Page 17 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

With no official role in the house, Nore was hiding in the stables, as she often did during the great feasts. She learned as a child that she did not like the scrutiny of the visiting nobility, and she did not want to be sucked into peeling potatoes or serving wine for hours and hours unchecked. So she was hiding in a stall with one of the mares, reading a saucy romance novel pilfered from one of her not-cousins, when she heard the door open and shut.

Nore glanced up. The stable boys were mostly in the second stable, across the lawn, tending to the horses of the guests.

“We’ll be safe here,” someone murmured. But she recognized the voice: Enric, one of the older boys, with his ink-black curls and quick wit.

A quick breath, a giggle. Nore chewed her lip. She was a couple of years younger than her mother, Golda, was when she bore her, so she understood what it was when people coupled, and she had a teenager’s curiosity about it. That did not mean she wanted to listen.

Nore shifted to a crouch, making her way along the wall of the stall. The couple had moved down toward one of the tack rooms, but not before Nore caught sight of a long strawberry blonde braid. She stumbled, catching herself on the stall door.

The young woman turned. Nore saw her face—Anina, one of the duke’s older granddaughters. She pressed a finger to her lips. Nore nodded.

She snuck back to her room. Her mother was out, serving at the party, and they did not have any candles left. Nore dressed for sleep even though it was far too early for it. That night, she remembered the curl of Anina’s braid, the press of her fingers to her lips, as she drifted off to an uneasy sleep.

She did not think about that night again until two months later. Nore was not technically employed in the duke’s household, but she often did work around the house. Today, she was delivering a stack of linens to an infrequently used closet in the east wing of the third floor. She was stacking them neatly on the shelf when she heard muffled crying from the corner.

Nore turned, searching the lower shelves. She saw the young woman sitting behind a trunk of old tapestries, knees to her chest. “Anina?” Nore asked.

Anina looked up, sniffling. Her red-streaked sorrow only served to make her blue eyes even more startlingly clear. “Elinore,” she said.

Nore crouched before her, offering a washcloth from the top of one of the stacks of linen. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

Anina started to nod—and then her face crumpled. “It’s just, one of the stable boys.”

Nore remembered what she’d seen the other night. She started to draw back, questions already on her lips—what herbs had they used, when had she taken them—but then Anina said, “He’s gone and run his mouth and now the Earl of Tyning wants to dissolve our betrothal, and my aunt spent years working out the terms.”

Nore sat back on her heels. She was aware of the Earl and his lands, stretching out on the banks of the Lisse, barring the Duke of Arlowe’s easy passage across the river. It had been the subject of a frustrated discussion around the high table on more than one evening when she’d been serving, often when the duke’s daughter, Lady Celestine, was visiting Arlowe.

“How do you mean?”

Anina looked down at her own hands. “He said that I was already spoken for.”

Nore frowned. Even at fourteen, she didn’t much care what others did with their lives and bodies, and outside of nobility, entanglements barely mattered. But she knew that the women of Lindan’s nobility were often held to other standards. “And were you?”

Anina shrugged.

“Do you want to marry the Earl of Tyning?” Nore asked.

Anina just looked at her. “He has an estate twice the size of this, Elinore. And he’s only twenty-four—you should’ve seen the other options.”

Anina was sixteen, if Nore remembered correctly; Nore was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to marry someone like Tyning in two years, but she also was not titled nobility.

So she nodded. “Is he here now? Tyning?”

“Yes,” Anina said, the tears running freely again. “He’s come to hunt with Grandpapa, and—oh, I cannot bear it.” She buried her face in her arms again. “I will grow old and die here!”

Nore couldn’t listen to this anymore, but there was a plan growing in her mind. She left Anina to her grief, but she did not go to the laundry. Instead, she went to the stables. There, she found dark-haired Enric murmuring to one of the mares.

Nore walked right up to him and stomped on his foot, then shoved him hard while he was still surprised.

“Ow!” Enric shouted, jumping back, startling the mare. He scowled at Nore. “What was that for?”

“Why did you speak ill of Anina?” Nore asked.

“I didn’t,” he said. His gaze hardened. “I only…” He looked away, an odd pain flickering on his brow. “We agreed we’d marry, come spring. Then, last week, she changed her mind.”

“So you told Tyning that she was still engaged to you,” Nore snapped. She did not know why she was so invested in this.

“Of course not,” he said, but he did not meet Nore’s gaze.