AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“They used to expose unwanted babies on the hillsides, so that they died.” He shrugged.
I felt a shiver go down my arms.
This wasn’t . . . I hadn’t actually expected things to get this dark.
“I named myself Marino—of the sea,” he added. “I thought to be a fisherman. It was all I knew, and there were plenty of boats in Napoli. But one of the men knew my mother, and said stupid things.” He shrugged again. “I put a scaling knife in his eye.”
“Rico,” I said, not even knowing what I was going to say. But feeling like I ought to say something.
“I ended up a mercenary after that,” he continued, his voice low. “I did things, not so good things, you understand? If you could see them, you would know . . .”
“Know what?”
He looked away, back at that oh-so-interesting spot on the ceiling. “Her father is Jonas Marsden, yes? And her mother is—was—Agnes Wee-ther-by. That is right?”
He’d stumbled a little over the pronunciation of Weatherby, the harsher English syllables sounding strange on a tongue that, even now, was more used to lyrical Italian. Rico was the only one of my guards with a noticeable accent, unless they chose to have one. Or unless you counted Roy’s slight Southern drawl.
“Close enough,” I agreed.
He looked satisfied. “So. You see.”
I didn’t see a damned thing.
I said as much, and Rico looked at me like I was slow. But instead of trying to explain, he took the perfume bottle from my hands and frowned at it, as if trying to figure out the little bulb-like sprayer. Then he turned it on himself.
“You see?” he asked. “Or, rather, do you smell?”
I didn’t, actually. Until I leaned closer. I closed my eyes and filled my lungs, but it wasn’t the smell of fish, even newly caught ones, that met my nose. It wasn’t anything I could name exactly. If I’d had to describe it, it would have sounded like the cover of a romance novel: a dark night, a full moon, a highwayman galloping past a field of lavender, a girl waiting in a tall tower by the sea, plaiting roses in her hair—
I broke away, laughing at myself.
God, I needed to get laid!
“What is it?” Rico asked, trying to sniff himself. I guess I didn’t look like a woman who’d just been breathing fish guts.
“You can’t smell it yourself. You have to have someone tell you,” I said. Or so the fey shopkeeper had insisted.
“Then what do you smell?”
“Not fish.”
The door to the suite opened before I could say anything else, and Saffy’s pink head poked out. “Hey! We found it!”
“Found what?”
“An outfit for you.”
Okay, now I was legitimately afraid. “Um, Saffy—”
“No, really. You’ll love it!”
She started tugging me inside.
“Cassie—” That was Rico, looking strangely desperate, all of a sudden.
“It’s hard to describe,” I said. “But you keep it. It smells better on you.”
“Better?” He looked at the little bottle in confusion. “What did it smell like on you?”
