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It was...disconcerting. It made the beat inside her brighter, somehow. Faster and hotter. “Not at all. I just got the impression that rebel armies usually spend their time hiding in underground tunnels or something.”
That impression did not come from any of the articles she’d read today. She was fairly certain it came from the action movies she and Catherine had watched together over the years. But Delaney found she really didn’t want to think about things like that. It sat too uneasily in her belly, like the memories themselves were fragile.
Like he could take them from her, too.
Cayetano shifted in his seat to look at her more squarely and that was better, in a way. She felt less fragile. But everything else was...more.
“It is no longer the Dark Ages, Delaney.” She almost thought he smiled, and a prickle of heat moved over her, washing its way down from her temples to her toes. “We are no longer required to hide ourselves away and pray for deliverance, especially not when a peace has been declared and held for so many years. And, of course, there are no longer pockets of this world where atrocities can be committed without consequences. The internet is everywhere.”
Delaney tried not to look as dubious as she felt. “I’m not sure I’d trust my safety to the internet, of all things.”
“It is the internet, yes,” he agreed after a moment. “For good or ill. But part of why these eyes upon us work is Queen Esme’s vanity, far greater than her father’s before her, hard as that is to imagine. She wishes to be known as a good queen, you see. I believe Britain’s Elizabeth has left an indelible mark on her peers. How can they achieve her longevity or be even a fraction so beloved? Yet Esme has aspirations, almost all of them European. She would find the price too high were she to let her temper take hold.”
“I suppose that’s something.” And better than nothing.
“It is what we tell ourselves, in any case.” Again that ghost of a smile. “And as yet, we are still here.”
They reached the base of the great fortress and Delaney expected that they would have to get out, and clamber up into it, somehow. She couldn’t decide if she welcomed a climb or feared it. But instead, the road led straight into the mountainside.
And when the car did not stop, did not so much as brake, she braced herself—
Only to let her breath out in a rush when she realized that the shadow before her was not shadow at all, but a tunnel.
“It is an optical illusion that has served us well,” Cayetano said from behind her, as the interior of the car was cast into the dark of the tunnel. “It is less effective on automobiles than horses, I grant you. But we make it work all the same.”
Before Delaney could think of something to say in response to that, the car was barreling back out into the light. And it took her much longer than it should have to realize that they were now in an internal courtyard.
Not a tiny little courtyard, like the ones she’d seen in picture books about castles and keeps. This courtyard was much bigger. Surrounded on all sides by tiers of stone, some with windows cut into the rock, others with open galleries, the whole thing climbing up toward the sun far above.
She was sure there was some militaristic reason for the different levels. She was sure it was all about armies and wars, as her research told her so many castle-ish places were in this part of the world.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t beautiful. That didn’t keep the Mediterranean sunshine from cascading down, highlighting the fountains, the greenery, the thick vines dotted with joyful flowers in an astonishing array of colors.
The car finally stopped in front of the grandest of the many entrances around the courtyard, and once again Cayetano was there to usher her from the vehicle. He did not pause to look around or make speeches or whatever it was warlords usually did when returning home. Instead, he swiftly led her inside. She had the impression of graceful archways and cool floors, light-filled rooms and walls filled with the kind of art that only rich people seemed to have. Not something pretty that a person might like to look at every day, like Grandma Mabel’s sampler, but dark, dreary paintings of off-putting scenes that no one would ever want to look at too closely or for too long.
That probably means each one is worth its own fortune, she told herself.
Though from her reading, Cayetano didn’t need any extra fortunes to go along with his.
It was all dizzying, really. The space. The stone. The obvious grandeur at every turn. She walked and walked, trying to get her bearings, though it proved impossible. Every hallway looked like the one before. And more distracting, Cayetano guided her along with his hand in the small of her back.
It felt like a hot coal, melting off her skin and making her whole body hum.
Making it hard to concentrate on castles and art and directions.
She felt a bit shocked when he took that intense heat away, and was taken back to find herself in a happy little room a few levels up. An elegant sitting room, by the look of it, with more of that sunshine pouring in.
Delaney had seenDownton Abbey. She recognized the sort of small couches and meticulously placed tables that she associated with fussy places and the people who inhabited them.
“I must attend to some matters,” Cayetano told her, and she understood, then, that he’d been playing a role in Kansas. That the man she’d met there had been accessible in comparison. She caught her breath, even as everywhere else, she burned.
His gaze swept over her as if he knew every flicker, every flame. He ignited her anew, and then he was gone.
Leaving her to run a hand around to the small of her back to see if she could feel the scorch marks he must have left behind.
But the door swung back open almost at once, and she found herself surrounded by a group of chattering women who exclaimed over her, pantomimed things with their hands that made no sense, and then disappeared again. Though unlike Cayetano, who she suspected could always find matters to claim his attention and no doubt too many of them, she did get the impression that the women would return.
Delaney took the opportunity to take stock of her surroundings in what little time she had to herself. She was standing in the center of a cheerful room, as bright as all the ones they’d passed, which made no sense to her. Weren’t they packed in beneath thick walls of stone?
