The Queen's Bastard Part 10

Waited for desire. It warmed her as much, more, than Javier's touch, filled her with a completion that no mere man could achieve. She cupped her hands together beneath the cloak, as if she might catch water in them, and took a breath deep enough to strain her ribs against the corset. "Light," she whispered, not in Gallic but in her maiden tongue of Aulunian.

A glow stained her fingers, soft and warm. It lit the underside shadows of the cloak, a tiny, gentle ball of sunlight cradled in her hands. Pride and delight bloomed in her, well-hidden from the surface but enough to warm her within. A smaller part of her mind crowed with alarm, Ilyana's accusations of witchery proved true, and death by burning should Belinda ever be caught. She should be more frightened; she knew knew she should be more frightened. But with the soft glow of power in her hands, most of that fear was drowned beneath confidence. She only had to go carefully, and she would never be found out. she should be more frightened. But with the soft glow of power in her hands, most of that fear was drowned beneath confidence. She only had to go carefully, and she would never be found out.

Javier clucked approval and she moved her hands slowly, carrying her little palmful of light closer to his face. His eyes picked up the golden hue, reflecting the silky sheen of the cloak they lay huddled beneath. "Better," he breathed, as if the stirring air might put Belinda's light out like it was a candle. "It came faster this time. Did you feel it? Witchlight, Beatrice. Your light."

"Our light," she whispered back, though it wasn't true. Javier curled his fingers around the back of her hand, pale silver light springing from his palm as easily as he might point a finger. It warred with her golden sunlight, and dominated, for all that it was the color of moonlight. He had years of practise and skill over hers, and, Belinda thought, access to power that was not hidden behind a wall built by a well-meaning father. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, eyes closed as she wrestled the bleak wall within her mind, prodding and poking at the pinhole she'd made in it. It tore, and her eyes flew open as power stung her palms and brightened the sunlight held in her hands. Javier put his palm against hers and brought more of his own power to bear, smothering golden sparks with the cool light of the moon. Belinda gasped as her witchlight winked out and Javier pinned her wrist against the ground.

"Our gift," he corrected. "All that's best of dark and light. But not too bright, lady. Such secrets must be studied in the quiet of night, when there are fewer eyes to watch."

"My lord?" A sudden blush came over her, an honest reaction; the art of blushing on demand was one she had tried to learn without success. She watched Javier's eyes follow the rush of pink down her throat to where it stained the upper swells of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and wished not for the first time that she could achieve the effect at will. She could prevent it; that much the stillness gave her, but never call it. He lowered his mouth to the tinted flesh, then followed the curve upward until he caught her nipple in his mouth, all tongue and teeth. She arched and he rolled his weight over her, c.o.c.k pressed against her belly.

"Now you blush?" Amus.e.m.e.nt enriched his voice. "A wanton woman under the moon's light and come morning you blush and look away? Yes: at night, Beatrice, in the long small hours. Is it your reputation you fear for? You wouldn't be the first woman to be named the prince's wh.o.r.e. It may even boost your marriage prospects, if we part on amicable terms."

"Marius...?" The question was poorly judged. Javier's eyes darkened as he put his fingers against the hollow of her throat.

"Is it he you prefer, my lady Beatrice? Is the prince merely a feather in your girlish cap?"

"No," Belinda breathed. She reached for the drip of power inside her, infusing her answer with its light, all the truth she could muster into the soft word. Belinda had seen jealousy in a hundred men, but wouldn't have imagined that this man, a prince, would allow himself such a petty emotion. Her life might depend on defusing it. She parted her lips and swallowed tentatively against the pressure on her throat. She had not confessed to the prince her burgeoning ability to sense emotion and even thought; the moment to do so had come and gone, and she was no longer tangled in pa.s.sion that washed even the clarity of stillness away. If Javier didn't know of the faculty, he might fall prey to it. Belinda poured all the power she could reach into her whispered words, filling them with subtle adoration and trust. "Marius is a boy in his heart, my lord, no matter what his years. I prefer men."

Javier's fingers tightened, then loosened enough to let her swallow. The darkness in his eyes diminished, leaving them colorless in the filtered light through the cloak. Belinda tilted her head back, letting the weight of his hand press into her throat again. Submission, now that danger was past, only reinforced his position relative to hers. It could do her no harm.

"Marius should aim so high as a royal cast-off," Javier said after a moment. "And I think I will not tire of you for some time, my little witch. You have much to learn."

"You honour me," Belinda whispered. Flat amus.e.m.e.nt shot through Javier's gaze.

"Yes. I do. Enjoy it while it lasts, Beatrice. Nothing ever does."

7

ROBERT, LORD DRAKE

11 September 1587 Khazan, capital of Khazar, north and east of Echon

Irina, imperatrix of all Khazar, is a beautiful woman.

Not like Lorraine, whose striking features made her beautiful in her youth. Time has stripped that beauty, her long face falling with age. She might have found a way to move through her later years gracefully, but instead she fights every year as if it is her bitterest enemy, and that, too, has left marks.

Not like Sandalia, either, who has never been beautiful, only devastatingly pretty. She still holds the edge of youth that maintains loveliness, but in a few short years her figure will fail to a fondness for sweets, and her curves will turn to plump softness. It will look well on her, but it is not beauty.

No, Irina Durova will be beautiful when they lay her down in her grave. Time will not be able to take the elegant square bones of her face away, and her skin is of the quality to hold wrinkles tight around the corner of large dark eyes. She is in her forties now, and her hair is silvering. She lets it do so naturally, taking gravitas from aging; she does not believe youth is the only potent drug there is. Then again, she has true beauty to see her through the years.

It is more difficult to be angry at a beautiful woman than a plain one, but Robert is trying.

"I do not understand, Your Majesty." It was a falsehood; he understood perfectly, as did Irina. "What does Essandia offer that Aulun can't? Our fleet is better-trained, and a treaty with my queen is unique in its advantages. There can be no backdoor pressure to marry." He stresses the last sentence, making it a clear reminder to those who know-in the audience chamber, that means himself and Irina-how much trouble Irina has faced on the marriage front lately, and how Aulunian resources slipped into Khazar to divest her of that problem.

"Aulun stands alone against Cordula," Irina says, full of genuine-sounding sympathy. Her voice is as rich as her face and body: deep, for a woman, and warm. The imperatrix's laughter is said to melt snow from the eaves, a gift of some renown in icy Khazar. Robert has never heard her laugh, nor seen snow melt through force of personality, but he likes the story. "We do not share Cordula's faith, but we are cognizant of the dangers of rejecting it blatantly. My father recalled the Heretics' Trials, Lord Drake. We are reluctant to draw attention to our own borders by making hasty treaties with Cordula's enemy."

Robert bows, a light and almost teasing action, to hide the grinding of his teeth. "Aulun is certain Khazar never makes hasty decisions, Your Majesty. Aulun would also like to remind you that while much of southern Echon is held in Ec.u.menic sway, the northerly states, like Aulun, have found their own spiritual paths to follow. An alliance with Aulun is not an alliance against Cordula."

"We are certain that is a point worth remembering," Irina says, and now there's a tint of humour in her large eyes. "We are, after all, only a woman, and must heed the advice of the men around us."

Robert nearly chokes: he knows this trick. It's one of Lorraine's favourites, and it makes him mad with exasperation.

And then suddenly, abruptly, he sees what he should have seen before: that Irina's gown is the one Lorraine sent her twelve years earlier, in congratulations on Ivanova's birth. It has been modified, made more fashionable, of course, but the jewel-encrusted fabric is the same, the cut still subtly Aulunian rather than the broader lines of Khazarian fashion.

He is too masterful a player to let his eyes widen, though irritation spills through him. He, of all people, should know that words spoken in political debate mean little, and Irina has given him answers in her dress and in her phrasing that few others would know to read. That he nearly missed them himself is an embarra.s.sment, and he bows again now, in part to cover that embarra.s.sment and in part because Irina has effectively dismissed him. "Aulun trusts your counselors will guide you well, Your Majesty. I hope we'll speak again before I leave Khazan."

Irina flickers her fingers, neither agreement nor disagreement, and Robert catches a smirk on a courtier's face as he turns away. He allows thunderous frustration to darken his own features, playing to that smirk; playing to Aulun being stymied by Khazar, and he narrowly avoids stomping as he leaves the audience hall.

His mockery of temper is thrown off by the time he leaves the palace, though there's a hint of true anger simmering inside him. Irina took him by surprise, and he hates being off-balance.

"Dmitri!" Robert finds the hawk-nosed man in the stables, the scent of straw and manure rising up. The horses snort as he stalks by to catch Dmitri's arm. Robert is a big man, his hands powerful, and Dmitri flinches. "Irina is making treaties with the Essandian prince, Dmitri. Don't tell me you didn't know." He digs his fingers into the tender flesh of Dmitri's inner arm, as if leaving a mark will earn him the answer he wants.

Dmitri's mouth thins and he drops his gaze to the offending grip, then stares at Robert until Robert releases him. There is a note of grace, of chagrin, in the way Robert averts his eyes and offers apology. Dmitri, satisfied, takes a deliberate moment to straighten his sleeve, fussing like a man more fastidious than he normally is. Robert, still irritated, remains silent, waiting.

"A queen doesn't always heed her advisers," Dmitri finally says, as close to an admission of failure as Robert's ever heard from him. "Her strength will be divided," he adds in a grumble. "Her army will be split between Khazar, Essandia, and Aulun."

"Or she'll have Essandian and Aulunian ships alike and her own troops here to put on them and send where she wants. Dammit, Dmitri, you should have told me. You should have stopped it. She hints at favouring Aulun, but I want her to have no choice. Warp the missives from Essandia. Make it seem as though Rodrigo seeks her hand along with her troops."

"A dangerous game," Dmitri murmurs. "What if she accepts?"

"She wouldn't have come to Aulun about Gregori if she were of a mind to marry. These three queens hold a unique place in Echon's history. So many women have never held such power simultaneously, Dmitri. None of them are willing to cede it. She'll reject a marriage offer, or dance around it like Rodrigo and Lorraine have done for twenty years." He exhales, explosive sound, and the line of horses down the stables responds in kind, shaking themselves, stomping feet, huffing and puffing. "Do you know where Seolfor is?"

"I don't" is Dmitri's eventual answer. "Are you losing control, Robert?" There's interest in his eyes, flashing, bordering on avarice. Robert nearly allows himself to seize Dmitri's arm again, more intentionally threatening.

The truth is there are moments when Robert loses sight of his goal. Moments when the politics of Echon and Khazar overwhelm the end game. Moments when it's difficult to remember his queen's face, her image replaced by an aging redhead whose power is blunt and worldly and the centre of his everyday existence. He has spent thirty years guiding Aulun and her regent, coaxing reluctant love and desire out of a woman determined to stand alone. He has never threatened her, never shown interest in stealing her power for his own, and this is why she trusts him. It's as well she has no need to understand that her power is transitory and unappealing to him. She is a vessel, and she has long since done her part in ensuring the downfall of her world.

There may yet be one thing left for her to do, though, and until that thing is done, he will love, honour, and manipulate her, and regret none of it. When it's done, he knows he might find that frail human emotion has gotten the better of him, and that he might love the t.i.tian Queen until the end of her days.

Robert has no objections to that. She's a formidable opponent, all the more so for being a female regent to a society that believes women to be weak and inferior. How they can stand before Lorraine, before Sandalia, before Irina, and retain that conviction is beyond him, though he's heard it said many times that all of those women are unnaturally masculine. The idea that they are wholly feminine and wholly capable doesn't appear to have occurred to anyone, or if it has, they've found it such an appalling and frightening thought as to put it away again and never let it see the light of day. There are moments when Robert has wanted to smack courtiers alongside the skull, not to defend Lorraine, but out of simple exasperation at their determined thick-headedness.

He wonders, briefly, if Dmitri might suffer the same loss of focus if the invasion were his to conduct.

"No," he says, and makes it light, refusing to allow himself the luxury of physically threatening the slighter man. It's a closer match than it might look, anyway: Robert has bulk, but Dmitri's slenderness holds wiry strength. They were always well-matched, even before. It's why they were selected.

Seolfor, though...Seolfor is their third, waiting, and Robert has no doubts of his loyalty. No one would: breaking faith with the queen is a concept that has only slowly become even conceivable, and that only through long years of watching human betrayals. The idea turns Robert's stomach, makes him physically sick, and Seolfor is no less staunchly the queen's own than he. But Seolfor is a renegade, if any of them are; Robert believes, though he'd never ask, that this is why the queen sent him on this one-way journey. Because of that, Robert has preferred to keep him off the playing field until his partic.i.p.ation is critical. "But with kings and queens playing at pieces as if their lives were their own to direct, it may be time to activate him. Seolfor can be a charming b.a.s.t.a.r.d when he wants to be, and there'll be no taint of foreign courts to him."

Curiosity darts across Dmitri's angular face. "Is that why you've kept him out for so long? Where will you send him?"

"Essandia," Robert says drily, "to plant a woman on Rodrigo's c.o.c.k long enough to make the child she bears seem reasonably his. I'll never understand the hold Cordula has on these men. The women are more pragmatic. I only wish Sandalia'd given in to you soon enough to make her son seem Charles's, instead of catching by that foppish Louis."

"So does she." Dmitri lowers his eyes, oddly womanish in his apology, then looks up again, all sharp hazel eyes and hawklike features. "But Gallin is under control, isn't it? I thought your girl was there."

"She is, and Sandalia will be there soon. My Primrose will have slipped in quietly, made herself a part of the court, and be waiting to gain the queen's confidence." Of all the tasks he's set Belinda to, this one is both simplest and most difficult. Murder is easy to achieve; sedition much harder, particularly spoken from royal lips. But they need so little, and Belinda is so very good at her winsome ways. It's why Robert sent her, and not someone of lesser import: even he he finds himself inclined to trust his daughter; and that's why he sent Ana de Meo to watch over her, in turn. Trust is a weakness that hides flaws; better to set a second pair of eyes over that which he dares trust. "One wrong word from Sandalia spoken in Primrose's ear, and we'll have our war." finds himself inclined to trust his daughter; and that's why he sent Ana de Meo to watch over her, in turn. Trust is a weakness that hides flaws; better to set a second pair of eyes over that which he dares trust. "One wrong word from Sandalia spoken in Primrose's ear, and we'll have our war."

"And then it will be properly begun."

Robert nods and claps his hand on Dmitri's shoulder. They stand like that a moment, Dmitri covering Robert's hand with his own. Then they break ways, no more words needed between them, and go about their separate duties.

There is a rapping, not at his door, but from within a wall. He knows, though he should not, that the pa.s.sage there leads to three different bedrooms. None of them is Irina's, which is a shame: even Robert isn't above the secret thrill of a queen coming to him in the night.

He's at the hidden door before the tapping comes a second time, his head tilted against it, listening, scenting, seeking. The first two garner nothing; the door is too thick for subtleties to slip through. The third encounters a woman's mind, not agitated, but calm and focused. Again, not Irina: she, like Lorraine, is all but impossible to read, her throne granting and demanding an indomitable will. The woman who has come to him is not thinking of who she is but of what she wants: a high-born lover to replace the one she had.

Robert will take no pains to remind her of his own lowly beginnings.

He finds the mechanism that opens the door, slides it open, and looks down at Akilina Pankejeff, a grand d.u.c.h.ess within Irina's court. She, like Lorraine, is not beautiful, but in her age she will be terrifying. Black hair sweeps back from a violent widow's peak, one that rumour says grows sharper with every lover who dies. Akilina Pankejeff has outlived two husbands and three well-placed lovers, the last of whom was Count Gregori Kapnist, and she is only thirty-two. The superst.i.tious and fearful-nearly everyone in this stars-forsaken place-call her Yaga Baba behind her back, and make the sign of G.o.d to ward off witches. She has a golden cast to her skin, and eyes as black as her hair; there is nothing soft about her, not even when she comes to him dressed in loose sleeping gowns. They only play up her narrow shoulders, her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the length of her limbs.

The door hisses shut behind her and Robert kneels without speaking, putting his hands on her hips. Her eyes can't darken any further, but surprise colours them and she touches his hair as he gathers her nightgown, one palmful at a time, toward her waist. He is attentive and delighted to please; Akilina is l.u.s.ty and ready to be pleased. Minutes later she stands slumped against the wall, fingers still knotted in Robert's brown hair, gasps chuckling from her. "Not what I came for," she breathes, "but well worth coming for. No wonder the t.i.tian b.i.t.c.h keeps you at her side." She pushes Robert's hands away, not unkindly, and lets her sleeping gown fall again. Robert wipes his beard without a hint of discretion and climbs to his feet still licking his lips.

"Then why are you here?" He's surprised for the second time in a day; that doesn't often happen. Akilina smiles, unexpectedly predatory, and walks her fingers up his chest. He, too, is dressed for sleeping, and her touch is warm through the soft linen of his shirt. He does not catch her hand and pull her back to the bed to roost above him; that decision is hers.

"I require an escort, my lord Drake." She offers another smile, as pointed as the first, and leads with her hips as she steps into him. "I'll pay you in whatever coin you prefer."

He kisses her fingertips, politeness, not ardor. "An escort, my lady?"

Playfulness falls out of her gaze, leaving it flat. "Our winters are long and cold, and my lover's five months in his grave. I'd intended to retreat to my estate for the winter, but if I can go farther afield that's much to be preferred. A woman might travel safely in your party, Lord Drake."

"I travel light, my lady." Robert isn't trying to dissuade her. More likely to convince a snake not to bite, he thinks, though he's far too diplomatic to let the thought anywhere near his expression. "Myself and a handful of men, and with winter coming on we'll set a hard pace. Can you keep up?"

The challenge glints in her eyes. "I won't travel as light or as fast as you'd prefer, my lord. Wherever I winter, I can have new gowns made, but a woman of my stature can't arrive in a new city with nothing but what's on her back. Give me an extra day for every three you travel in speed, though, and I'll keep your pace."

"Where will you go?"

Akilina smiles. "I've always wanted to see Aria Magli."

BELINDA PRIMROSE

15 October 1587 Lutetia, Gallin

My Dearest Jayne;

The letters were etched into parchment, retraced so many times they might have been inked onto the table beneath it. In the deepest of the grooves, ink sat in shallow puddles, the parchment's ability to absorb it lost. Belinda picked up her quill for the dozenth time, sc.r.a.ping it over the shapes of the letters. She had thought too much; she must simply write, and when the words had spilled out of her she could choose and decide what she ought and ought not say in a letter to the Aulunian spymaster.

My Dearest Jayne; My Dearest Jayne; Lutetia agrees with me more than I might have dreamed, and I have been remiss in writing to tell you of it. The weather is temperate-a blessing after stormy Lanyarchan nights!-and the people are kind. I have made friends both high and low, from a woman whose beauty is so extraordinary I would scarcely believe it real had I not met her myself, to a man of the greatest power. I would tell you his name, though I think you will not believe me: he is Javier, prince of Gallin and heir to that throne and another: Essandia, should Rodrigo fail to marry as seems so likely now that he is in his fifties. And la: listen to me, calculating out the heirship as if I might someday bear children into it. A good Lanyarchan woman would not cast her gaze so high-and yet there are moments, dear sister, when I wish it were otherwise. He is handsome, and commands power. Any woman might dream of such a husband, even a woman widowed with no sons to prove her fertility. Lutetia agrees with me more than I might have dreamed, and I have been remiss in writing to tell you of it. The weather is temperate-a blessing after stormy Lanyarchan nights!-and the people are kind. I have made friends both high and low, from a woman whose beauty is so extraordinary I would scarcely believe it real had I not met her myself, to a man of the greatest power. I would tell you his name, though I think you will not believe me: he is Javier, prince of Gallin and heir to that throne and another: Essandia, should Rodrigo fail to marry as seems so likely now that he is in his fifties. And la: listen to me, calculating out the heirship as if I might someday bear children into it. A good Lanyarchan woman would not cast her gaze so high-and yet there are moments, dear sister, when I wish it were otherwise. He is handsome, and commands power. Any woman might dream of such a husband, even a woman widowed with no sons to prove her fertility. He is very kind, the prince, and has taken me into his group of friends- He is very kind, the prince, and has taken me into his group of friends- All but on cue, Nina knocked on the door and opened it, ducking her head in a brief curtsey. "Marius is here, my lady." She smiled, full of bright hope and cheer; in the weeks that had pa.s.sed since the opera, Marius had given no sign of being daunted by Belinda's friendship with the prince, and called as often as his duties would allow. The merchant's son was a good match, bordering on excellent, and Nina was determined that her mistress should not miss it. Belinda felt a brief unaccustomed pang of guilt through her belly, wondering how long the young man would continue courting her.

"Thank you, Nina. Tell him I'll be down momentarily." Belinda set the quill aside with more care than was necessary and scooped a palmful of sand over the paper, shaking it to take away excess ink. Tilting the paper sent fine grains sliding back into their cup, though several stuck in the deep-scratched lines of the salutation, glittering as the light caught them. Her father would be amused by the emotion wrought in those deep lines. Belinda scowled at them, determining to rewrite the letter even if the words came out flawlessly. She stood up, exasperated, to discover Nina still hesitating in the door. "Well? What is it?"

"Do you not like him, my lady?" the servant asked timidly. "He is a fine match, and, forgive me, my lady, but-"

"But royalty is beyond my grasp, no?"

Nina blushed and dropped her gaze. Belinda put her hands on the desk and leaned heavily on it for a few moments, letting the weight of her head stretch an ache into her spine. "I like him well enough. Are you too polite to tell me that my chance is slipping away?" She looked up. Nina's eyes remained fixed on the floor, but she nodded, a minute gesture that spoke more by daring to be made than the sentiment expressed. "And how do you know that, Nina?"

Guilt rolled off the girl in waves, thick enough to flavour the air. Belinda took a deep breath of it, closing her eyes and savoring it. It was her secret, her one secret from the prince in the matters of witchcraft. For six weeks, through summer's end and into autumn, they had stolen as many hours as they dared, pressing the borders of the longer nights to study together. Study, and more. Even with the mixed blessing of too-clear memory, Belinda could only hazily remember a time when she felt as if she'd had enough sleep.

But the walls that Robert had placed in her mind had softened. Where there had been a hard-won pinhole of access to her witchbreed power, there was now a pool, serene and calm at the heart of her. There was more yet to be gained, but she no longer struggled every night simply to cup her hands together and call witchlight to them. Even now she felt the impulse to curl her fingers and light the tiny glow, curtained by her palm. It was a small thing, but each new lesson gave her ideas as to how she might increase her gift and her strength.

Behind it all, though, was the talent she had been stayed by need from sharing with Javier, and which she kept close to her heart now for the joy of secrets. The little things she had learned paled by the depths to which she could now read emotion. Fear and l.u.s.t, delight and anger were all writ in the air around the men and women she encountered. Contentedness and ambition, hope and despair, so heavy around them that Belinda wondered how she had never seen it before. The difficulty was no longer in delving for those secret emotions, but rather in fending them away. It took no more than a thought to know if a man desired her, and what kind of needs he had in bed. No more than a wish to know, to discover if the neighbor's wife feared her husband discovering he was being cuckolded. It lent Belinda glorious confidence, and she resented her father's decision to lock that gift away behind a barrier in her mind. Only a little: she could not afford resentment or anger to any great degree-the stillness wrapped around her and tightened on her bones when she pursued rebellious thoughts. They ill-suited her; at the core of her, beneath newfound power and even beneath her precious, long-nurtured stillness, Belinda knew herself to believe, without reservation, in her duty to a mother who could never acknowledge her. She let herself wonder, very briefly, what she might feel now from Lorraine, with this burgeoning power at her disposal.

It would not, she was certain, be the guilt and discomfort that made Nina squirm in the doorway. "He complimented you," Belinda guessed with a faint smile. "Did he impose himself upon you, Nina?"

Surprise replaced guilt, washing off the girl as her eyes jerked from the floor to meet Belinda's. "No, my lady. Only-" She swallowed and flinched through the chest, making her b.r.e.a.s.t.s twitch with the motion.

"Only told you that you have lovely b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and lovely eyes." Horrified embarra.s.sment swept over her, Nina's ears burning red. Belinda smiled and touched the girl's bodice as she pa.s.sed by. "He was right."

Nina's confusion and startled desire followed her down the stairs.

"There is snow in the air." Marius walked with his hand at the small of Belinda's back, a touch that was barely there. It made her aware, as she rarely was, of the tiny dagger she wore there, nestled beneath layers of clothing. Not for the first time she let herself smile at the ridiculous placement of the thing; trapped against her skin it did no good whatsoever for defense, and more than once she'd had to palm it away into the fallen folds of her gown when a man undressed her. It didn't matter. The knife was sentimental, a reminder of who she was and a reminder of the stillness, not a weapon. She turned the smile up at Marius, curiosity in her eyes.

"Does it snow this far south, my lord?"

"Beatrice," Marius said with mild exasperation. "How many times must I ask you to call me Marius?"

"At least once more." Belinda smiled again, letting her gaze drift from the boy at her side. It was harder among intimates of a higher cla.s.s, she was discovering, to follow her own rule of never calling a man by his name. Formality drenched every move to such a degree that the calling of names became far more important than it was as a serving girl. She found herself unable to forget Marius or Javier's names, unable to not learn them, as she'd been able to not learn...Viktor, she reminded herself. Poor Viktor. she reminded herself. Poor Viktor.

a.s.selin was easier; she saw him less, and his gaze on her was frank and l.u.s.tful and open, like most men's. Over the weeks he'd given no sign of recognizing her as the strumpet from the tavern. Without that concern threatening their play, it was clear he understood the game between men and women in a fashion that Marius did not, and Javier disdained. a.s.selin called her Lady Irvine, openly mocking the formality, and she called him Lord a.s.selin with all the sly wit and s.e.xual rejoinder that he sought.

Eliza was different. Belinda's own law didn't stand in the face of women. Women only rarely had power and most of that came through the men they wed or wh.o.r.ed themselves to; it was rare indeed that Belinda was sent after a woman. There was no need to misremember Eliza's name, or call her by a formal one.

Then again, friendship had not blossomed between them, though they were not quite enemies. Eliza had too much respect for her friend-and Belinda wondered for the dozenth time, lover? The answer was there for the taking if Belinda chose to read either of them deeply enough, but the curiosity was more thrilling than the answering. Eliza would not declare open warfare on a woman Javier chose to invite into his circle of friends, or his bed, until he tired of her. Belinda admired Eliza's loyalty, recognizing it for the bitter draughts of unrequited love. That That was a cup of poison Belinda had no desire to ever drink of, and it left her with a trace of sympathy for Eliza's position. She refused to be drawn into cat fights with the other woman, frustrating Eliza and amusing a.s.selin. was a cup of poison Belinda had no desire to ever drink of, and it left her with a trace of sympathy for Eliza's position. She refused to be drawn into cat fights with the other woman, frustrating Eliza and amusing a.s.selin.