She wondered what he would think if he could see her now—sitting beside the prince he so despised, dropping chunks of meat into the jaws of a carnivorous plant.
She tossed a piece of chicken—alas for the hen who had roosted in her boots that morning—to Anton, who gobbled it messily and then nipped at her shoulder for more. She was hungry, but he pestered her so vehemently, she hadn’t found time to eat.
She caught Asherton gazing at her. He glanced down quickly, cleared his throat, and cut a piece of his food.
“Come, Anton,” he said, holding it out for the plant. “Leave Mommy alone. She needs her supper.”
Anton sniffed Asherton’s offering and turned away, nuzzling Magdala again. She cast Asherton a pleading look.
“That’s enough, Anton,” Asherton said, pushing back his chair. “You’re being a menace.”
“Where are you going?” Magdala asked, starting to stand.
Asherton lay a hand on her shoulder. “I’m just taking him up to bed,” he said. “I’ll be alright. Come up when you’re done. I’m not hungry.”
Magdala nodded. She was starving, and it was a relief to have Anton away from the table.
She and Asherton hadn’t spoken since their fight the day before, except for uncharacteristically polite “excuse me’s” and “I’m sorry’s” when they bumped into one another in doorways or navigated around one another in the hall. The tension between them was a rope stretched to breaking, beginning to fray.
She waited for Zephyr to object, but he ate his dinner in contemplative silence.
“Don’t,” he said at length.
“Don’t what?” Magdala asked.Don’t kill him? Don’t kiss him? What?
“Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t. Asherton is on a path to destruction, and I need you clear-headed and sensible to help me keep him alive to sit on the throne, curse or no curse.”
Magdala bit her lip and then said, “I’m always clear-headed and sensible.”
Zephyr grunted and chewed slowly. Magdala’s appetite fled her, and she got up and hurried up to Asherton’s room. He was changing when she slipped in the door. He’d just tossed his shirt on the floor and was rooting around in adrawer for another. Magdala glimpsed the flexing muscles in his back and glanced away, but Asherton caught her looking and smiled to himself. Bending down, he picked up the shirt and tossed it in the laundry basket.
“Why don’t you go take a bath, Mags?” he said. “You’re stressed.”
Magdala hesitated. “In your washroom?” She usually bathed in the morning, while Asherton and Zephyr sat in the sunroom and bickered over a chess game. And she used the servants’ washroom, off the kitchen.
“If anyone comes in, I’ll scream, and you can wrap yourself in a towel and come save me,” he said with a wry gleam in his eyes. “Don’t worry. The towels are thick and quite large.”
“Are you implying I need a large towel?”
His eyes widened. “Ah … I see I’ve stepped in it, haven’t I?”
“Very much so.”
“I’m not going to attempt to scrape that off my shoe. You’re very lovely, Mags. Go bathe.”
Magdala was coming down off a tremendous surge of anxiety after their fight yesterday, and irritation flooded into the gap. “Don’t mock me!”
“I’m not mocking you.”
“Then what’s all this ‘lovely Mags’ nonsense? I know when I’m being made fun of, and I don’t like it!”
A slow smile spread over Asherton’s face. “I’m in earnest, Mags.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You’re very lovely, Miss Devney.”
Magdala hated him. He was manipulating her, toying with her. Otherwise, how could he say such things? “Stop it. I’m not lovely. I am powerful, and I am your bodyguard, and Idon’t like you.”
