He threw back his head and laughed at Isra’s taunt, even as he turned and placed her hand in the crook of his elbow confidently, leading her through the crowd and preening under the attention they garnered.
“Quite the opposite of pagan,” young Carmichael insisted as he led Isra up the dais step to a wide, sumptuous cushion amid several young couples. He helped her to sit and then dropped to one knee at her side. “He owns several churches and a monastery in fact. He’s right . . . over . . .” The young man scanned the shifting crowd of nobility and musicians and dogs and horses who suddenly parted, and those around the perimeter of the chamber, including the youths in Ethan Carmichael’s group gained their feet. He assisted Isra in standing once more.
The king entered, flanked by his retinue and his army of snuffling, scrabbling hounds, waving away bids for his attention with a disgruntled air.
“Ah, there!” Carmichael said, kneeling once more at Isra’s side when she was seated. “On the king’s left. Now right. Now left again.”
“Your father owns churches and a monastery?” Isra queried, genuinely surprised.
“Oh, yes,” Carmichael assured her. “Quite profitable. Although it’s my mother who runs them really. Devout woman.Devout. As any of her seven children will attest.”
Isra allowed him a sincere smile. “You English are very strange with your selling of God.”
“Hmm, yes, I suppose. Rich, though,” Carmichael said with another lift of his brow. A familiar, twanging melody rang through the chamber. “They’re about to begin; marvelous. Simply marvelous. Only wait until you see. Completely famous. You’ll sit with us again on the morrow, won’t you?”
The double doors on the far end opened once more, prompting those occupying the middle of the floor to clear and a man swept into the space, his green velvet tunic fitting him like a second skin, his ebon hair rising into a crest high above his forehead, his breathtaking smile wide as he held his hands aloft and spun to address the crowd.
“Prepare yourselves, my lords and ladies, for the mostthrillingdisplays of amusement fromallcorners of the earth. Allow me to present to you van Groen’s Magical Mankind Menagerie!”
Isra clapped politely, feigning disinterest, although, at her side, Ethan Carmichael and his friends were frenzied in their enthusiasm.
Asa had made quite a name for the troupe, it seemed.
Many of the acts circulated through the crowd at once, so that the applause and exclamations of delight rolled through the room like waves. Helena and her dogs were a huge success, her little darlings’ songs prompting accompaniment by the king’s own numerous canines and setting the whole court to peals of laughter.
“The king appears somewhat aggrieved,” Isra murmured, leaning slightly toward Carmichael. “Perhaps your father is to blame?”
“Oh, nay, my lady—my father is beyond reproach, to that I can attest. The king always appears aggrieved. Today it is certainly only due to a silly matter of a vacated estate that was purchased. The lord was accused of some treason while on Crusade and stripped of his title. Terrific scandal, I tell you. The castle was burned to ruin and has sat empty for ages. Worthless rubble now—even the peasants have all gone. The disgraced lord is presumed dead, although there is now some question as to the degree of his guilt. The king was to have unburdened himself of the property this morn at a healthy profit.”
“Why the grimace, then?” Isra asked, trying to keep her expression detached while, inside her chest, her heart raced.
“He had a sudden attack of scruples, of all things, my father said last night at supper,” Carmichael scoffed. “Father encouraged him to look at the matter from a vantage of practicality.”
“The lord who purchased the property,” Isra said, “is he called Glayer Felsteppe?”
Carmichael’s bright eyes widened. “Even you’ve heard of him! The man’s as slimy a pretender as has crawled up from the dregs, I say. But he’s come into a vast estate at Thurston Hold. Almost as rich as me.” Carmichael sent her a beguiling grin. “Even Lady Eirene has been seen chasing after his heels, and the little infant he parades around like a nappied banner, andsheis the heiress of Glencovent.”
“Shemight be an idiot,” Isra muttered.
Carmichael’s face brightened in camaraderie and he nodded. “Ah! So you’ve met.”
Isra’s thudding heartbeat seemed to shake her very frame, and she wondered that none of the young, wealthy nobles seated around her noticed her trembling. She kept her eyes on the master of ceremonies on the floor below her, waiting for the moment when she could catch his eye. She had the information she needed; now she only had to make her escape.
“It seems the kingisrather more disgruntled than usual,” Carmichael murmured at her side.
“Hmm?” Isra watched as Dracus expertly shot a faux partridge off the head of one particularly unamused servant to the howls of utter delight of the nobles in the crowd.
“He’s just received a message. Which he’s now handing to my father.” Carmichael’s voice seemed intrigued and Isra reluctantly turned her face to regard the monarch even though she’d just given Asa the signal.
The man at the king’s side, currently holding what must be the message Carmichael mentioned, looked up suddenly and seemingly right at Isra. Her breathing stopped, lodged in her throat. But then Lord Bledsoe’s stricken gaze slid from Isra to his son, still kneeling at her leg.
“Whatever it is,” Carmichael said with amused gravity, “must be dreadful.”
“And now I require the assistance of a beautiful lady,” Asa called from the floor, startling Isra’s attention back to the entertainment. His dark gaze seemed to scan the crowd with consideration, while behind him, Gunar and Nickle carried the long, saffron-colored curtains now attached to a circular framework.
“One who is fearless, brave!” Asa expounded, prompting several handkerchiefs to wave in the air.
“Go on,” Carmichael encouraged Isra. “You’ll be famous. I’ve heard the man keeps tigers. Man-eaters.”
