There, she’d said it. She held her breath, waiting for his reaction. But all he did was sigh again before he said, “You could have done so.”
She scoffed. “Annette said I’d have to give it up, that a husband will never allow it. If that’s the case, I simply won’t marry.”
She was relieved to hear him chuckle. “Stubborn, princess? Over trivialities?”
She loved when he called her by that endearment. It always made her feel special. She was glad that odd tension had left his demeanor, but she certainly didn’t consider any of this trivial. This was a turning point in her life they were discussing.
But he wasn’t finished. “I suppose I should have been more specific instead of just suggesting that you don’t need to follow the pack if you don’t want to. Alana, I didn’t want you to marry yet. I don’t care if it’s a social standard. You’re young. There was no hurry. And I wasn’t ready to face . . .”
“Losing me?” she guessed when he didn’t continue. “That won’t happen. But I really wish we’d had this talk sooner. I let all this converge on me as if there were a deadline on making a decision—today.”
She chuckled at herself, relieved, but only for moment. Poppie looked tense again. She realized two other things that brought back her own dread. He’d said she could have continued teaching, not that she could continue. And she’d just made an assumption when he’d taught her never to do that, and he’d let her because it was a way of delaying what he had to tell her. His momentous decision.
Hesitantly, hoping he’d deny it, she said, “None of this matters now, does it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I always knew this day would come, when I would have to tell you the truth. I thought I would have more time, a few more years at least. I thought you could have this introduction to society with your friends and simply enjoy it without feeling pressured about marriage. You’ve worked so hard at your studies, I wanted you to have a little fun and frivolity. I felt you deserved it. But I was taking a risk in allowing it.”
“A risk for me to have fun? That makes no—”
“No, a risk that despite my assurances that you didn’t have to think of marriage yet, some young man still might have caught your fancy at one of the many parties you were to attend. That would have forced my hand because your marriage is much too important to squander here.”
“Here? But you like the English! You raised me to be English. I’ve spent my whole life here, so where else would I marry—?” She cut herself off with a gasp. “Surely not Lubinia!?” He didn’t deny it, which made her incredulous enough to remind him, “When I asked you about our homeland, you said it was a backward country, nigh medieval in some ways, that we were lucky to escape it. You warned me never to tell anyone that we were born there, that we should say we are from Austria instead, because they’d end up looking down on us if they knew we were Lubinians. And I didn’t tell anyone the truth because even the one tutor I had who included Lubinia in my studies didn’t contradict what you said. He confirmed that it’s a backward country whose progress has been hindered by its isolation. You can’t possibly want me to marry there,” she ended with disdain.
He was shaking his head at her, but she knew immediately that it was because he was disappointed by the abhorrence she’d just revealed. “It’s highly doubtful that you will have to, but it’s not our decision to—” He stopped, waving that thought away to address her attitude. “I am surprised at you. From a few remarks you developed contempt for your own country?”
“That isn’t fair. You didn’t want me to even claim it as mine. What else was I to think?”
“There was a reason for that, and not the one I gave you. But I expected you to form your own opinion someday when you had more facts, when you could read about the beauty of the country and its culture that lies beyond its rough edges. Obviously it’s my mistake for not instilling in you some pride in our homeland sooner, and there is much to be proud of.”
“Perhaps—I overreacted,” she said, abashed.
He smiled at her with a light reprimand. “Yes, and to an issue that isn’t even an issue yet. You don’t need to think about a marriage that isn’t even remotely imminent. I only mentioned it to explain what would have eventually been the catalyst for this discussion. But something else has occurred recently and became the catalyst instead.”
She didn’t want to hear it when instinctively she knew what had changed his timing—he’d been told he was dying. He never dressed warmly enough when he went out, and he went out so often, to the orphanage, to the wine shop he owned; and at least once a week without fail, warm weather or cold, he took one of the orphans on a special outing. Oh, God, what had he caught that was killing him? He didn’t look sick. . . .
“I love you, princess. Never doubt that. But you and I aren’t family. We aren’t related at all.”
Her panic receded immediately. That news was—distressing, shocking. But it certainly wasn’t as bad as what she’d just been thinking. Was she the first orphan he’d helped? He’d helped so many, it wasn’t really surprising that he’d begun doing so by taking in one to raise.
“Did I really have to know that?” she asked.
“That is only a minor part of what I have to tell you.”
Oh, God, there was more? “Why don’t we have dinner first?” Alana quickly suggested.
He gave her a knowing look. “Calm yourself and don’t jump to any more conclusions. You know better.”
She blushed. These were things he’d taught her. Facts first. Intuition only as a last resort. And he was giving her facts. She just didn’t want to hear them!
Obviously he guessed as much because he remarked, “Before we got here, I actually thought about farming.”
That was so out of context, she blinked. Was he trying to distract her to calm her down? It worked—a little. But then it clicked. “Farmer isn’t your real name, is it?”
“No. But when we arrived in this bustling city, I realized the best way to hide us would be in plain sight right in the city, so I gave up any thoughts of farming. It was still a good name, solid, and it didn’t sound foreign. It fit in, just as we fit in.” He smiled when he added, “I did try gardening, though. I even found it rather peaceful for a few months, but then I gave it up.”
“Too boring compared to what you used to do?”
She was thinking of the wars he had fought in on the Continent. She had learned about so many wars when she’d studied the history of Europe.
“Perceptive of you. Good.” He paused for a moment, even cast his eyes down at the floor again. “I told you once that I killed people. You were rather young. You might not remember that, and it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat.”
“I remember. Why did you even tell me that?”
“You were a darling child, beautiful, inquisitive, and I was becoming much too attached to you. I threw it out there as a buffer, so you’d think about it and maybe come to fear me. But it didn’t work. No barrier formed between us. You were too trusting, and I was already too attached. I love you as if you were the daughter I never had.”
“I feel the same way, Poppie. You know that.”
“Yes, but that will change today.”
Her apprehension was back, a hundred times worse. Good Lord, what could he tell her that would make her stop loving him? She couldn’t voice the words to ask, and her mind jumped frantically ahead, but absolutely nothing occurred to her that would explain what he’d just said.
And he didn’t explain it either. He turned reflective instead. “I didn’t intend to raise you like this, you know. I had envisioned isolation, for your own protection, and so you would learn not to depend on others. But in the end, I couldn’t deny you a normal life. That may have been a mistake I’ll have to live with. But until you are settled, it is imperative that you trust no one.”
“Even you?”
“I believe I am the exception. I could never harm you, princess. Tha
t’s why you’re here.”
“What do you mean?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. She was reminded that he didn’t want to tell her these things, that something else was forcing this confession.
He gave her a direct look. “I told you I used to kill people. I was—”
“You just told me it was a lie,” she cut in sharply, “that you only said it to put distance between us and it didn’t work.”
“No, I didn’t say it was a lie, you chose a more palatable interpretation. The simple truth is, Alana, that I killed people for money. It was a lucrative career and one I was adept at because I had no care for my own life. I was an instrument of death for other people to wield, and I never failed a job I was hired for. My record was spotless. Not many hired assassins were as dependable as I was.”
Her mind was in absolute denial. He was describing someone else. Had he hurt his head? Could he not remember his real past?
“For whatever reason you believe you used to do this, it’s not true!”
“Why not?”
“Because you are a kind, caring man. You took in an orphan to raise. You have given others a chance for a decent life they wouldn’t have had without your help. You’re not a killer. Just because you know about weapons doesn’t make you a killer!”
He tsked. “Use the intelligence we have honed. It’s what I was. It’s not what I am now. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. I wish someone had killed me long ago, but I was too good. I wish I couldn’t remember my real past, but I do.”
She made a mewling sound. “You really did this?”
“It’s all right if you hate me now,” he said in a pained tone. “I have expected it.”
“I—I’m trying to understand how you could do this. Help me!”
He sighed. “I wasn’t going to share this, but perhaps you should hear how it began. My real name is Leonard Kastner. My family were winemakers. We grew grapes in the fertile mountain valleys of Lubinia. Ours had been a large family, but many members were old and died of natural causes before I was grown. But then my father was caught in an avalanche and my mother succumbed to an illness that same winter. There was grief, despair, but my brother and I continued on, or tried to. He was barely five years old, so of no real help. And nature conspired against us again. We lost the grapes that year, and our home, since we could no longer pay the rent to the nobleman who owned the land. He would have taken assurances from my father, but he wouldn’t from me.”
“What you’re describing is pitiful, but . . .”
He waited for her to finish that thought, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to condemn him out of hand, but how could she not? She slumped back in her chair, saying instead, “Go on, please.”
He nodded, but there was still silence. He was staring at the floor again, but sightlessly, the memories in his mind so obviously painful that tears formed in her own eyes.
She jumped to her feet. “Never mind. I will endeavor to try—”
“Sit down,” he snapped without looking at her.
She didn’t. Her only thought was to flee because she knew what was coming. He was going to tell her that he’d killed her family, had been paid to do it, and she feared what he was going to ask her to do. I wish someone had killed me long ago. Is that what he’d raised her for, why he’d trained her to use weapons? So she could avenge her parents’ honor and be the one to kill him?
Chapter Four
CALMLY THIS TIME POPPIE said, “Sit down, Alana. This tale is only half-done, and it will never be spoken of again. You helped me to bury it. You took away the nightmares. You gave me back my humanity. You deserve to know what you saved me from.”
Slowly, she took her seat again, but only because she was feeling faint. She felt sick to her stomach—oh, God! She’d thought she’d solve her own dilemma today. She’d never thought she’d be shocked, again and again, by things too horrible to contemplate.
“It was a struggle at first after my brother and I lost our home. We moved to the city, where jobs were plentiful, only to find that no one would hire me when I was not quite a man yet. But I supported us meagerly with menial jobs until a watchmaker took me on as his apprentice. It was precision work. I enjoyed it much more than growing grapes. And it supported us well. He was a kind man who lived alone with his only child, a daughter younger than I. It was impossible not to fall in love with her. Several years later she agreed to be my wife. I felt blessed. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—and she gave me a son. They meant everything to me, they were my life. And then they were taken from me, my brother with them, in a senseless accident.”
“I’m sorry,” she gasped.
He didn’t seem to hear her, he was so deep in his memories now. “I was consumed with rage—and possibly a little insane over how painful their deaths had been. They burned, trapped inside their coach, which had been pushed over into one of the contained street fires that are used to melt the ice. If the coach had covered that fire completely when it toppled onto it, it might have snuffed it out. If the wagon that crashed into them hadn’t been overladen, the oxen might have been pulled back off the coach in time, instead of making escape impossible. It had been an accident, but the driver of that delivery wagon was drunk, so it was an accident that never should have happened. That is why my rage wouldn’t go away, and why I finally found that drunken old man and killed him. But that didn’t make the rage go away either. Everything important in my life had been ripped from me. With nothing left to live for, I wanted to die. So I sought out the owner of the company that drunk had worked for and killed him, too. I wanted to be caught, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t bear to see my father-in-law again because he reminded me of my wife, so I stopped working for him. I was starving by then and spending every last coin I had on drink so I could stop remembering what I’d lost. And then I heard of someone who would actually pay me for what I’d been doing.”
And this is how a killer was born? Alana wondered. But Poppie wasn’t like that. She’d lived with him all her life. Nothing, ever, had prepared her to deal with this tale.
“Were they at least deserving of death, those you were sent to kill?”
“Is anyone, really?”
“You say that now, but what about then?”
“No, back then I did the job mindlessly and collected the money. I didn’t care. But, yes, some were deserving. Other jobs, the ones who paid me were the ones who should have died instead. I didn’t value my life any more than I valued the lives of those I was sent to kill. There were so many reasons to hire men like me, politics, revenge, simply eliminating business competition or enemies. And I certainly wasn’t unique in my profession, far from it. If I didn’t take the jobs, someone else would have been hired for them.”
“You can’t claim that as an excuse. Fate might have decreed it otherwise.”
“True,” he agreed. “Yet that justification was still somewhere in the back of my mind. I was good. I could kill mercifully. Better me than a butcher who enjoyed his work too much. I was known only as Rastibon, and as Rastibon, my fame quickly grew.”
“Another false name?”
“Yes, a name that wasn’t associated with my true identity in any way. And eventually I actually valued my reputation for never having failed a job. I’m not even sure why. Pride in a talent, I suppose, even if it was a despicable talent. After seven years I began to think of retiring Rastibon with that perfect record, before it was tarnished by a failure.”
“Was that the only reason you considered quitting?” she asked.
“No, the rage was gone, it no longer governed me. The desire to be caught so someone else would end my life was gone, too.”
“You couldn’t do it yourself?”
He gave her a wry look. “I remember trying several times during the worst of my hell, only to find my sense of self-preservation hadn’t died with my morality. But that morality began to assert itself again, making me question what I was doing, and if no sense of justice wa
s involved in a job, making me disgusted by it. So it was a good time to quit.”
She had to ask it. “You’ve trained me to become an assassin like you, haven’t you? Why else would you teach me to master so many weapons?”
“Don’t be absurd. I trained you in weapons so you would be able to protect yourself and use your body effectively as a defense.”
“Why would I need to?”
“Because of who you are, Alana.”
“And who is that?”
“You are a Stindal.”
The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it, not with so much horror clouding her mind. Did it mean she had family still alive, or . . . ?
“How did you come by me? And please, Poppie, please don’t tell me you killed my parents. I don’t think I could—”
“No, princess,” he quickly cut in. “I wasn’t hired to do that. I never had to kill a woman, although I thought I could. I even thought I could kill an infant.”
Nothing surprised her at this point. “You were hired to kill me, weren’t you?” she guessed.
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t I dead?”
“Because you smiled at me. I had the knife at your throat, but you smiled and I couldn’t do it. I decided to end my spotless career with a blemish after all, though until this day, only one other person knew that I didn’t kill you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was paid to get rid of you, half the gold paid in advance. To ‘get rid of you’ could mean only one thing. I didn’t doubt what the job was. And yet it could be open to interpretation. I never went back to collect the rest of the payment, letting them assume I died while completing my task. And your disappearance spoke for itself. The job was done to the letter, as it was described. I had gotten rid of you. That the ones who hired me assumed you were dead was of no consequence to me and a benefit to you. It meant they wouldn’t be sending anyone else to kill you.”