The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,70

forgotten about, the woman he'd left behind in an Awakener hermitage without a second thought? This was the one whose letters he'd been ignoring? What was wrong with him?

She presented her hand. He stared at it for a few moments before realising what he was supposed to do, then raised it to his lips and kissed it.

'Come inside, please,' she said.

He followed, dazed, wrongfooted by the change in her. She was confident where before she'd been arrogant. Assured where she'd been spoiled. She'd grown to suit her new role quickly and well.

The entrance hall was colossal, with a curving staircase of polished stone. Thin pillars drew the eye to the arched moulding on the ceiling. Valuable urns rested on pedestals with the casual precariousness only found in houses that didn't have dogs or children in them.

A manservant stood by the doors to a drawing room. He opened them and Amalicia led Frey through into a beautiful room with gold-chased panelling and a fireplace that would embarrass a duke. Settees and divans were arranged near a side table of sweetmeats and refreshments. A servant was pouring tea as they entered.

Amalicia clapped her hands. 'Leave us,' she said. 'Darian and I have a lot of catching up to do.' The servant scurried out, and the handsome manservant pushed the doors closed. As he did so, Frey caught his gaze. The manservant winced in sympathy, and then the doors clicked shut.

Frey didn't like that wince. He had a dreadful premonition of what was coming. He turned around to see Amalicia advancing on him with terrible purpose, her serene, aristocratic smile turned to an ugly snarl. 'Now wait a mi—' he began, but he was interrupted by the heel of her riding boot connecting with his jaw hard enough to send him tumbling over the back of a settee.

He was still seeing stars as she pulled him up by the collar of his shirt. Where was the pretty, cultured lady of a moment ago? Surely she couldn't be this rabid harpy, drawing back a bunched fist to drive into his eye socket?

'Where . . . were . . . you?' she screeched, punctuating each word with a savage strike to the face. 'Where . . . were . . . you?'

'Will you let me explain?' he spluttered. A couple of his teeth felt loose.

'No! You always do that! You explain, and I stop being mad, and I forgive you and then you leave me again! You're a liar, Darian. A damned liar!'

'I never lied to you!' he lied.

She stared at him, open-mouthed, and then kicked him between the legs. 'Don't you dare try and weasel out of this one! Don't you dare!'

He barely heard her words. They seemed to come from a great distance away, floating through a fog of perfect agony. There was a strange, sad void in his lower belly, a grey pall of aching misery, as if his guts were attending the funeral of his reproductive system.

'Why weren't you there when I got out of that hermitage, Frey?' she demanded. 'Where was my dashing buccaneer lover waiting to sweep me off my feet? What about all those things you said?'

Frey tried to protest that she wouldn't have got out of there at all if not for him, but the only noise that emerged was a shrill whimper at a pitch audible only to bats.

'Not a word! For a year!' Amalicia shrieked. 'Don't even pretend you didn't get my letters, Frey! I sent them everywhere!'

Frey held up a hand and swallowed against a hard lump in his throat that may or may not have been one of his own testicles. 'I thought . . .' he croaked. 'I thought . . .'

'Thought what? Thought I'd forgotten your promise? Thought I'd forgotten that you said you'd marry me?'

Technically, Frey had done no such thing, but he thought it unwise to argue the point, given his present situation. 'I thought . . . you'd reject me.'

'You thought what?'

He caught his breath. The ache in his groin was a little less unbearable now, enough that he could manage a coherent sentence. 'I thought I wasn't good enough for you.'

'Oh, that's just rubbish!' Amalicia scoffed. 'What an excuse!'

'Look around you!' he said, swinging out an arm. 'You see? Look at what you have! You're a lady. Sure, you loved me when your father was alive. What better way to piss off Daddy than by hitching up with some lowlife freebooter, right? But the game's changed now.