by C. E. Murphy
“I think I can forgive you, my lord. I look forward to the evening’s performance. We must remember it well, so we can share it with the others, and especially relate it to poor Madame Poulin. Thank you for thinking of me even as your friends were unable to attend. I’m honoured.”
Thoughts awhirl, she didn’t hear his reply as he escorted her to his carriage.
The opera held nothing of interest, compared to the man at her elbow. Belinda watched without seeing, aware of its majesty and the skill of the players, and recorded the pageantry into memory for discussion later while remaining herself unmoved. Javier put on a show as excellent as the one below them: leaning forward, eyes intent on the stage, a smile playing over his mouth from time to time, as benefited the production.
It was all a lie. Now attuned to it and focused, not overwhelmed by an onslaught of emotion as she had been at the Maglian pub, she could feel the prince’s true intentions, hidden beneath the veneer of grace and nobility. Not that he lacked those things in any fashion, but now they were distraction, a surface performance for the benefit of others. Below, triumph had faded into burgeoning interest, smugness into curiosity. At the edges of emotion Belinda thought she could almost pull individual thoughts free, but they slipped between her fingers and disappeared. She glanced at her hands and allowed herself a faint smile through the stillness. Metaphorical fingers, at least; she doubted she could slide her very hand into Javier’s head and capture those thoughts in their entirety.
His curiosity was tempered by something more: apprehension. Fear was too strong a word, his own confidence too great to truly fear the woman at his side. But she was a new thing in his experience—from the conflict of interest and caution within him, Belinda could read that.
It hardly surprised her. The stillness she knew as a part of herself was alien to anyone else she had ever met. Especially—especially!—the moments in her childhood when the shadows had held her safe within their arms. Her father had meant her to forget, but the memory came on strong now, sitting in the darkened hall. It was unlike any theatre she had ever known, roofed over to keep in heat and to bring the full force of the singers’ voices reverberating around the walls. Even the floor had seats, rather than the crowded, standing-room only areas she knew from Aulun’s open-air playhouses. This was not a place the poor came into for an afternoon’s entertainment, paying their ha’penny to a drunk who kept the gate. The darkness of it protected her, letting her drift in memory even as she tried to puzzle out a way to broach an unspoken brotherhood with Javier. The will of not being there which she’d drawn so tightly around herself all those years ago, she could remember that. The triumph of knowing she was hidden from all eyes, and the shock of Robert discovering her. She could remember all of those things. How, then, could the moment of hiding be so fully erased from her memory?
Had she faded? Belinda rolled her shoulders forward, making her chest concave as she closed her eyes. Was it memory or imagination that encouraged her down that path, telling her that fading was right, something important about fading…
“It ends badly,” Javier murmured by her ear. Belinda caught her breath and lifted her chin, called back to the theatre and the music with a pulse of irritation.
“My lord?”
“The story ends badly, in death and despair for all the principal actors. Perhaps we should retire early, so you might be spared the anguish?”
Belinda arched an eyebrow as she tilted her head toward his. “I am all but certain,” she breathed, “that the actors will rise up anew from their death throes and live to perform another night. I think I am bold enough to sit through another half hour of make-believe. They will notice if you leave, my lord. Your exit could end this show tonight, even as it opens.”
Javier quirked a smile, his head angled with interest. “You’re a gentle soul, aren’t you? You think of things that I never would. Nobility suits you, lady. The world might be a better place if all gentry were as well-heeled as you.”
Belinda returned her gaze to the stage, unwilling to meet the amused admiration in the prince’s eyes. “I am perhaps closer to the land than you, is all, my lord. My station is not so high. Perhaps it is easier to see those who make their livelihoods on a prince’s whim from where I stand.”
“Then perhaps a prince requires your wisdom.” Javier’s tone changed, more weight given to the words than the conversation had warranted. Impatience grew in him, pushing aside apprehension and replacing it with avarice. Belinda glanced at him again, unable to read what goal greed sought. There was always one safe gamble, though, particularly with a handsome man of power. She lowered her eyes.
“I would be proud to serve you, my lord. My wisdom is at your disposal, as are all my faculties.”
He glanced at her, sharp, then allowed himself a chuckle that altered the emotions she read in him more than it broke through into sound. It was marked by desire, thick and interested, and a trace of complacency. Belinda was not the first, nor would she be the last, woman to make such a blatant, if coded, offer to the prince. The uplift of his amusement was heady, sweeping up Belinda’s spine and curving around her body as needle-sharp tingles of want in her breasts and groin. For a few seconds she rode the delicious pain of it, letting it rob her of breath, knowing Javier would note that breathlessness on a subtle level. She shivered. He put his hand over hers, and for a shocking moment, his thoughts were hers to savor.
…ckable if nothing else—but there’s more. Witchbreed. The word hung in his thoughts, pulsing deep red with anguish: it was a word he would never speak aloud, one he feared, one that never strayed far from his mind. It accused and it denied all in one, forcing internal confrontations that led to an outpouring of power. The alternative was to subsume it, to swallow it up and deny its existence, but what then if the vessel, his weak body, should crack? What if the unspoken ability he held, one that no one, not even Mother, seemed to share, could burst forth if bottled too long? No, better to focus it, wield it like a sword, make use of it to influence and encourage the men around him. It could be done subtly, must be done subtly, else certainly Hell itself would rise up and take him back to its depths as one of its spawn…
Belinda jerked her hand back, every modicum of stillness, every ounce of control she’d ever known lost to her. A blush flooded her cheeks as her heartbeat crashed so loudly, so hard, that she thought it would tear her apart, and she couldn’t say if it was terror or joy that drove it so fiercely. Fire danced through her, burning her face and demanding her breath to fuel it, and the heat it made spilled through her until nameless emotion was subsumed beneath raging desire.
Javier turned to her with surprise so enormous it forgot offense. There was nothing of his thoughts in his gaze, no hint at all of the flood of words that had swept her, and yet she was certain, achingly certain, that she had not imagined what they’d shared. What she’d stolen. Witchbreed.
The word tasted of fire, gold and bright at the back of her throat. It was new to her, not a term she would allow herself even in the most fanciful of moments, and it fluttered in her mouth, wanting to break free and be spoken. She wondered, if she kissed him, whether Javier would taste of the same enflamed power that his word burned with. The thought caught her breath, boiling away everything else, until she remembered herself and jerked again, harder than before. Choice, that time, she told herself fiercely. Choice, and not control deserting her.
“Forgive me, my lord.” She let the breathlessness of discovery turn her expression wide and open, and then embarrassed at its freedom, eyes dropped as she adjusted the stays of her corset. “I hardly meant to be so rude. But it’s nothing,” she said quickly, softly, to the concern that overrode his surprise. “Nothing, save my corset seems to have taken a dislike to the soprano.” The woman below lifted her voice to an astonishing note as Belinda wrinkled her face, twisting once more to adjust the lines of the maligned garment. Javier grinned and returned his attention to the stage.
Witchbreed. The idea hung in
her thoughts now, not with the apprehension she’d felt in Javier’s, but with heart-pounding curiosity. It defined him as surely as the words that had haunted her since birth seemed to define her: it must not be found out. So, too, felt Javier about this witchbreed; it was what he had named himself. Belinda had turned her need inward, making it internal and silent. Javier had extended outward with his; perhaps it was the difference between a man and a woman.
He knew, then. Without reflecting on it, he recognized, as she did, that they had something akin to each other. Witchbreed. Belinda watched the remainder of the opera in thoughtful silence, no more seeing it than she might see the wind. As the curtain fell and applause echoed through the theatre, she leaned toward the prince, her decision made.
“I’m curious, my lord.”
“Mm?” Javier glanced at her, smiling, then back at the stage with arched eyebrows, clearly expecting her question to regard the performance.
“You would not have sent them away deliberately. It would have caused too much hurt among old friends. So I wonder, did each thing that arose to keep them away surprise you, or did you fashion their excuses with your own need and desire, and lay them like yokes on their shoulders?”
“What?” Javier’s smile fell away and darkness clouded his eyes, a mixture of anger and fear. Belinda wet her lips, chin tilted up to give the prince a slight show of throat, one tiny acknowledgment of the power structure here.
“There is too much coincidence here tonight, and you know it as well as I. And, again, I wonder. Does the world order itself to your desire with or without your conscious will, Prince Javier? I have felt it in you, my lord.”
“Felt what?” His voice snapped with fury, though Belinda noted he was careful to keep it quiet. She leaned in, close enough to brush his ear with her lips, and breathed the words.
“The witchbreed magic.”
“You felt it, my lord.” Belinda might have shouted the words out loud, for all the chances of being heard among applause and people leaving the theatre. She didn’t; she kept them pitched for the prince’s ears alone, a murmur edged with intensity. “You felt it in me, just as I felt it in you. Don’t belittle us both and deny it.”
There was nothing of horror or fear, no anger or deliberation in Javier’s eyes. He bowed a brief gesture of approval to the opera cast, a smile playing his mouth. But standing beside him, Belinda could feel the bursts and sparkles of temper and fear, like fireworks of silver hue, snapping off him. Bending toward her, trying to shape her to his will, to shape her toward silence or caution or obedience.
Anyone so close as she would feel the energy of the man; anyone else would admire his vitality and never question that it sharpened the desire to serve him. In her, it birthed fascination at the utter opposites that choice allowed. Javier’s strength poured into her, failing in his intent to dominate. Belinda folded it into herself, letting it increase the core of stillness within her. Frustration splintered the edges of Javier’s power, turning it dark and blue, as if ice caught it and encroached inward. He was unaccustomed to defiance. More than unaccustomed: entirely unfamiliar with. That Belinda stood beside him without quailing or making apology was enough to put his doubts, if not his fears, to rest.
“Perhaps you would enjoy a tour of my gardens,” he offered pleasantly, no hint of strife in his voice. Could she not feel uncertainty and a need to understand rolling off his skin like air over heated stones, Belinda might have believed his offer to be nothing more than seductive politeness. “The hour is late, I know, but the night should still be warm, and I can offer a cloak if yours is insufficient.”
As bound by curiosity and desire to know as was the prince, for all that hers was tightly contained, Belinda bobbed a curtsey of agreement. “I would be delighted, my lord. Eliza tells me that you grow pears.”
“Yes, and they’re just at the end of the season.” Javier escorted her from the theatre, meaningless pleasantries exchanged for the carriage ride to the palace grounds. He himself offered her a hand in leaving the carriage, and without asking slipped her fingers into the crook of his arm. No woman would pull away from a prince; the gesture was instinctive, but also intended to confer honour. “Are you warm enough?” he asked solicitously. Belinda dropped her gaze and reveled in allowing herself a tiny smile in place of laughter.
“Yes, my lord. Thank you.” Bland and polite, they left the carriage behind as Javier guided her through a series of gates and into a midnight garden. They walked in silence, the charged topic between them set aside as Belinda loosened her fingers from Javier’s arm and took a few steps ahead of him into the warm, scented grounds.
Fruit-bearing trees clustered together thickly enough around pathways to cut evening moonlight into dapples and strips of white-blue light, shifting with the slight breeze. The air that stirred between them was warm and light with sweetness, the rich scents of ripening fruit. The paths were well-tended but not pristine; smaller bushes overflowed and tangled their thin branches into the walkways, easily torn if a wanderer did not watch his feet.
Belinda turned back to Javier, catching the prince standing still in a shaft of pale light. The moon was a harsh mistress to him; her blue tones made lilac shadows in his hair and hollowed his cheekbones. She took blood from his lips and made his skin seem fragile over the bones, too pale for life.
But she brought out the lightness of his eyes and named their true color grey. In her light he looked like a creature from another world, perhaps one of the underhill dwelling shee the Hibernian island west of Aulun had legends of. Belinda gazed at him, entranced, then shivered, trying to cast off his spell as she lifted her chin. “My lord?”
Javier shook himself, as she had just done. “Forgive me. I was only admiring how well the moonlight suits you.” He made a moue and brushed the words away disparagingly. “For though it sounds like it,” he said, and Belinda started to smile, “that is not a line I try on most women. Forgive me; it sounded absurd.”
“It sounded charming,” Belinda corrected with amusement, then extended her hands a little as she turned to encompass the gardens with her embrace. “This is all yours.”
“Yes.”
“And we’re alone here. Without guards or spies.”
“Yes.” Javier’s voice lowered as he came closer. “No, my lady Irvine. There is nowhere in a palace without guards or spies. Your country estates may be more forgiving, but here there is nothing that cannot be bought and paid for, and so there is nothing that goes unwatched.” His hands came around in front of her throat, unfastening the clasp of her cloak with an easy twitch of his fingers. The cloak fell away and Javier put his hands on her hips, stepping closer. The freedom Belinda had felt in donning the gown that Eliza had sent was compounded by shock: through thin silk, without the weight of petticoats between the fabric and her skin, she could feel the heat of Javier’s hands with far more intensity than she was accustomed to. His lips brushed her shoulder and she shivered, letting go a soft laugh that had more in common with desire than amusement. Javier pulled her hips back against his, mouth brushing her shoulder a second time.
“There is one sort of assignation that is hardly unexpected.” His breath spilled over her skin, warm compared to the surrounding air. Belinda’s stomach tightened, knots of responding need making bright aching points in her breasts.
“My lord,” she whispered, then wondered what she thought she might say next. A token protest? A refusal? Javier chuckled as his hand lifted from her hip and found, unerringly, the pins that held her hair up. He tugged them loose, dropping them to the ground as her hair loosened and fell around her shoulders. He inhaled the scent, then brushed it out of the way and slid his arm around her waist, mouth against her shoulder again.
“My lord?” Mocking words, although gentle. “Do Lanyarchan men not bring their women to lovely places for seduction, Beatrice? Surely you didn’t think we would have an innocent walk in the gardens, a quiet talk about the witchbreed—!” The final word was no louder than t
he others, but with it he pulled loose the laces that held her gown in place. It fell away more easily than Belinda expected it to, Javier pushing the sleeves from her shoulders and letting the fabric rumple to the ground around her ankles. Belinda could feel her tiny dagger pressing itself into the small of her back, bound in place by the corset that was all she wore now. Javier ran his fingertips along the lower edge of the corset, over her hips. She could feel his smile against her shoulder and the hardness of his desire pressed against her bottom.
“I believe I approve of this new fashion, Beatrice. One single piece of outerwear is far easier to overcome than the dozens of petticoats and layers women usually wear. Did you do this for me?” He traced the corset to its lowest point, ghosting his fingers over curls. Belinda shivered, tilting her head back against the prince’s shoulder and making him breathe laughter. He pressed his palm over the thatch of curls, holding her hips against his as his other hand wandered free, following the stiff lines of the corset up to where skin was bared again. He brushed his fingers over rounded flesh, then delved into the scant space afforded by the bindings and forced her breast free of the corset, scraping her nipple against the hard edges of the stay. Belinda whimpered and Javier growled, a hungry sound of triumph as he pinched the nipple and slid his fingers between her thighs.
The liquid sound of pleasure that escaped her was loud enough to call any nearby guards with an impulse for watching. Javier pressed his thigh between hers, pushing them apart. Belinda’s ankle twisted, the shoes she wore for extra height not intended to be moved sideways while weight bore down on them. She collapsed; Javier caught her with his hand hard on her breast and his fingers curving inside her. For a blissful moment there was relief, pressure against the sweet spot on the bone within, but his fingers left her again when she was steady on her feet. Belinda made a mewl of protest, opening her thighs further and winding an arm back around Javier’s neck, uncertain of her own ability to keep her feet. He smiled again, against her throat.