A Knight Most Wicked. Joanne Rock

of the princess’s maids. She had been advised what was expected of her on the journey. But she had not ventured out of the women’s apartments for long, and tonight would be her first formal supper at Prague Castle.

      She was nervous since her old formal surcoat had appeared like peasant’s garb next to the rich attire of the women who greeted her politely, then dismissed her with their gazes. It did not help that she had arrived at the castle’s gate with her grandmother. Zaharia was a wise and gifted woman, but the superstitious called her a sorceress.

      Mary Natansia, however, did not hold Arabella’s family or less exalted appearance against her.

      “There,” Hilda announced, smiling with satisfaction at having finished her work. “I will render you presentable whether you like it or not.” Pointing a long pin as if it were a sword, she threatened her wayward charge while she waved over a younger maid. “Now, Millie will assist you with your hair for the celebration this eve.”

      Submitting to the dressing and the brushing provided to ladies-in-waiting without their own maids, Arabella allowed her mind to wander with the rhythmic strokes of the silken brush.

      The visage of the knight appeared in her mind’s eye, the way it had so many other times during the past sennight since she had first seen him.

      The knight had been brazen to walk so close to the circle of trees some called enchanted. No one of Arabella’s acquaintance, aside from her family, would stray near such a place.

      And no man had ever dared to look upon her so boldly. For that matter, she had hardly ever met a man’s eyes directly until that day. Her mother worried about the motives of strange men after Luria’s experience with Arabella’s father, who could not be forced to wed the mother of his only heir.

      The men of her homeland feared and respected Zaharia, so they avoided her granddaughter out of deference to the wise woman. But the knightly stranger had not only stared at her, he had shamelessly extended his hand to touch her.

      His reaching out to her had been compelling…in those moments before her sense had returned. His presence had been impressive. Large and looming with gray eyes. His whole countenance had a rather fearsome element about it, with the predatory eye of a wolf.

      She had run her fastest to elude that gaze and the touch that went with it. When she finally paused to discern his whereabouts, the forest remained silent as death. No one followed her. The stranger had vanished as quickly as he had appeared. Yet the moon had trekked halfway across the sky before Arabella stopped trembling. She realized she had grown up too isolated by half, if a stranger could frighten her thus. Who would ever call Arabella wise, like her grandmother, when she fled life like a craven minnow?

      “All finished, my lady,” Millie proclaimed finally, drawing Arabella to her feet. She and Hilda stood side by side, wreathed in smiles, until Hilda tugged Arabella’s arm.

      “Come and look in the glass, Arabella, and try to appreciate what magic we have wrought.”

      Hilda prodded her to a looking glass mounted inside a trunk that had been carted into the room for the day. Curious, Arabella glanced into it. The startled figure who stared back at her bore little resemblance to the young woman she’d seen reflected in the stream that pooled near her home.

      Gone were the unruly tresses that her mother once snipped off in frustration. They were replaced by silken waves that shone even in the dull glass. She reached to touch them until Hilda and Millie both lurched forward as if to intervene.

      Dutifully returning her hands to her sides, she took in the crisp white linen kirtle topped with a cotehardie of royal-blue velvet, a color so deep and expensive none wore it but those of an exalted station. Tonight, that would be her. Her flat slippers were barely noticeable beneath her long skirts, but when they peeped out from underneath, they matched her velvet skirts.

      Arabella wondered where her former untamed self had gone, now that this refined creature had taken her place.

      As if sensing her thoughts, Hilda winked and gently turned her toward the door.

      “I trust your manners will be inspired by the beauty of your appearance. Pray, do not disrupt our hard work too soon.”

      Turned loose to find her way to the great hall, Arabella felt every bit as lost here tonight as she had imagined she might in those final nights on her bed at home. But before she could become fully confused in the maze of corridors leading to the hall, Mary caught up with her, her pale hair tied with a sky-blue ribbon like an angel in one of the castle’s religious paintings.

      “This way,” she called, gesturing in the opposite direction and then steering them down corridors growing more populated. The swell of music reached their ears as they neared the great hall. “Do not be nervous, Arabella. The feeling dissipates once you get through the door.”

      Arabella halted in her pretty slippers, adrift in this world that had hurt her mother deeply with false faces and false promises. Would Arabella be as susceptible to its beautiful cunning?

      “Mary.” She turned toward her new friend, trusting this one woman if no one else. “Perhaps you can guide me on one more matter, since I know nothing of men. I have no father. No brother. I have scarcely conversed with any male. Are we expected to…talk to them at an event such as this?”

      Staring back at her with intent eyes, Mary said nothing for a long moment, but Arabella was only too glad to delay her entry into the hall as long as possible. Finally, Mary blinked.

      “You’re serious.”

      “Yes.” Reflexively, she reached for a little knife she normally kept at her waist, only to remember she had lost it that day in the woods she’d met the strange knight. It had been a talisman from her grandmother. Arabella sorely missed the small charm that was the tool of a wise woman’s herbal craft, especially when she needed the comfort of something familiar.

      “You really did grow up in the forest, didn’t you?” Mary’s voice possessed a childlike wonder that made Arabella feel a bit stronger for having been raised by the region’s most revered wise woman.

      “I have never denied it. I do not look at it as a defect, the way the court does.”

      “Nor do I, Arabella, I promise you. Your life sounds wonderful to me. But truly, men are not so ill behaved, at least not around me.” She laughed and her eyes took on a mischievous light. “There are advantages to being the emperor’s ward. Remain at my side, and we will face the men you meet together.”

      “Together.” It sounded simple enough. And, although her mother always talked about men as if they were dangerous creatures, Arabella had often wondered if Lady Luria had merely had the misfortune of meeting a poor example.

      Arabella’s father.

      The lilting strains of the music drifted through the corridor, reminding them of their duty while other ladies-in-waiting passed by them in soft swishes of velvet and linen.

      “You will be fine,” Mary assured her, tugging her through the huge doors and into the extravagant hall.

      Vaulted ceilings and narrow wooden arches supported the cavernous stone chamber, which vibrated with the din of humanity. Bright silks dazzled her, while torches lit walls filled with colorful tapestries and paintings etched with a metallic sheen that looked like gold.

      A woman greeted Mary, who was well-known because of her position, despite her usual lack of presence at court. Arabella smiled, but used the time to study the vast chamber and the people within the walls.

      Her attention moved slowly over each individual, fascinated by every detail of the lavish gathering. She admired the precious gems decorating the women’s garments, the fur-lined cloaks of the men, the more austere dress of one man in particular….

      Her heart caught in her throat.

      There could be no mistaking the knight who had seen her crying in the woods. If crying it could be called, given how she had howled out her frustration.

      The sight