by C. E. Murphy
“It’s a rare man who admits he may not fully understand a thing.” Belinda chose her words carefully. “My father would have said, a wise man.” She imagined Robert preaching the line, and let her own laughter echo through the stillness she still held wrapped around her. It warmed her without coming close to the surface, without darkening her eyes or curving her mouth. Javier inclined his head very slightly.
“I thank you, Lady Beatrice. I doubt I have the years for wisdom, but God granting, perhaps someday I’ll grow into it. And if lovely women are to dispense it, so much the better for all of us.” He flashed a grin, disarming and bright, at his companions, and they slowly loosened their hold on confusion and suspicion. All but Eliza, whose sulk deepened. She had no more idea than the men did what had passed between Belinda and the prince, but her position was already jeopardized. She would trust nothing of Belinda without a direct order, and even then would keep one eye on her purse. For a fleeting moment Belinda considered taking her aside to promise her own innocence in matters of pursuing the prince, but to make a liar of herself with actions would do no one any good.
Javier was speaking; Belinda turned her attention back to him, replaying the words she’d heard without listening in her mind. There is to be an opera this Friday evening, he’d said. “I dare say between the four of us we might scrape up enough to add a ticket to our party,” he suggested. “If the Lady Irvine might care to join us?”
The Lady Irvine turned her gaze on her erstwhile companion of the evening. Marius’s cheeks were flushed with more crimson than the heat of the club warranted, but he bowed his head gracefully. “Would you accompany me, lady?” The penultimate word was stressed very faintly, as if the tiny declaration of possession would go unnoticed by the others if he was careful to bring only a little attention to it.
“The opera,” Belinda echoed, both amused and embarrassed to hear a thread of genuine apprehension in her voice. “I don’t know operas, my lord.” She did, though only in the abstract; fables in music, she’d read, with extraordinary songs and costuming. The art form had been birthed in Parna, and only lately; to find it burgeoning in Lutetia surprised her, for all that Gallin’s capital city thought well of itself as a centre for art. “What does one wear?”
Pure malice, disguised as delight, from Eliza: “Don’t worry, darling.” Her smile was so sharp it made Belinda want to laugh. “I’ll help you.”
Not even the men missed that. They exchanged guarded looks, and Javier cleared his throat. “Perhaps between my sister and I, we might provide some assistance.” His teasing reminder of their purported relationship only fanned Eliza’s anger. She sat back, eyes snapping and bright, and made a short chopping gesture with her right hand. For the first time Belinda noticed jewelry there: a ring carved of stone, something pale enough to nearly blend against her translucent skin. Alabaster or maybe marble, Belinda thought clinically, and wondered who had given her the bauble.
“As you will,” Eliza said. As if her desire could override the prince’s, Belinda thought, but it wasn’t her purpose to destroy the group. Not yet at least. She didn’t know enough about them. They might prove more useful unified than they would separated.
“I would never presume to doubt the prince’s taste or knowledge of women’s clothing,” she began. Javier let out a snort of laughter and lifted his wineglass.
“By which you mean, you are about to doubt it in an extravagantly polite fashion. And here I thought the Lanyarchans called a spade a spade, Lady Irvine.” He drank deeply of his glass, never taking his eyes off her as she let a smile of acknowledgment ghost across her face.
“A spade is one thing, my lord. Insulting royalty is rather another.”
“And yet,” Javier said. Belinda smiled, and turned her eyes to Eliza.
“I would rather trust a woman’s judgment,” she murmured, putting herself into Eliza’s hands entirely. She might pay for it by appearing at the opera in a whore’s costume, but the risk was worthwhile. Eliza’s gaze shuttered, small triumph obscured by uncertainty. “Lady Eliza, would you help me in finding a gown for the opera? I would be in your debt.”
She felt Marius relax marginally. By putting the onus on Eliza, Belinda circumvented both owing the prince anything, and left the field fractionally more open to the young nobleman. It was not a direct refusal, which would have risked too much-might even have risked a breach in Javier’s friendship with Marius-but it lay out rules of engagement. Belinda was not yet spoken for, and a prince’s power and wealth were not quite enough to turn her head.
Eliza, having made the offer, could find no way out of it. “Perhaps tomorrow,” she said eventually. “So that there might be time for adjustments to be made. I’m sure we can find something appropriate at one of the dressmaker’s businesses near the palace.”
“At what hour?” Belinda asked. Eliza glanced at her friends.
“That depends on how late we stay here, and how far into our cups we go.”
“We haven’t gone nearly far enough.” Asselin poured another round. The cathedral bells rang incessantly as the quintet staggered from the club, leaning heavily on one another to keep their feet. It had begun to rain; Belinda slipped in a puddle and nearly brought the whole train down with her. Marius hooted and howled, yanking her back to her feet. She stood with her face mashed against his chest for a few seconds, listening to the alcohol-induced rapid thump of his heartbeat. He snickered and put an arm around her shoulders, trying to reel her around into a more typically upright position. She swung too far; Javier caught her and set her on her feet. Beyond his shoulder Belinda could see Eliza, drunk enough to verge on belligerence, and leaned around the prince to blink wide-eyed at the other woman.
“Not before ten,” she pleaded. “I pray you, we mustn’t go out before ten. The very thought of sunlight makes my insides crawl.” She shoved away from Javier, trusting the drink to be apology enough, and lurched the few steps toward Eliza, so they propped each other up. The bells continued to ring, banging out numbers that went far beyond any hour of the clock. Belinda rolled until her shoulders were pressed against Eliza’s, and flung her head back to stare accusingly in the direction of the cathedral. “What the bloody hell time is it?” She let herself forget Gallic, her question slurred thick with a Lanyarchan burr and too much wine. “Why won’t the fucking bells stop?”
It was Javier who answered, in Aulunian, as she expected. “It’s the half hour. They go on for five minutes. You’ve heard them during the day, haven’t you?”
“But they weren’t so ear-bleeding loud,” Belinda protested, then said, “Shite,” with overwhelming enthusiasm. “I’ve forgotten my tongue.”
“Let me find it for you, lady.” Marius wrapped his arm around Belinda’s waist and pulled her into him. Eliza staggered and swore. Belinda heard her mutter a thanks to Javier an instant later as he rescued her from her own tangled feet, but her own attention was taken by Marius’s kiss: sensual and soft, his mouth hungry and tasting of wine but curtailed with just enough reserve as to make it a promise rather than a demand for more. It went on until the bells stopped; until Belinda heard Asselin’s staccato applause and sharp whistling.
“Bring her home already, Marius, and stop teasing the rest of us. Jav, your carriage, please be to God we’re not walking home.”
“I ought to make you,” Javier threatened idly. “It’d be best for all our heads. Marius, you’ve your own carriage tonight?”
Marius looked up from Belinda’s upturned face, his eyes heavy in the rain-streaked torchlight outside the club. “Carriage,” he repeated as if it were a foreign word, then chuckled and tossed his hair back. “Yes, yes of course, we’ll be fine. Come. Come, Beatrice, let me take you home.”
Belinda hung back a moment, even as Marius captured her hand and tried to draw her away. “Ten, Lady Eliza? No earlier? We could breakfast together-?”
Eliza flipped her fingers out, the same gesture Javier used to still his friends, but in her it was acknowledgment
and dismissal both. “I’ll wake Marius at dawn for your address,” she threatened. Marius groaned dramatically. “Tomorrow,” Eliza said. “At ten.” She nodded, and Belinda let herself be drawn away into the rain-speckled street. “You didn’t tell me,” she said to Marius, minutes later. They huddled together more than necessary, the coach protecting them from the rain well enough, but drink and laughter and the lingering effects of the kiss held them close. Marius sighed with a dozen kinds of exasperation, and settled on “Would you have believed me?” as the one to voice. Belinda cackled and leaned against him more heavily.
“No. Forgive me, but no. You’re not royalty.” She blinked, overexaggerated in the darkness. “Are you?”
Marius flung himself back into the cushions, making the whole coach lurch with the force of it. “Not at all. Sacha and I were friends first, and his family is better-placed than mine.”
“Ah,” Belinda said lightly, teasing, “then it’s he I ought to set my cap for.”
Marius gave her such a distraught look that she laughed, taking pity, and nestled against his side. “Lord Asselin is too short for me,” she assured him. “A lady likes a little length in her men.”
She said it without wickedness, trusting Marius to take it places he oughtn’t, and from the brief shocked silence she knew she’d succeeded. She grinned broadly against his chest, letting fabric and the night conceal not only the expression, but the amused memory that what the stocky lord lacked in length was made up in breadth. That Marius Poulin had friends in high places she’d known when she’d sought him out as the first step in pursuing Javier, prince of Gallin. Asselin had been named one of those friends, but not even rumour had breathed hints of his cheapside whoring and rabblerousing. She wondered if Marius-if Javier-knew of his revolutionary thoughts, or if he worked for the prince, searching out dangers to Sandalia, Javier’s mother and the pretender to the Aulunian throne.
Questions to be answered later. Belinda schooled her smile to innocence as she look up again, wide-eyed. “My lord?”
“Nothing.” Marius cleared his throat. “Nothing, Lady Irvine. Forgive me, my mind…wandered. Javier…is a tall man. What did you think of him?” Cautious words, testing waters he had trusted only hours earlier.
Belinda shrugged thoughtfully. “He seems a very nice prince. I don’t meet a wide range.”
“He admired you.” Marius kept his voice carefully neutral. Belinda sat up, eyebrows crinkling.
“To what end, my lord? He has charm; he is attractive. He is also royalty, and my nobility comes through marriage, and is minor at best. Am I to aspire to being his royal hand-me-down?”
Marius met her gaze sharply. “There are women who would give their lives for so much as that.”
Belinda lifted her chin, full of pride and indignation. “I trust I think better of myself. I might have thought you did, Master Poulin.”
“Yes.” Marius’s voice roughened and he leaned forward to take her hands. “Forgive me, Beatrice. Jealousy makes a man say foolish things.” He drew her forward and kissed her again, this time kissing her forehead, an apology. “Forgive me,” he murmured a second time. Belinda exhaled and allowed him to settle her at his side again.
“Forgiven,” she murmured. “I shall endeavor to prove immune to his charms, my lord. I think a woman might, should she put her mind to it.”
The rest of the journey they made in silence. A curtain drew back; piercing, vicious light stabbed through Belinda’s eyelids and into the back of her skull, illuminating every dark thought and memory she held. She flung her arm over her eyes and flipped onto her belly, burying her face in pillows with a groan that vibrated in her bones.
“My lady.” A servant spoke, timid and apologetic. “You asked to be wakened before ten. It’s a quarter to the hour now.”
“I lied. Hang me instead.” Belinda dragged a pillow over the back of her head and groaned again. She hadn’t had so much to drink as that-less than her antics the night before had suggested-but the part was made to be played, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had the opportunity or desire to revel in noisy misery.
“My lady,” the maid said, with the proper note of stubbornness, “your guest will arrive soon. You must be up.” Even through the shielding of pillows, Belinda could tell that the girl was pulling back more curtains in the room, letting in mellow morning light that, despite Belinda’s dramatics, was unlikely to sear the very flesh from her bones. Belinda flung the pillow away and rolled onto her back again, her arm draped over her eyes.
“You’re a cruel taskmaster, Nina. A calculating and heartless bitch.”
“Yes, my lady,” the maid said with such mildness that Belinda laughed. She pitched the duvet back with as much drama as she’d flung both herself and the pillows around, and it slithered off the far side of the bed, farther out of reach than she’d intended. Dismayed, she found herself obliged to sit up, no longer able to burrow beneath the covers again.
“All right. I’m up. Pray God there’s tea.” She moved her arm enough to fix a one-eyed gimlet stare on Nina, who ignored her entirely as she finished opening curtains.
The room was well-appointed; every time Belinda looked around she felt a little surge of pleasure. Not extravagant, and not fashionable, at least not according to Lutetian standards, it was small enough to be cozy and warm. For this room, her private bedroom, she had forgone the cool yellow and blue silks that brought the rest of her little house up to local expectations. Here she had decorated in the colors of Lanyarch, rich greens and reds, the wall-hangings of sturdy wool that didn’t flutter with the open windows. The maids clearly thought her eccentric, but she paid them on time and made relatively few demands, and so they found no cause for complaint.
Nina came back to the side of the bed, a silver tray in her hands. “There is tea,” she said. Belinda reached greedily for a cup. Nina took one precise step backward and clucked her tongue. She was pretty, as nearly all serving maids were, and had been caught servicing her former employer’s son in ways that ruined her reputation. Belinda felt a fierce sting of sympathy for the girl, too familiar with the pattern that women with no means of their own were so often caught in. One could not refuse the lord and master, nor his son, but neither could one afford to accept their advances. The price of seduction always lay on the woman, never the master.
And so when a neighboring wife had made passing mention of the little slut who’d whored herself to her son-a fine, upstanding young man, who could never be tempted by such raw and primal behavior if it were not for little bitches like Nina twitching her skirts at him-Belinda had requested to hire the girl to begin at her household the very next morning. The neighbor’s eyes, already beady to begin with, had all but popped out of her head, while Belinda shrugged with imposed calm. There are no men in my household, she’d said. There is nothing to tempt a girl to wayward behavior, and her reputation need not be destroyed. And she’d smiled apologetically and offered, Perhaps we Lanyarchans are a peculiar lot, and the woman had no choice but to hastily agree to the hiring, or to insult her new neighbor. It had been an excellent choice: Nina was grateful for a new place in a reputable household, and believed her employer to have an inexplicably soft side.
Which was what now allowed her to dare step out of Belinda’s reach and say, firmly, “You must be out of bed before you may have your tea, my lady. You always spill on the sheets and the stains never come out.”
“Nina.” Belinda utterly failed to reach a threatening tone. The serving maid widened her eyes, innocent as the newborn day.
“And besides, my lady, it gets you out of bed. You must be in at least a dressing gown before your guest arrives.”
Belinda groaned again and struggled for the edge of the bed. Eliza would not only arrive on time, but she would already be dressed. The maid was right. Turning out in a dressing gown would be bad enough. Eliza would mock her with those lovely dark eyes, and Belinda would deserve it. “All right, all right.”
She cl
imbed out of bed and dropped her sleeping gown to the floor, absently touching the thread that held her dagger against the small of her back. Nina had gaped once at the tiny weapon and forevermore seemed not to see it, even when Belinda strode across her bedroom naked as a babe, as she did now. An elderly gentleman lived across the street. Belinda never looked, but always hoped he might have the presence of mind to be watching from his own bedroom windows when she got up in the morning. She thought of herself as less prone to exhibitionism as she was an appreciator of voyeurism. Nina made distressed clucking sounds as she did every morning when Belinda insisted on putting on such a display, and managed to shake a chemise down over her lady’s shoulders while Belinda stood in front of the wardrobe trying to select a gown.
“How dreadful is my hair?”
A calculating silence left Belinda smiling as she reached for a gown. Dark amber, it brought out the warmth of her hair. She hesitated over it, then selected a less flattering dress. Eliza might find herself tempted to plume a sparrow well, but presented with a peacock she was likely to snap in the other direction.
“It has seen better mornings, my lady,” Nina said judiciously, and then in dismay, “And that color will not help at all, my lady. The amber is better.”
“I know. Don’t argue, girl.” Belinda brushed away her complaints with a snap of her fingers and spread her arms so Nina could wrap the corset around her. The overdress was of pale green; half a shade truer and it would be springlike, lovely, complimenting Belinda’s complexion and making her hair dark and soft. Instead it bordered on the color of limes, too startling to flatter a woman of Belinda’s skin tones. She thought, briefly, of Ana in Aria Magli, and wondered at the stab of regret. “I’ll be trying on dresses. A hat won’t do to hide my hair today.”
Patience filled Nina’s voice. “Don’t worry, my lady. I’ll have you presentable in time to make a fashionable entrance.” The girl was as good as her word. Belinda came down the stairs within minutes of Eliza’s arrival, as properly bedecked as she could be. Her hairstyle wasn’t extravagant, but neither was it unfashionable, swept up in a twist that emphasized her forehead and the length of her neck. Belinda felt quite smug until she saw her guest.