Surely, Niamh had misheard him.
Or perhaps he was joking. Yes, that had to be it. No one, especially a noble, could be so unaccountably rude. But when she forced herself to laugh, the mood didn’t lighten. The young man stood there with his arms crossed and his knifepoint eyes leveled at her. Glinting within them was a challenge—and also an obvious trap.
Only a fool would take that bait.
“Niamh Ó Conchobhair.” She curtsied as low as she could, hoping that was the proper thing to do. Oh, why had she not listened when Erin prattled on about the intricacies of Avlish high society and their absurd formalities? “It is an honor to meet you.”
This clearly did not answer his question. If anything, it only served to displease him further. “I’m sure,” he said acidly. With that, he turned to the prince regent again. “Why am I here?”
“This,” the prince regent said, with barely restrained irritation, “is your tailor, Kit.”
Your tailor. All the blood drained from her face as the reality of her situation set in. This horrible, abrasive man was the prince regent’s brother. The second son of the King of Avaland. Prince Christopher, the Duke of Clearwater. The groom.
Kit did not deign to look at her. “Ah. So this is an ambush.”
“I did not realize that an introduction would be such a terrible imposition to you.” The prince regent lowered his voice. “You will have to forgive me for thinking you might like to speak with her before I had her take your measurements.”
“Why would you think otherwise?” Kit’s expression grew downright mutinous, and every syllable bristled with resentment. “I am yours to command.”
That was when Niamh heard the sudden splinter of ceramic—and a brittle crash as it struck the floor. She turned toward the sound and nearly leapt out of her skin. The holly in the corner of the room had begun to seethe, and the veins of its leaves glowed gold with magic. Its roots pushed viciously through the crack in its container. New growth burst forth and arranged itself into perfect, layered topiaries. The prince regent’s anger, it seemed, was as neat and fastidious as the rest of him.
Niamh recovered from her shock enough to pray that her jaw had remained shut. With every new generation, magic faded a little more from the world. It was rare indeed to encounter such potent magic in this day and age.
She had grown up on horror stories of the Avlish royal family’s power. How it had caused the Blight by depleting the soil. How during the War of Machlish Independence, briars had torn from the earth and skewered men like living bayonets. Niamh had always suspected those legends were exaggerated. Now, she wasn’t so certain what the Carmines were capable of.
How could the prince regent’s father have wielded such power so callously? If he hadn’t, maybe her family would not have known such hardship. Maybe fewer of her people would have had to board that ship. Maybe she wouldn’t have had to leave behind everything she knew to care for the ones she loved. Anger roared to life within her, so suddenly she shocked herself.
But the prince regent seemed far too preoccupied with his brother to take any notice of her. He sighed through his teeth. The sparks of gold dulled in his eyes, and once again, he became the very picture of composure. As if by conjuration, a footman detached himself from the shadows and procured a pair of shears from his breast pocket. He set to work pruning the holly back into a manageable size, and the steady clip, clip, clip of the blades cut up the silence. Another servant appeared to sweep up the broken shards of the vase, there and gone in a matter of seconds.
“We will finish this discussion presently. In private.” The prince regent, clearly beyond finished with Kit, turned to Niamh. His expression was unbearably earnest, as though he was speaking to a slighted highborn lady rather than a Machlish girl. After the dark turn of her own thoughts and how dismissively his housekeeper had treated her, it knocked her off-kilter. “I am terribly sorry, Miss O’Connor. My brother has forgotten himself.”
Kit made a sound that was not quite a laugh. “Whatever you want to say to me, you can say it here.”
Indignation swelled within her. She was a person, not a piece of furniture or a pawn in his ridiculous war-by-proxy. Perhaps he should think twice before treating his brother—the de facto ruler of the kingdom, no less—with such blatant disrespect in front of a stranger. Before she could think better of it, she said, “I take it you are not interested in fashion, then?”
The very air rang with tension. Both princes regarded her with open surprise, and she did her best not to wither beneath their attention.
Oh, gods. What had she done?
Kit’s scowl slotted back into place. “No. I think it’s a waste of time.”
His curt dismissal stunned her. He didn’t even bother with perfunctory politeness as he insulted her life’s work. As cheerfully as she could manage, she said, “I am quite passionate about it myself.”
“Is that so?” He sounded surprisingly curious, which gratified her enough to actually consider her answer.
There were far too many ways she could answer that question. Because sewing was the only thing she was good at. Because she was the only one in two generations who had even a glimmer of her family’s dying craft, and it fell on her to preserve it. Because despite all the pressure, all the long hours, all the tears, little in the world made her happier than making other people happy. In the end, she settled on something safe but true. “I like beautiful things, and I like making things that make people feel beautiful.”
“What nonsense.” He spoke with such sharp and sudden disdain, it was as though she’d pressed on a bruise. “Beauty is nothing worth dedicating your life to. It’s the domain of sycophants and peacocking fools.”
Niamh recoiled. He was not just rude; he was mean. And entirely unreasonable, frankly. He was the one who was getting married. He was the one wearing shoes that cost more than she made in a month. He was the one wearing a silk waistcoat that practically begged to be engraved in a fashion magazine. Silk! In summer, no less. She hoped he would sweat through it. She hoped he—
“Show some respect to our guest, Christopher,” the prince regent said sharply. “She is common, but she is divine-blooded.”
Niamh had never heard the term divine-blooded before, but it was obvious what he meant: an ceird, the craft, magic. If the Avlish believed their magic came from the divine as well, perhaps Avlish and Machlish myths were not as different as she’d been led to believe.
Long ago, so the stories went, hundreds of gods sailed to Machland and made it their home. Before they hid themselves behind the veil to the Domhan Síoraí, some had taken mortal lovers and passed down their magic to their children. Every person with an ceird claimed they could trace their ancestry back to one of the Fair Ones. There was Luchta, who crafted swords and shields that turned the tide of battle; Dian Cecht, whose remedies could cure any wound; Goibnu, whose feasts could satisfy a man’s hunger for a decade; Bres, who could end any quarrel with his silver tongue; Delbaeth, who could spit fire like a dragon; and of course, her namesake, Niamh. She had always thought it cruelly ironic that she was named after the Queen of the Land of Eternal Youth.
“As you wish, Jack.” Kit rounded on her once more. “Let’s see it, then.”
She understood his unspoken threat: Give me a reason to not put you back on that ship. He didn’t think himself above her; he knew he was. From the moment she’d received the prince regent’s invitation, Niamh knew it was not a reward for what she had achieved but the beginning of a new trial. Here, as a commoner, as a Machlishwoman, she would have to work twice as hard to earn her keep. Determination burned up all of her fear, and all that remained, smoldering within her, was the need not only to prove herself—but to prove Kit wrong.
“Gladly.” It came out with far more fire and venom than she intended. “But I will need my things brought to me.”
The prince regent—Jack—hardly even lifted a finger before a footman slipped out of the room. “At once. Please sit and make yourself comfortable.”
She sat gingerly on the edge of an armchair. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
After only a minute, the footman returned with Niamh’s traveling case. She pawed through her meager worldly possessions, painfully aware of how coarse her life must have seemed to them, until she found her embroidery hoop, a pair of scissors, a spool of thread, and a pincushion. She measured out and snipped off a length of thread. When she dared to glance up, Kit was staring at her with an intensity that almost made her lose her nerve.
No, she reminded herself. He will never have seen anything like you.
Hers was far from the flashiest magic in the world. Once, in a time irrecoverable, perhaps a cloak made by an Ó Conchobhair could bring entire armies to heel. But Niamh had never wanted to change the world. Her clients sought her out for her designs but also for her craft. Whatever she sewed possessed a subtle compulsion. No one could quite describe it, other than this: when you saw someone in a Niamh Ó Conchobhair piece, you felt something. Niamh had transformed a young widow into the very picture of sorrow. She had allowed wallflowers to vanish into the recesses of a ballroom. And two years ago, she had made Caoimhe Ó Flaithbertaigh into a duchess.
Niamh blew out a calming breath. She could do this.
A half-finished handkerchief was pinned in her embroidery hoop, one she’d worked on during the long voyage to Avaland. She’d painstakingly stitched wildflowers into it, so vivid that they seemed to be real, pressed and forgotten in a scrap of silk. She’d used thirty different colors of thread, after all. Just looking at it filled her with a longing for things she’d had and lost. As magic swelled within her, she thought of summer. It was always the best time of year in Caterlow, when all the children would run wild and barefoot through the fields, when the breeze off the sea cooled the sweat beaded on her forehead. Those days had always seemed endless and brimming with possibility, happy in a way that felt inexhaustible. She’d stitched those memories into this piece, memories that had kept her afloat on the black waves of the Machlish Sea.
She was ready.
Something tugged sharply in her chest, no more painful than the prick of a needle. And then, her magic spooled out of her. The thread shimmered, as though she held a delicate beam of sunlight between her fingers. Its soft glow bathed the room, dancing on all the golden picture frames, on all the gleaming brass buttons studding the couches.
Kit swore, so quietly she nearly missed it.
Everything else fell away but the two of them and the tender ache of yearning threaded into the eye of her needle. His lips parted, and the light of her magic made his eyes luminous. Heat bloomed across the back of her neck, and her stomach fluttered strangely. If she did not know better, she’d say his expression was full of wonder.
No, she had to be imagining things. She tore her gaze away from him and began to sew little embellishments of gold into the design. By the time she finished, the petals looked shot through with sunlight, and all the leaves pearled with dew. As carefully as she could, she snipped off the loose thread and removed the fabric from the hoop.
“It isn’t much, but I do not want to keep you here all day.” She thrust the handkerchief in Kit’s direction. “I hope this will give you a sense of what I can do.”
When Kit took it from her, he looked five years younger in an instant. His eyes clouded over with a memory, one that transported him somewhere far away. But the effect was there and gone almost faster than she could blink. He dropped the handkerchief as though it had burned him. Niamh’s heart twisted to see it lying on the floor in a crumpled heap. For a moment, he stared at it with a flush crawling up his neck.
“That,” Kit said venomously, “is some sort of trick.”
Jack, at least, spared her the indignity of having to defend herself. “I will not hear another word from you. Miss O’Connor is the best seamstress I have found, and the best is what you will have.”
Kit rose from his seat with all the coiled aggression of a cornered animal. He stood a full head shorter than his brother, but he filled the room with his anger. “I would sooner wear nothing to my wedding than anything she has so much as looked at.”
Anger and confusion boiled within her, until she trembled with the effort to contain it. Her eyes welled with reflexive tears. A trick? She had learned to sew at her grandmother’s elbow before she could even walk. She’d dedicated her entire life to mastering her craft, and it was the purest, truest thing she knew. She’d stitched a piece of her very soul into that handkerchief, and he’d acted as though she’d spat on his boots. What hurt the most was that he didn’t even have the decency to address her directly. He wouldn’t even look at her.
“Enough,” Jack snapped. “My mind is made up. The court is already enamored with her work, and the King of Castilia is arriving with Infanta Rosa in two days’ time. You have been away from court for too long, brother. I expect you will want to make a good impression.”
Kit’s expression shuttered. To Niamh’s shock, he said nothing.
Away from court? It wasn’t unusual for young nobles to go on grand tours, but the way Jack said it … It sounded almost like a punishment.
“As for you, Miss O’Connor,” Jack continued wearily, “tell my staff what you need, and I will have it brought to you. That is, of course, if you have not changed your mind.”
“I have not, sir. Thank you!” It came out far too loud. Struggling to rein herself in, she curtsied to him. “I will not waste this chance.”
Just then, a tentative knock sounded on the door. It creaked open a fraction of an inch, and a muffled voice said, “A message for you, Your Highness.”
“Do not hover there like a wraith. Come in.” Jack closed his eyes, as though searching for some inner reservoir of patience. “What is it?”
The door opened just enough to admit a page boy, who lingered in the threshold with his gaze riveted to the floor. An envelope hung limply from his fingers. “Another letter from Helen Carlile, sir.”
“For God’s sake…” Jack crossed the room and snatched the letter from his page. So much for courtly grace, Niamh thought. “Another one? Another letter from Helen Carlile is what you interrupted me for?”
The page cringed. “I’m sorry, sir! This is the third in as many days, so I figured it was urgent.”
“You were sorely mistaken.” Jack tore the letter neatly in half. “I do not have time for her self-righteous screeds today—or any other day, for that matter. The next time you see one of these, send it back. Better yet, burn it. I do not want to hear even a whisper of the name Helen Carlile—or Lovelace, for that matter—in these halls. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” The page did not leave immediately. He glanced at Kit and Niamh, as though he were afraid of saying too much. “There is another thing. Your valet, sir … I thought you might like to know as soon as possible, given the circumstances.”
Jack muttered something under his breath. For a moment, he looked quite exhausted, but by the time she blinked, he’d righted his stoic expression. “Very well. Send for Mrs. Knight at once. I will speak with her in my study.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Dismissed.” When the door slammed shut behind the page, Jack let out the most long-suffering sigh she had ever heard. “If you’ll excuse me.”
How could a valet and one woman, Niamh wondered, possibly cause a prince such frustration? And who was Lovelace?
She glanced at Kit as though he might provide some insight. But his gaze was trained like a marksman’s rifle on his brother’s retreating back, and it was filled with loathing. Her breath caught at the sight of it. It was not the petty sort of hatred children professed for their strict older siblings. This was as bitter as a winter night—and old, with roots going all the way down.
Kit had nursed this grudge for a long time.
When he caught her looking, he scowled. “What are you staring at me for?”
“I…” Her mouth hinged open. One of these days, she might just stick him with a needle out of spite. If anything, he was the one staring at her. “I am not!”
“Right.” With that, he got up and stalked out of the room.
Niamh buried her face in her hands. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, and of course she was assigned to the most curmudgeonly, unsociable client in the entire world. Perhaps this offer truly had been fairy-tale perfect, exactly as Gran warned her. A beautiful ruse, like a glass apple filled with poison.
Nothing was going exactly as she’d dreamed it.