He loomed over his desk, hands planted on each side of the papers, his eyes burning into her with an intensity that seared her to the very core.
"Tell me who you are. Tell me who your people are. What were you up to when the Nantal found you? Tell me why you know eight languages, and why your horse is of the finest blood stock I have ever encountered, and why you treat a king as an equal, or perhaps a not quite equal. Tell me all that, and I shall think about letting you go."
"It is nothing to you," she said, backing up and flinging a look over her shoulder toward the door, her means of escape from his infernal questions. Her movement made the long braid fly. It fell across her breast, and the small thread of hair that held it broke. Dry now, it began to separate into strands, catching the lamp light. Nicholas Rostov's face underwent a subtle change. The intensity was still there, but his gaze was fixed on that slow fanning out of her hair. His cheeks seemed to hollow, the planes and angles of his face seemed sharper. A slow flush deepened on his face.
Her breast rose and fell unevenly with her breath as he walked from behind the desk like a great cat stalking his victim. He loomed over her, large and inscrutable, radiating a force of will so dangerous and so seductive she feared he could bend her to his every wish if he gave it half a try. She couldn't seem to move, to breathe. He reached out a hand, lifting the length of her hair, seeming to weigh it in his hands.
"Nothing, you say. I wish it were that simple. There is something about you, Sera with no last name, no history, no family madly searching for you."
"Your hair," he said softly, his fingers slowly stroking the strands into a fall of gold that gave back the light of the lamp. "It almost pulses with life. Warm." He lifted the fall of hair to his face and breathed it in like perfume.
"Fresh and sweet, with no remaining trace of the sewers." He leaned close, holding her just by his light touch on her hair. Sera felt the warmth of his cheek, his breath a slow exhalation against the side of her neck, and she shivered. His lips moved, touching, and not quite touching, the hollow there, like the wings of a butterfly.
"Sweet," he whispered against her sensitive skin. She stood helpless, in thrall to that deep timbre of pleasure, the warmth enveloping her. "Soft mystery. Lady in peasant's garb."
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