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She must escape Leander. She cannot think around him, cannot breathe. Once they return to the Château, she takes a handful of wine-dark cherries from him in mute acceptance; but she turns and walks purposefully in the opposite direction, so he will not see her eat them. He does not call after her. Wherever he will not go, she tells herself, I will. And the front door takes her not to the foyer, as she’d expected, but instead back to the courtyard with the golden statue.
They have missed luncheon, it seems. It is now late afternoon, and the mist is finally starting to clear. Behind it the sky emerges an insistent blue, the same colour as the enamel on the hairpin Saliha Sultan gave her. Genevieve stomps down the path with her skirts gripped between her fingers and her heart battering her ribs, and then she must stop when she sees a figure standing in front of the statue.
It is Mattias Kurki, in the same ill-fitting suit he was wearing the previous day. Genevieve wonders if she ought to conceal her presence, but it is too late; he has heard her steps on the gravel, and he whirls around to stare at her.
‘Did you follow me here?’ he demands, advancing towards her.
She shrinks back. ‘I swear, monsieur, I did not. The Château brought me to you. I do not know why.’
Kurki stops halfway up the path, one foot forward, a tiger about to lunge. He holds himself with such tension it seems to defy physiology: arms limp yet also coiled, veins straining in his hands and neck. His jacket seam is near to ripping over the curve of his back. Genevieve considers this, considers the way his trousers are pulling at his thighs. She notes that his boots are unusually scuffed, made of a different leather to his belt.
She realises, with sudden clarity, that his clothes are not his own.
‘Has the Company provided you with attire, monsieur?’ she asks him, fingers twitching around the fan in her pocket. She makes her voice as sweet and light as she can, looking at him through her eyelashes, her lips carefully arranged in a minute smile—the picture of polite flirtation. ‘They did so for me, and I must say it all fits very well.’
Kurki is disarmed. He shuffles a little in place, shoulders pulling back. ‘I did not trust the clothes.’
‘They did not fit?’
‘They did,’ he replies. ‘That is why I do not trust them.’
‘I understand,’ she says breathlessly, although she is not certain she does. Carefully, gently, she takes a step to the side, leaning against a column to allow him space to exit. ‘Please, do not allow me to delay you. Or would you rather I leave, and provide you with some privacy?’
‘I’ll go,’ he says gruffly. He marches forward, boots hitting the tiles that mark the entrance to the building. Then he stops and turns to look at her.
Genevieve is now distinctly aware of the column at her back, keeping her trapped between it and Kurki. She could spin round it, she supposes, if he tries anything—but he is so much larger than her, so much stronger, that she doubts escape would be feasible. She resists the impulse to drop her mask of etiquette, jab a hand into his stomach, and flee the courtyard. He will catch her. She must be clever this time.
She opens her fan, hoping he cannot see how her hand is shaking, and she waves it idly over her face. ‘Might I help you with something, monsieur?’
‘Do you know who I am?’ he asks her, and it is not a threat, necessarily—not an expression of anger—but rather a genuine question. His voice trembles, and Genevieve sees that this is not a man accustomed to lying, that his curtness has been a tactic to hide his deceit.
‘I do not,’ she replies.
It is only once his lip twitches, as if in pain, that she realises this was the wrong answer. Her nervousness has made her reckless; she ought to have said Mattias Kurki, of course—but she had only meant to reassure him of his anonymity. Now she has confirmed that she knows he is lying, and that confirmation hangs in the air between them like a noose.
He reaches out for her with one hand. Genevieve does not know what he intends to do, nor does she care to discover it. She sees, in his looming figure, inchoate memories become once more reality—she sees the darkness and the men and the carriage and the girl in the amaranth dress—oh, God, the girl in the pink dress, what did they do to her, what have they done—
Genevieve runs. She ducks beneath Kurki’s arm, dropping her fan, and stumbles into the Château. Behind her, she hears a curse in another language; she hears the pounding of boots against gravel, then tile. She continues to run, and she does not look behind her. She lurches through a corridor of purple-green vases teetering on mahogany stands, one smashing to the ground with the drag of her skirts, and bursts into the vast, gaping space of the dining hall, now being cleaned by a gaggle of green-liveried servants. In this room, with its vaulted ceiling, Genevieve can hear the echo of her footsteps and the gasping of her breath, as loud as a symphony. She stumbles around the servants, and then almost collides face-first into the back of a maid, dropping her fan in her shock.
She hears the main doors open behind her to herald Kurki’s arrival. ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ she gasps, trying to spin to the side of the servant—and then she makes the mistake of looking at her face. It is Saliha Sultan. Her hair has been scraped back into a bun, and her expression is glazed and uncomprehending. She wears a simple maid’s dress with an apron, and she holds a cleaning rag in one hand.
‘Mademoiselle,’ she says, curtseying, and steps back. ‘May the Company assist you?’
Genevieve’s gorge rises. She fears she will soon vomit. ‘Mademoiselle!’ she hears Kurki call from behind her, but panic is shoving her forward, urging her to escape. She runs once more, the woman who was once Saliha watching her.
Genevieve surges out of the dining hall, into the corridor with the cloud-painted doors at its end. Her lungs are burning, her feet chafing in their silk slippers, her throat sore from gasping. Genevieve lunges for the doors, thinking to make her escape into the forest. Perhaps Monsieur Kurki will give up the pursuit, and then she might avoid him for the remainder of the auction. When the doors open, she falls into fresh, cool air and the sunshine of the alpine spring—but cruelly, impossibly, there is no longer the path or the gate. Instead, she finds herself in the main section of the gardens, with its neat and orderly rows of flowers, rose-crowned trellises, and marble statues.
In the distance Genevieve can see the lion fountain that lies beneath her balcony. There is no one visible, but if this fountain is beneath her chambers, surely it is within hearing distance of the other chambers on the third floor. If she screams there, perhaps some of the other guests will come to her aid. As she rushes towards the fountain, she crushes porcelain beneath her feet, her neck and face flushing with exertion, the fabric of her dress sticking to her back.
The fountain is not running today; instead, in the lion’s open mouth, the water is stagnant, overlaid with a thin film of green algae. She stops beside it, gasping, knowing from the burn in her sternum that further flight will be futile. And when she turns, the man who is not Mattias Kurki is only a few paces away, clearly hardly bothered by the chase. He has no colour in his cheeks and his breathing appears normal.
‘Keep away from me,’ Genevieve says. She has forgotten how to speak softly, to speak correctly—she spits the words out, Provençal accent returning, no hint of a whisper in her voice.
‘I frightened you,’ he replies. ‘Listen, I—’ He swears once more. ‘My French is not very good.’
Genevieve has nothing to defend herself with apart from Saliha Sultan’s dagger-shaped hairpin, and it remains in her chambers. She steps back, the stone lip of the fountain brushing against her skirts.
‘The invitation was for my master, not me,’ Not Kurki says, and Genevieve pauses. ‘That is my secret. I’m certain, whatever yours is, it is better than that.’
