Hello and welcome to my 2023 reading wrap up! A big Thank You to everyone who followed my ramblings throughout the year! <3 I will continue through 2024. Maybe I'll learn how to write proper reviews, at least I'll try to remember better what I actually want to say about the stories.
In 2022, I read 93 books plus my own. Guess how many it were in 2023? 93 plus my own!! xD That was huge coincidence and I love it.
Of these 94 books, 4 are rereads (which won't be included in the "Favourite" sections), 2 are non-fiction, 11 are non-queer. I only DNFed 1 book (which is not pictured) and other than that I only disliked 6 books! (And it's a pretty soft dislike in comparison. I don't hate them nearly enough to want to shit on them again. :'D).
So on the the awards!
Most Read Author:
KJ Charles (8 books)
Least Favourite Book:
Daresh (Katja Brandis) (the one I could not finish for dear life)
Favourite Character:
Brand (The Tarot Sequence) and Will (The Will Darling Adventures) (yes, there's a trend)
Favourite Covers (of books I read, not releases):
(There were too many. D:)
Highest Emotional Investment (aka The Agony, the suffering, the why you do this to me Award):
Dark Heir - The Scottish Boy - In Memoriam
Wildest Story:
The Adventures of Pinocchio
Favourite Books:
The Devil's Luck (L.S. Baird)
The Scottish Boy (Alex de Campi)
In Memoriam (Alice Winn)
Just Lizzie (Karen Wilfried)
Dark Heir (C.S. Pacat)
The Will Darling Adventures (KJ Charles)
Gwen & Art are not in Love (Lex Croucher)
The Buried and the Bound (Rochelle Hassan)
More Books I enjoyed greatly:
Oracle of Senders series (Mere Joyce)
Of Feathers and Thorns (Kit Vincent)
Wren Martin Ruins it all (Amanda deWitt)
Simon Snow series (Rainbow Rowell)
The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley (Shaun David Hutchinson)
The Tarot Sequence (K.D. Edwards)
The First and Last Adventure of Kit Sawyer (S.E. Harmon)
Sixteen Souls (Rosie Talbot)
By any Other Name (Erin Cotter)
The High King's Golden Tongue (Megan Derr)
and more!!
Most Used Name:
I counted names last year and didn't want to do it again this year because I read so much fantasy, so the names were all over. Still, there was one who stood out amongst them all with at least 4 instances, if not more. Probably more.
Will
Congratulations.
I have to admit, I've always liked that name. My favourite character of all times and part of my one and only OTP is named Will as well and I kinda hope the last book of their second trilogy never comes because it will probably make me scream and ... ...
Bonus!
This year, I counted pages! Because I felt that most books were much shorter than what I read before. So I wanted to know. Turns out, my feeling was wrong. My 93 books had a whole of 33011 pages which results in approximately 350 pages per book. That's pretty normal I dare say.
That's it for 2023!
I had a very good year in books. I wanted to read less actually, and failed spectacularly because I had too much fun. And if anyone's wondering how I read so much, I read fast and I just didn't do anything else in my free time. Escapism to the max.
I hope, the new year treats you well! I hope, you have fun with the books you read! Let's meet again soon! <3
Like my fanfic? Then check out my BRAND NEW original novel THE DEVIL’S LUCK, now available on Amazon! Featuring amazing cover art by Stefmasc!
Read it now on any device with a kindle app for only $4.99, or check out the first few chapters FOR FREE over on my original writing tumblr: lsbaird.tumblr.com!
My March was filled with books about gay magical boys and enbys and it's the best state of existence to be in. Absolute bliss. Why are books so much fun?!
Also despite everything I said in January, I ended up spending way too much time on reading. But. This month was so good. So good! If I had to go back in time and start from the beginning I wouldn't mind at all. xD
The Devil's Luck (L.S. Baird): Found this thanks to a recommendation list of aromantic books. And what a blast! The first arc was such a delight! Etienne is great! <3 It shifts in tone afterwards but it's still engaging with charming characters and adventure and intrigue. I love everything about this book. I wish there was a paper edition so that I could hug it close, put it in my bookshelf and stare at it for 20 minutes every other day. yAy (I actually made a fanart.)
Of Feathers and Thorns (Kit Vincent): I see a pretty cover with a decent blurb and a review complaining that it's not romancy enough I know I found my book. xD I loved this. Such a good time. See, these are some sensible boys. First, they save the world, then they make out. As it should be. Thank you. Also Oi. He has a very cute voice inside my head. And once I remembered about the pie-eating homunculi of Atelier Shallie now I can't unsee the image. Speaking of pies. Isn't Kieren the most charming boy to settle into a new house by cooking for its residents?
In Memoriam (Alice Winn): Picked this one up on a whim because it sounded tragic. And goddamn. I couldn't read another book for 5 days afterwards because my heart was still in pieces. I don't have the words to properly express everything I loved about this book (which is everything). It's just really, really good. It hurts and it’s beautiful at the same time. There’s sweetness and tenderness next to gruesome deaths, desperation and “why would they do that?!”. You can see how the characters fall apart and rebuild themselves. If you can stomach war cruelties and suffering boys, I cannot recommend this enough.
The Wicked Bargain (Gabe Cole Novoa): I enjoyed this one. Pirates! Magic! Demons! This is one of those books I feel even more positive about now that some time has passed (the opposite can happen as well). My only small gripe with the story is how Mar in the first third doesn't do anything to push the plot forward. They want to save their father but hardly do anything to get there. If not for the other characters pushing and nagging nothing would have happenend at all. :'D But! I like Mar and I very much appreciate them not being stupid. Like the classic "Oh someone told me not to do something? So I of course I'm doing it!" Not Mar. Their papà made a mistake so they are intend to not make the same. Good kid. It's just that that doesn't help to move things forward. xD
Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow 3) (Rainbow Rowell): Haah. I think, I liked the series better with each volume. I wonder if that is because it actually got better or because I finally got to know the characters and could enjoy them more. See, I've said it before, the first volume feels like a season ending without having seen the series until then. Now, after volume 3 I feel I could start with vol1 again and maybe appreciate everything a little more, because now I know everyone. Needless to say, I had fun! And it was so nice to see Simon grow and finally find his place.
The Heart of The Lost Star (Tales of the High Court 3) (Megan Derr): I like the worldbuilding of this series and the recurring characters. Now this particular volume is not something I would have picked up as a stand-alone or series starter, because children and pregnancy really aren't a thing I would choose to read about. That being said I did enjoy reading this because of everything else around (volume 1 is still my favourite. Having Allen in here made me want to go back there and read his story again.) Kamir is a pleasant character and there's stuff like a court procedure over child custody which is among the last things I would have expected in my fantasy book, but a nice change!
Heart, Haunt, Havoc (Freydís Moon): What? Another book I bought just because of the pretty cover? How dare you say that! uAu" Not true!!
After the many slow-burns this month this one is so fast with its romance that I'm once again left wondering "is this really how it works?" xD It's ok though, I don't mind it in this case. I liked the story and the setting and the character backgrounds. The book is also really short at about 150 pages, so there's hardly reason not to read it.
The Left Hand of Darkness/Die Linke Hand der Dunkelheit (Ursula K. Le Guin): Ha! No pretty cover here. And surely I'm not just deciding do read a book because I saw one single pretty fanart of it. No no, not me, ever. (Definitely me.) It certainly felt different from what I usually read. Maybe because of the time it was written, maybe because of the genre which I rarely read or maybe just the author's style, probably all of it. I don't think I understood everything. Books like these usually have layers, right? Things told between the lines. I have a strong feeling, I missed some of that but that's alright. I did enjoy reading it. In the end, it was strangely moving. So I'll just fondly reread it in a year or two. :) (I read the all newly translated German edition and it made me wonder at certain points how it was translated originally and how it was written originally. The new translator Karen Nölle will be attending a convention in my city in May, where I’ll be having an artist alley table. I wonder if I can make it to her panel ...)
Prince of the Sorrows (Rowan Blood 1) (Kellen Graves): I picked this up last summer already and then put it down again after reading a few pages. It has a lot of descriptions and a lot of words, which are admittedly very pretty, but also very many. 8D (I get tired of descriptions easily.) Once I got past the opening pages, it quickly gripped me though. The story turned out to be much more than I expected. Like the scope of what's going on and how the love story is much sweeter than it seems at first. It's interesting! It also ends right in the middle of everything, which is something I didn't have in a long time (usually, my series have one adventure per volume)! Glad, the sequel is already out.
The Last Fallen Star (Graci Kim): I decided to read this after Aru Shah ended last year and I needed to fill my Middle Grade shaped hole. (Since I started Keeper of the Lost Cities as well, I guess, that hole will stayed filled for quite a while. :'D) The premise is interesting, the execution ... hm. It's far from the fun that Aru is. But I also listened to the audiobook and as I'm still bad with those that might be reason it didn't resonate with me as much. The thing that annoyed me the most was Riley lying for so long to her friend and even worse to the face of a goddess?! Like ... wow. 8D You summon a goddess who asks the truth of you so she can save your sister und you dare to lie to her?? I'm not okay with this. "8D It got better from there on though and I am actually very interested in the sequel (I will read this instead of listening. I learned my lesson.)
Falling for You (Katharina B. Gross): I got this book for free in exchange for review on that German Goodreads ripoff site. But when I'm asked beforehand to write a real review with sensible thoughts I get real picky while reading. Like with bad books where you start to notice every little nasty detail? I do that. It's not really fun. "8D So half the stuff that irked me I probably wouldn't have had a second thought about when reading normally. So the book was fine. Nothing great but easy enough to read. (Also after reading a really bad book later, I found that this one really has some good points.)
With everything I read the month felt really long. But it was also interesting, because in every book there's something that connects it to the next (want to know some? Two Bas/zes, shitty ex-husbands, magical tattoos, slaying demons and devils, too much magic for one person, graverobbing ...). And thanks to that, for the first time maybe, I could see clearly books that did certain things well against others who did the same things not so well. My first April book was a total letdown (in points of worldbuilding and romance among others) and having it in comparison to all the good March books is so intruiging.
I read The Devil’s Luck by L.S. Baird and had such a tremendous good time that I actually felt the urge to express a fraction of my love beyond words. Here are the two protagonists Etienne and Frey! (Also I can’t believe I forgot the D’Grassa ...)
I hardly ever make fanart because I can never capture everything I want and end up with nothing in the end. So for once I decided to push through because “something that isn’t perfect” is better than “nothing at all”, right? :)
First things first: I’m moving the book release date forward a little to mid-November. I really wanted to have it out before Halloween, and that probably would have worked in any year but this one. In order for this book to be up to my quality standards it needs a little more time with my editing team, and currently, due to unrelated events, my editing team is on fire. After the first week in November things will be back on track for them and the book.
To apologize for the delay (and make sure I stay on the new schedule), I’m going to be previewing a chapter a week until the book’s out! So while this might not be quite the immediate diversion from, you know, everything, that I hoped it would be, diversion is still underway!
But chasing after diversions can be dangerous when the Devil is involved, as you’ll see...
He hadn’t expected the Devil Himself to answer.
Lord Evern Reichwyn, of Chancelion, in Easting, wasn’t even sure that he believed in such things at all. He certainly didn’t believe in them ten seconds ago. For that, Evern felt he could hardly be blamed; it was such a commonplace blasphemy that the Devil would have been hard put to answer his summonses all the time. When the cloaked stranger suddenly appeared in his game room to answer to his challenge, Evern had a moment of doubt as regards supernatural powers, but it didn’t last. He was, after all, fantastically drunk.
He felt he couldn’t be blamed for that, because it wasn’t like there was anything else to do. Chancelion had seemed a prize indeed when he won it that spring, with its fine manor house and extensive lands. The card game, an all-night affair in which everything from lands to horses to titles changed hands over the course of the night, went down in legend almost immediately. Evern swept the lot, and felt he was set for life and could ask for nothing else. The summer had been spent in jolly, raucous company with all the kinds of friends that are very easy to acquire and equally quick to vanish. And vanish they did, when the Easting countryside showed its true temper, and the hills closed in against the winter. The temperate south was the natural destination for the rich and dissolute in the colder months, and Evern’s fellow wastrels had all gone to partake in the delights of carnival season in Ivanis City or Isaldore. But Evern was lord of the Manor now, and determined to stick it out.
And so that was also how he came, on a midwinter’s night, to be alone in his game room, a number of bottles of claret for the worse, declaring aloud to nobody but his own portrait that he’d welcome the Devil Himself for a game of cards.
And at that, with no fire or brimstone or other cheap theatrics, the Devil Himself was there.
Evern boggled a moment, but only a moment. The autumn and winter had been long and lonely. He was not a man familiar with loneliness, and did not handle it well. But he was familiar with drink, and that he could handle. In fact, he’d handled a good portion of the wine cellar that very evening, and a few empty bottles clinked around his boots as he rose to welcome his guest. He had no doubt whatsoever that the tall figure in the traveling cloak and hat was a particularly vivid hallucination. He’d seen worse before.
“My dear fellow,” Evern said, sketching an untidy bow that was the final straw for his long-suffering hair ribbon, “I bid you a most warm welcome to Chancelion. Do step up to the fire, for indeed it is a bitter night.”
“I am not cold,” the Devil said, and instead it was Evern who went cold, somewhere down in his belly, at the sound of the stranger’s voice. “I come from colder climes.”
Evern started to laugh, but the stranger did not, standing there by the green tapestry settee with his cloak faintly steaming around him. Instead he turned it into a cough, and raked his straggling gold hair from his eyes. “All the same, I did offer you my hospitality, and I would hate to be seen as a poor host.”
The Devil looked at him, unanswering. It was only then that Evern got a good look at the man’s face, and saw that it was own, right off his portrait on the wall. Delirium tremens seems a little short on imagination this evening, he thought, to push away more unsettling thoughts, and he rummaged in the cut crystal mayhem of his drinks cabinet until he found a decanter of brandy. It was empty. “What shall it be, then? Dice? Darts? I’ve a simply marvelous set, mother-of pearl inlay, that I won from—”
“Cards,” The Devil said, and moved soundlessly across the carpet like a dense fog rolling down a hillside. “The game is cards, as you offered.”
“Oh, quite good,” Evern said, and found a bottle of wine that had rolled under the settee instead. “Best of three hands? What stakes? We could start with a—”
“One hand,” the Devil said, and sat down at the table. His fingers were very long and thin. “Win, and I will make you the luckiest man in Verlia. You’ll never lose another game.”
“Sounds monstrously boring,” Evern said, filling two glasses. “I’m already quite a lucky man, as you can see.”
The Devil stared at him with pale, unblinking eyes. “I see. Whatever you wish, then.”
“Against?”
“Whatever I wish.”
Evern let this slosh around in his brain a moment. There was already a good quantity of liquor sloshing around in there, and getting this new ingredient to mix in was proving troublesome. But beyond his own inebriation, he felt the first pleasant tingles of a gamble. Of course, he would win against his own imagination. He squinted at the Devil, who went in and out of focus, but showed no signs of vanishing. “Done, then!” he declared, and put the glasses on the table.
The devil smiled.
And a few minutes later, when the cards were down, he was still smiling.
“Oh, well then,” Evern said, with the faintest trace of a frown as he looked at his losing hand. It would have won against almost anything—anything except the sparkling array of aces on the Devil’s side. “Bad luck, eh?”
“Not for you,” the Devil said, and his smile split his imitation of Evern’s face clean in two. “Not ever again.”
And with that, the Devil shed his disguise.
Evern’s mind reeled, uncomprehending, at the horror before him. He staggered to his feet, to fight or to flee he did not know and never would. The creature in the other chair raised a shadowy arm and red threads of agony arrested Evern in mid-motion, lacing over and into him like cord around a witch’s poppet. Screaming, he looked again at the two hands of cards, as if that would change the outcome, and for a single second his thoughts and his vision were both utterly clear. The deck he had dealt out had a printer’s thumbprint smudge on the ace of crowns, just a little blot of ink to the left of the design. Evern knew it as well as he knew the veins on the back of his hand. But the card the Devil had played in his winning hand was clean.
Evern’s last sane thought was that the Devil had cheated.
Today’s update is something special: the cover art! I am beyond thrilled at my gorgeous cover by Stef Masciandaro, and I can’t wait to share THE DEVIL’S LUCK with all of you on November 30! Print editions to follow, so you can give a copy to literally everyone on your list.
A day late but hopefully not a dollar short! It was a deliberate delay, I think we could all use the distraction today, and if I’m looking at post notes I won’t be reloading the news. (Allow me a small interjection: Please please please go vote if you’re eligible. It is without a doubt the most important thing you can do today, and possibly this year. Already voted? Thank you!) Now let’s hunker down and hope for the best. I plan to make soup and play Hades, myself. But you get to remember today as the day you met your new favorite murderer: Etienne of the Order of the Crimson Seal.
Etienne Vynae Na'Gammon had endured considerable discomfort in the course of his long and shadowy career. He had spent long nights navigating steep and icy rooftops, he had waited out the tides while clinging to pilings beneath the city's piers, and on one (far too memorable) occasion he had traveled down the canals in an olive barrel. In his crowning achievement he had even covered himself in plaster and posed—quite successfully and for several hours—as a garden statue in the middle of a widely-attended soiree. Many was the time he had been out and about the Order's business during the bleakest winter gale, when decent people shuttered their windows and were cozy in their beds. And yet, for all his ordeals, he had never encountered anything as devilishly uncomfortable as a single hour in this accursed carriage.
As if to punctuate the thought, the carriage hit a yet another canyon in the road, and Etienne pitched forward with a barely-contained oath. He’d been travelling now for four days, and he estimated he had spent at least a quarter of the journey suspended in mid-air inside the carriage, rattled around like the bead in a baby's rattle. He landed with a jolt and a groan as the wheels surmounted the crater and plunged gamely towards another. Then again, Etienne mused, maybe it’s not the carriage that’s to blame. Easting roads were not meant for lowland carriages, or for lowland assassins.
Massaging his side as he eased back onto the seat, Etienne drew back the curtain and peered out. A muddy, piney smell unfamiliar to the city-dweller seeped around the glass and crawled boldly into his nostrils. The light was fading fast, but even if it had been noon under the bluest sky, there would still be very little to see outside. Easting's countryside was naked under heaven, the bare bones of her hills clad only in the brief modesty of heather.
The sight of that vast nothingness, rolling interminably into the deepening dusk, made Etienne feel as exposed as a sinner's soul on the cold pan of St. Justicia's scale. There were no havens, no hiding-places on those moors, only sparse bursts of trees here and there, and those were already leaf-bare. The isolation of it struck an unfamiliar chord of loneliness within Etienne. He was sworn to do his duty for the sake of humanity in the broadest sense, but he enjoyed his own company best and had no great love for his fellow man. Under close examination he found most of them to be extremely irritating. Still, in Ivanis City, he knew how easy it was to be invisible in the crowd, he knew how to lose himself among the rooftops and canals. The city was no mere backdrop, it was a fundamental part of his art. If he could transform himself into a blade of grass or a gorse bush, he might have felt equally at home in Easting.
Even worse, his disguise was made to attract the eyes of others, to make him a focus of attention rather than to avoid it. Which was well and good for a distraction when distraction was called for, and quickly shed for comfortable anonymity. But there would be no shedding it now, not for some time. Ephaseus had said that the challenge would be a good thing for Etienne, and make him more well-rounded in his craft.
Etienne was as well-rounded as corsetry could make him, and so far, it had done very little for either his craft or his mood. For one thing, there was something off about the fit. Etienne could not understand the difficulty. The corset had been custom made for him, and had fit perfectly three years ago when he’d poisoned the Viscount of Brinesgreene at a dinner party. But then, that was only for one evening, and his victim was dead before the soup course was finished. It was simply a matter of having to wear it longer and while traveling, Etienne concluded, and there was no other reason (certainly not a reason in the form of numerous ginger biscuits), that it did not fit now. True, the stays of the garment were sterner than fashion demanded, as Etienne's slim steel throwing blades were sheathed between the whalebone, and most ladies already possessed at least a semblance of the curves that Etienne's corset was forcing upon him, but he couldn’t quite fathom the cause. Bad luck, that was all.
The carriage shuddered again, knocking Etienne's forehead against the glass and then sending him in a heap of rumpled skirts to the carriage floor, and this time he indulged in some heartfelt profanity. The carriage slowed, and for a moment he thought his outburst had actually reached the ears of the coachman. But a quick glance outside revealed the first man-made structure Etienne had seen for miles: thorny black iron gates looming up out of the darkness. They had reached the edge of Chancelion.
The gate was lodged in the low hummock of some feudal earthworks that had once enclosed the property, which years ago had been the ancestral seat of some forgotten and long-dissolute noble line. It was Chancelion now, named so by Lord Evern Reichwyn decades ago when he won the whole pile in a game of hazard, and took a fancy to the marble cats perched on the gate. That was the first of Lord Reichwyn’s two legendary card games, a tale still told even as far away as Ivanis City. The second game was even more famous… and had not gone quite so well.
“Miss Elsa Lenoir,” the coachman said, as the gatekeeper approached the twin pools of light cast by the carriage lanterns.
The gatekeeper lifted his shaggy eyebrows and cast a fleeting glance to the window of the carriage. He was too interested in getting back to his warm apartment in the gate to stand and stare for long, however, and Etienne, in his guise as a lady of quality, stared gravely forward into the middle distance without taking note of him. The gatekeeper attended to his duty, the carriage wheels rolled onto the blissful smoothness of fresh gravel, and Etienne's mission at last unfolded before him in shades of greenish gray.
Now in the distance he could see the black shadows of trees, the timber hills a dark stain on the edge of the pale moor. The wind carried their soughing along with the low, aching cry of a wolf. Etienne frowned at the thought of wolves prowling the countryside. An extra factor to consider, without a doubt. When he was obliged at last to make his escape, he decided he would do so on the fastest horse he could steal.
“Almost there, ma'am,” the coachman called back, startling Etienne from his unpleasant reverie on snapping wolf-jaws. “Less than 'alf a mile.”
Etienne steeled himself to his task. There was a difficult task between him and his freedom, and his frequent trips to the carriage floor had knocked his wig askew. A few minutes' maintenance restored the glossy black curls to their proper places on his shoulders, some repeated pinching forced maidenly color back into his cheeks. His kohl would have to do as it was; Etienne was skilled at the art, but did not trust himself with anything so delicate inside the dark, rattling carriage. A brief inspection in the small hand-mirror pinned to his skirts presented him as a passable version of the portrait miniature Ephaseus had painted, with the exception of the peeved expression. Etienne forced his eyebrows up to get rid of the frown line between them.
The lady-to-be of Chancelion would be fatigued from the trip, and perhaps a little anxious, but she would be excited to meet her future husband for the first time. And who could blame her? Lord Freyton Reichwyn Landry was a bastard, and only recently had he been tracked down as the heir to his great-uncle's property. But he was young, handsome, beloved by his tenants, and fabulously rich. Elsa, on the other hand, had a bloodline that was beyond reproach, but she was a pauper and an orphan, dependent on her wealthy city relations for her room and board. She had little for her dowry save her name, and a ruined family castle that stood derelict and bat-infested in a part of Easting even more remote than Chancelion. Elsa needed a rich husband to save her an endless string of aunts, and Lord Reichwyn needed nothing save for a bit of blue blood to improve his standing among the gentry.
As a match it was absolutely ideal, save for the trifling detail that Etienne was not Elsa Lenoir, and he was determined to murder his bridegroom before the week was out.
One can't have everything in an arranged marriage, Etienne thought, with a dark chuckle, and checked his glass again. He couldn’t help feeling that he was a bit of a step-up on the original. He much resembled the real Elsa Lenoir—who had been selected as much for that reason as for her suitability—with the exception, Etienne presumed, of murderous intent. She was presently socked away with a pious spinster Aunt in the city. Etienne had seen her on a few occasions and knew her well enough, but their social circles did not often overlap. She spent her days attending only the most respectable soirees and the most moral theatre, and would probably be teaching embroidery at a convent school long before word of her ill-fated engagement ever reached the city. It would no doubt be the most mysterious puzzle of what Etienne suspected would be a thoroughly dull life.
The Order had, of course, considered completely inventing a bride from whole cloth, but an unknown woman of mysterious origin would attract the curiosity of the whole district. But a real and boring one, with a family name everyone has heard somewhere, would be no more than a passing novelty, at least for long enough to serve the Order’s purposes. Etienne tugged his glove further up his arm, though his tattooed wrist was well-concealed by kid leather. When this was done, no trace would be found. Not of the ersatz Elsa, or of her doomed bridegroom. They would fade into the legend as a footnote of that second card game, and only the Order would know the truth of it.
An inviting light glowed beyond the curtains, and Etienne felt the first, long-belated tingling of anticipation for his task. He had no love of killing for its own sake, but he was a man of principles, and he took his craft very seriously. The disposal of his betrothed was only the final flourish in a long, precise dance. First, he would win over the butler, with the charm of a noble lady that had been so wanting (so Lord Reichwyn's letters had said) in Chancelion. From there it was a simple step-by-step acquisition of the hearts of the whole household, and Etienne knew full well that once you had the confidence of the domestics, the rest was as easy as filching cakes from an open pantry. And once the business was done, Elsa would vanish like the mirage she was.
The coachman cooed a relieved noise to his horses, the wheels slowed, and Etienne took a deep breath. Elsa had arrived. The curtain was rising, and he affected an air of weariness mingled just so with trepidation, and a tiny sprinkle of glowing excitement. It was a combination sure to win the affection of Lord Reichwyn's butler the moment the kind old soul opened the door. But when he stepped out of the carriage and onto his stage, Etienne got his first unpleasant surprise of the evening.
There was no kindly old butler there, ready to have his heart melted by the gentle beauty of his new mistress. There wasn't even a crotchety retainer whose heart couldn't be melted even if it was dropped into a forge. No, there in the rain at the folding steps of the coach was none other than Lord Freyton Reichwyn Landry himself, the Scion of Chancelion, as though he was no better than the footman. He was clear-eyed and handsome in a friendly, effortless way as he held out a warm cloak for his bride-to-be, and he wore a look of concerned relief that was unfairly earnest.
This, Etienne thought, with a sudden and grim foreboding, is going to be difficult.
“Here you are at last!” Lord Reichwyn exclaimed, as though Etienne was a favorite sister who had spent too long at the county fair, and not a young noblewoman he had never met. “I've been worried sick—mind the puddle, there—all afternoon. Beastly weather for travel, and no mistake. The streams are all in full flood, and Alfred's horse-cart lost an axel in the mud today. I was afraid you'd meet worse trouble out on the moors after dark. I was just getting ready to go out after you myself.”
“It was a bit trying,” Etienne admitted, keeping his voice in the warm middle tones that he had decided best suited the demure Miss Lenoir. “But I felt it best to press on, since I… didn't wish to wait any longer to get here,” Etienne finished, at last. It was a weak reason, but he hoped girlish excitement could excuse it. Etienne was no expert on girlish excitement; his usual feminine persona was much more the quiet and murdery type. He thought it probably felt sort of like having to sneeze, but being startled halfway and not managing to get it out. He felt that way now, itchy and tingly in his spine, but he blamed the corset.
Etienne blamed lots of things on the corset.
“The bridge at Keeston washed away,” Lord Reichwyn continued, bundling Etienne up into the cloak and drawing the fur collar snugly around his shoulders. “You only must have just made it across before the river took it down.” His bride-to-be secured, Freyton leaned up into the carriage and emerged with Etienne's small personal case in his hand. “Have you no other luggage, my lady?” he asked, looking around the empty compartment in confusion, as though there was a large trunk of dresses hiding somewhere and he'd missed it on the first pass.
Etienne fiddled with a glass-eyed ermine head on the cloak. “It's to come along later, along with my waiting maid.”
“They will both have to wait, I’m afraid,” Lord Reichwyn said, shaking his head as he shut up the carriage. “With Keeston-bridge gone, we won't be able to get a carriage from the Highroad until they can do repairs.”
Good work, Bruin, Etienne thought. Aloud, he made only a soft noise of concern, one that was eclipsed as his betrothed offered the coachman a room above the carriage house until the roads were passable again.
“Here,” Lord Reichwyn said, on turning around and finding his bride-to-be still staring pensively after the retreating coach. “Let's get inside before—”
With a sudden crackle of thunder, the drizzle became a downpour, and a deluge of icy rain poured down on them like a baptismal cataract. The curl in Lord Reichwyn's blond queue vanished in an instant, and the lace on the modest neckline of Etienne's gown lost all its starch as he struggled to get the hood of the cloak up over his wig. Lord Reichwyn took Etienne's elbow and towed him along towards the house. “Quickly now, my lady!”
They fled, skirting the puddles in the rutted gravel of the drive, and scrambling up the broad steps of the house. Once inside the ebony-paneled foyer, they shook rainwater off their clothes and last got a good look at one another.
“Your painter does not do you justice, my lady,” Lord Reichwyn said, with such wondering admiration that it could not be anything but honest. Etienne was thinking something along the same lines. The painter of Lord Reichwyn's portrait miniature had prettified him to city standards, obscuring the clean line of his jaw and falsely darkening the pale sweep of his lashes. His dripping hair and flushed face only enhanced his appearance as a prime sample of healthy Easting stock, a soft-spoken, broad-handed hero suitable for a syrupy novel by some love-starved city countess. Etienne, however, had not been so fortunate. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the dim hall mirror behind Lord Reichwyn, and found that instead of a quivering maiden in the blush of first love, the rain had turned him into a drowned badger in a soggy dress.
“You must jest, my lord,” he said, aghast. The careful pile of Lady Elsa's black curls had been plastered straight down against his face; all that remained of their former glory were limp twists at the end, dribbling rainwater down his cloak. His carefully applied kohl was smudged around his eyes, and the chill had swiped an unbecoming streak of red across his nose. The real Lady Elsa would have dropped dead of shame at being seen in such condition.
“I assure you, I don't,” his paramour replied, with a perfect bow that contrasted sharply with the spreading puddle of rainwater around his boots. “But please, you must call me Frey. I insist.”
At that moment the gruff old butler at last made his appearance on the scene, far too late for Etienne's carefully composed introduction. Considering the old man's pace, Etienne supposed he must have left the servant's quarters sometime early the day before. “Your rooms are prepared, my Lady,” he wheezed. “Will you be wanting some late supper?”
Etienne leaned on the elaborate newel post of the main staircase with an air of great weariness that was not entirely concocted. “I fear the journey has left me far too fatigued,” he breathed, fluttering his lashes a little. “I'm not at all used to such hard travel.” Frey, his attentive affianced, was at his side in a second.
“It must have been a dreadful journey, lady. You needn't make light of it. Easting is already bitter this time of year.” Frey placed an arm under Etienne's but kept a concerned, formal distance; common though his blood was, he would not impose himself on a lady's person.
Bastard, Etienne thought, uncharitably. If only Frey had been a repulsive cad right off the bat, with a leer in his eyes and groping hands, it would have been easier. Etienne knew this mission would be a challenge, his master had told him so. But Frey, so far, was the nicest fellow Etienne had met in the whole damn week. That took Etienne's task beyond a mere challenge and into farcical territory. Ephaseus, safe and warm back at Marlyon House in Ivanis City, was probably chortling into his tea at the thought of the whole lark.
“Lady?” Frey prompted, perhaps concerned by the audible gritting of Etienne's teeth, “are you quite sure you're well?”
“Ah, forgive me.” Etienne clutched Lord Reichwyn's arm with both hands, and struggled to inject a measure of gratitude into his smile. “You are too kind, sir.”
“Nonsense, I should have sent you straight up to bed at once, not made you stand around in wet things. You’ll catch your death.” Frey turned to his butler, who stood waiting attentively in his dusty black velvets, and plucked the candelabra from his hands. “Tobias, be a good man and have the cook send up some of her excellent potato soup and a pot of tea for Miss Lenoir. And none of you are to disturb her until she's rested.”
“At once, my lord,” Tobias bowed, and crept off to the kitchen at a snail's pace. Etienne would be lucky to get his supper before breakfast-time.
“It's only a short way,” Frey said, helping his lady up the stairs, his boots making damp prints on the thick carpet. “I've given you the tapestry room. It's a bit smaller than the traditional best guest room, but that's on the other side of the house and cold as a crypt.”
Etienne, getting a bit more into his role, answered in a plaintive sigh. “Oh, I would be happy with a hay bale in the barn now, my lord!”
Frey laughed as they came up onto the first-floor landing, and it was a friendly, open-handed sound. “I hope my hospitality is not so poor! And you must call me Frey. Everyone does. Except the servants, of course. One simply cannot make them listen to reason. But I haven't given up hope yet! Here we are.”
He opened a heavy rosewood door, and bowed his lady into her chamber. Etienne entered, and tried not to flinch. The room was furnished in an Easting show of wealth and luxury, which was, to Etienne’s taste, an eye-stabbing explosion of colors and textures. The bed, a vast antique fortress of carved oak large enough to sleep a family of bears, was stuffed to the brim with eiderdown, the pillows barely held in check by the red velvet bed-curtains. Only fragments of the parquet floor were visible under its coating of vivid rugs, and old-fashioned tapestries covered the walls, concealing the simple wood paneling. There were no less than six mirrors, each one encrusted with more gilt flourishes than the last, each reflecting the bright tapestries in a dizzying whirl. Etienne tried to imagine sleeping in such a cacophony of patterns and hues, and thought he'd rest better in the belly of a bagpipe.
Frey was undeterred as he surveyed the room. “Looks like Toby has a fire going, good. You should dry out thoroughly before retiring. It's so easy to catch a chill here. Will the room suit you?”
Etienne eyed an ostentatious gold cherub that was looming with ominous pudginess over the red and green enameled washbasin. “I'm sure I shall feel right at home,” he demurred.
“I do hope so,” Frey said, fervently. “It's a lovely view of the gardens in daylight, and—and I can't tell you how glad I am you're here at last.” He paused, and seemed to forget what else he was going to say, his pale blue eyes going soft as he looked at his future bride.
Etienne's scalp prickled under his wig; he wasn't quite prepared for this scene yet. Fortunately, he was spared further ardor by Tobias appearing with a tea-cart and her ladyship's minimal luggage, and Frey remembered how to speak.
“If you need anything at all, don't hesitate to ask,” he said, as his servant carefully removed the lids from the platters and laid out the silver. “Breakfast is at nine if you want to come down to the dining room, but if you wish to sleep longer, just ring for a servant when you're ready. I took the liberty of supplying your wardrobe with a few things, so I hope the delay of your trunks will not prove too troublesome. Shall I send one of the house maids to assist you?”
“I think I will be fine on my own.” Etienne held out his hand, and it was promptly accepted. “I'll have a little supper and then retire at once. Thank you for your kindness, my lord.”
Tobias discreetly withdrew as the lord of the manor bowed over Etienne's hand. “Frey,” he whispered in reminder, and brushed his lips over Etienne's gloved knuckles. His eyes met those of his presumed lady's, and the moment not only dragged, it dragged as though it had been lashed behind a team of mules and taken through the city square to the gallows. Etienne at last summoned a dismissive smile, Frey wished his lady good night, and the Lord of Chancelion hurried from the room as though pursued.
The latch clicked, and Etienne collapsed into a chair so appalling it would have sent the minister of the royal household screaming into the hills. Damn, if it wasn't as bad a start as he had ever done, Etienne thought dourly, peeling off his wet gloves. It was worse than the olive incident, and Etienne didn't even think that was possible. A lucky thing his lover was so smitten. Etienne could probably have turned up in jackboots and a beard without losing any of his betrothed's affections.
Damp skirts and the smell of hot soup forced him up again, and with a last suspicious glare at the cherub, he hurried to get himself undressed. All his clothes, including the corset, had been altered so that he could get in and out of them without help, and in doing so a few liberties had been taken with current city fashion. He had been worried that his slightly outdated stomacher and downright pious neckline might attract too much notice. He had no such concerns now. Etienne kicked off his petticoats and scowled at his loud bedchamber. This household wouldn't recognize good taste even if it was indecently assaulted by it in an alley.
The clock on his mantelpiece chimed ten o'clock and Etienne settled in the hideous armchair to eat his dinner, relaxing a little for the first time in the whole interminable journey. He only required a day or two to of reconnaissance, after which he could tiptoe down the corridor and murder his fiancée.
Mood considerably brighter at the prospect, he attended to his supper with pleasure.
