by C. E. Murphy
Honest terror slid through him, delicious rewidening of his eyes as he believed a threat Belinda knew she could carry out. His body went still in hers, no bad thing with her own weight bearing her down on his cock, making a spot of desperately rising pleasure as she worked her fingers against herself. But she smiled against his mouth, shaking her head. “Oh no, love. Not now. You don’t get to stop now.”
She took her hand from his hair, his head falling forward over her breasts, though fear still held him still. She slipped her hand down his backside, fingers spread wide over his crack and then diving relentlessly inside him.
His voice broke, high sharp sound as he shoved forward, scraping her against the railing, scraping against the bone within her that brought violent spasms of heat spilling through her body. She bit his shoulder again, rolling against him with her own whimpers and cries knotted in her throat. Marius still dared not move, only clung to her and gasped in uncertain need as she took what she wanted from him. Only when she slipped her fingers from within him did he groan and risk rocking forward again, a plea that broke hard laughter from Belinda’s throat. She pushed herself off him, balanced on the railing momentarily to shove him away and thump her feet to the ground.
Confusion filled his face, his hands spread in question, unsated cock jutting at a desperate angle through the folds of his tunic. Belinda straightened her arm, fully cognizant of another man she’d pushed away thus, a lifetime earlier, and watched Marius stumble back a step, but not to his death. “Come now, Marius.” Her voice was harsh in her ears, mocking more viciously than he deserved. “Can you imagine the disaster of making me pregnant, with the prince as my lover? I can’t risk your seed spilling inside me. Put it away and take it home to a serving girl.” Her heart banged against her ribs, cruelty aching and distinct within her, as much in search of release as the fading throb between her thighs had been. She crimped a fist against the hurt in his dark eyes and brought her voice back under control, a greater struggle than she liked to admit.
“Go, Marius.” Almost nothing more than a whisper. “Your sweet mouth, your eyes. I knew enough to resist, but it’s hard when one man can’t be denied where another is wanted.” Sorrow etched the words and a flush came over Marius’s cheeks, forgiveness too easily obtained. “Tomorrow,” Belinda promised. “Tomorrow we’ll talk, we’ll try to see how this can be gotten through, when I know now I’m not strong enough to stand strong against you.” Tears filled her eyes, tangling in her lashes and making hot lines down her cheeks as she turned her head, offering her throat just as he’d done for her moments earlier. “Forgive me, m’sieur.”
“Beatrice.” Marius’s voice went rough and he stuffed himself back into his clothes before stepping forward to catch her in a hopeless, desperate hug. “There is nothing to forgive. You’re right, of course you’re right, about children, about…tomorrow.” He broke his own near-apologies off and clenched her against his chest, a promise of safety. “I’ll call on you tomorrow,” he promised, then released her so quickly it seemed he feared what he might do. Within seconds he’d taken himself away, hurrying across the bridge without daring to look back. Belinda watched him go, licking the coppery taste of blood from her lower lip.
Feared what he might do, or, she thought, feared what she might do. Red fire tinged the edges of the reemerging golden pool of power within her mind, as if she had for the first time acknowledged her own strength. It made no sense; she had acted against her own character and reveled in it. She did not take, or risk, or demand, not in the fashion she had just done, and yet it felt more pure and delicious than any moment she could remember. She did not release the stillness she’d learned so carefully and rut without a thought for anything but herself. Less than a quarter hour earlier, she would have said she could not do so.
Fresh fire burned through her, spilling from the top of her skull down through her body, making points of desire in her nipples and groin. She wet her lips, eyes half closed as she considered the barrier that no longer lay in her mind. Perhaps it had held back this part of her, too. She had broken down that careful barricade, drained her witchpower to nothing, and in the aftermath given in to her own wanting in a way she had never imagined doing. If those things were connected, it was a lesson learned: using her power to its nadir was aggressively dangerous to her, destroying a lifetime’s careful study.
Her perfect memory rose up with a gift: a serving girl’s blush and shocked hunger following her down the stairs.
Belinda smoothed her skirts and set herself homeward, a predator’s smile curving her mouth.
SANDALIA, QUEEN AND REGENT
19 October 1587 Lutetia, Gallin The queen arrives back in Lutetia with neither pomp nor circumstance. She has the flags covered on her ship and slips into port late at night, meeting a prearranged and nondescript carriage to take her from the docks to a country cottage on the palace grounds. She sleeps under guard, and awakens in the morning to the smell of breakfast in the outer room. Pulling on a dressing gown, leaving her hair tousled and down, she steps through the bedroom door to smile at Javier. “How do you always know?”
“What kind of son would I be if I didn’t know when my mother came and left her home?” He stands, first to bow as benefits both their stations, then to step forward and kiss his mother’s cheeks. “I thought your business with Rodrigo was only supposed to take a month.”
“Petulant child.” Sandalia walks barefoot to the table, greedy for a croissant and rich salty butter. “I hadn’t seen my brother in two years. A visit was warranted.”
“You’ve written to him.” Javier retains the deliberately sulky tone, earning Sandalia’s laughter.
“And I wrote to you. You, however…” She points her butter knife at him and laughs again to catch his expression of guilt. “Who is she?”
Javier’s eyes widen. “She? She who?”
“Jav.” Sandalia speaks the nickname fondly. “Even if you didn’t write, my spies did. Don’t pretend there isn’t a woman.”
“If you know there’s a woman,” he says easily, “then you know everything about her already, and there’s nothing to tell.” He glanced at her for permission, then sprawled in a chair, gangliness of youth briefly still apparent in his form. “Her name is Beatrice Irvine, and she’s a minor Lanyarchan noble.”
“Yes. I don’t recall the Irvines, or her father. Roger, I think his name was?”
“Robert.” Exasperation fills Javier’s tone. “Mother, you lived in Lanyarch less than two years. For all the stories, I cannot believe you slept on every hearth in the godforsaken country. You can’t be expected to know every parent and every child birthed there since you were fourteen. Even,” he adds lightly, “if that was only a scant handful of years ago. How is Uncle Rodrigo?”
Sandalia laughs. “Handsome, but not as flattering as my son. Handsome,” she repeats thoughtfully, “and, perhaps, growing ambitious at long last.”
Quietude surrounds her son, an expectation that she’s learned to recognize as a moment when those things that he desires will come to him. He has extraordinary will, and she wonders if he realises how easily he influences others.
“Aulun.” He barely breathes the word, aware even in the privacy of her own small cottage how carefully watched he and his mother are. “Curiously,” he says an instant later, tone normal again, “Beatrice may be of some use there. She’s passionate, Mother.” He leaves words unsaid, words that Sandalia has no need to hear spoken. Passion is an excellent vice, easily shaped to foolish behavior. Passion can be used to set flames from embers that have been too-long untended.
“Irvine,” Sandalia repeats, and taps the flat of her knife against her mouth. The blade tastes of salt and butter and she licks her lips absently. “Have you looked into her family?”
“No, and I haven’t checked her teeth, either. She’s for rolling, Mother, not breeding.” There’s something tense in his words, something he wishes to hide. It’s possible he’s fallen in love with the girl, though it se
ems he still understands how she can be used.
“Javier.” Sandalia puts steel into her voice, enough to make him flinch as if he were still a guilty child. “The Church says we must come pure to the marriage bed. Surely you haven’t broken that covenant.” She’s teasing, but Javier’s mouth flattens for a moment before breaking into an easy smile.
“Of course not, Mother. She’s told me a little of her family,” he adds more patiently. “Her father was landed but not noble, and that her title comes from marriage to some old man aged enough to be her grandfather. Aside from that, I haven’t looked into her family, not beyond the painting of her father that hangs in her hall. I don’t know if it was his face or the painter’s skill that’s lacking, but Beatrice must be her mother’s daughter.” Tension eased, he chuckles and reaches forward to dump jam onto a chunk of pastry.
“They always are, my sweet. They always are.” Sandalia purses her lips, then holds out her hand for the jam jar. Javier puts it into her palm without her having to ask, and she smiles. “Let me set my spymasters to her. If she’s all she seems, then I think you’d better introduce me.”
“The courtiers will think you plan to marry me to her.”
“A Lanyarchan provincial? Let them think it, if they’re that foolish. My brother is making treatise with Khazar, Jav.” Sandalia drops into her native tongue of Essandian, confident of her son’s ability to follow. He speaks more languages than she does, his Khazarian fluent and his Parnan passable. She has only Gallic, Essandian, and Aulunian, though they’ve been enough to serve her. Nor does she think the change of language will truly hide her words from anyone determined to listen, but no one is supposed to know she’s back, and the usual run of spies might only have one tongue. “With her help we might-”
“So we might,” Javier murmurs. That something is in his gaze again, a far-awayness that she hasn’t seen before. She knows ambition, but is hard-pressed to recognize it on her son’s face; Rodrigo spoke truly when he said Javier was her first and most loyal subject. He’s grown up in a shadow Sandalia has worked hard to cast long, and he has never shown resentment or hinted at plotting beyond Sandalia’s own intentions. She is torn in understanding this; the idea that it’s awe and respect that keeps him in line is appealing, but at desperate odds with the behavior of the men she knows. If he is finally facing his first taste of desire for a throne, Sandalia finds herself almost relieved, even as a part of her regrets the loosening of the hold she’s had on him all his life.
“I have men,” he says abruptly. “Friends loyal to me-”
“You have Sacha,” Sandalia says, as gentle as he was abrupt. “And Marius. A lordling and a merchant boy, my prince. Will you send them into battle for you? Will you risk them that way? Is that what you want to propose to me now?”
Red flushes Javier’s cheeks as it hasn’t done since he was a boy. “They are, Sacha especially, ambitious, Mother. And I’m their prince. If-” He’s stumbling now, eager embarrassment making for tongue-tangled frustration. “If events should move forward, and I know Sacha dreams they might, then he might earn himself a title or lands separate from his father’s. How could I tell him no? And Marius-” Now colour truly curdles his face, ugly contrast with his ginger hair. “Beatrice was his,” he says dully. “I owe him something.”
“You’re his prince,” Sandalia says mildly. “You owe him nothing. Rodrigo reminds me that I have never seen war, Jav. Neither have you. Perhaps you should wait to see it before you consign your dearest friends to their glory. Besides, winter comes on and there will be no dramatics during the cold months. It’ll be spring again before the ice breaks and the world moves forward again.”
BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE
19 October 1587 Lutetia, Gallin A gong and a whimper of dismay awakened Belinda, sunlight filtering through tangled lashes and turning her vision to red in the moment she became aware. The bell sounded a second time, and so did the whimper, the latter bringing a lazy smile to Belinda’s lips. She slid a hand across the sheets, encountering a curve of flesh and following it upward to find the sloppy spill of a breast. The nipple reacted as she plucked it, hardening and earning another whimper, more bewildered and shy than the first. Belinda rolled closer, setting lips and teeth to the girl’s breast, eyes still closed with lazy satisfaction, and slipped her hand down the girl’s body, sifting her fingers through rough curls. Dismay squeaked in the girl’s throat and Belinda lifted her mouth to speak even as her fingers delved inside the young woman, seeking a moisture that had not left her in the night.
“Is it different in daylight, Nina? You seemed eager under the stars. Is it frightening now? Is it wrong?” The need for domination had left her while she slept, content filling her mind as the pool of witchpower within her replenished itself. But an edge remained, though whether it was power demanding more or simply the irresistible toy in her bed, Belinda was both uncertain and uncaring. Her dark-haired parlour maid lay bound ankle and wrist, wide open for teasing and taking, far too sweet to ignore.
A cruelty that had left her had deliberately chosen to keep Nina spread through the night, a kerchief shoved into her mouth and tied so the girl’s crying wouldn’t disturb Belinda’s sleep. Nina’s hair was still damp with tears, pincurls slick and delicate as they stood away from her temples, and marks reddened the sides of her mouth where she was gagged. Viciousness was gone, but Nina’s helplessness woke pulsing hunger in Belinda’s veins, strong enough to kill any impulse to release the girl. “Shall I stop, lovely child?” Her thumb worked a quick hard circle between Nina’s thighs, sending a shudder of confusion through her body. The protest she’d begun was swallowed, eyes wide and uncertain. Belinda chortled, rolling her weight on top of the young woman, who exhaled sharply through her gag.
The bell sounded a third time, sparking irritation. Belinda flounced off the bed, knowing full well she behaved like a spoilt child, and snatched up a dressing robe to run down the stairs in. Being left to answer the door herself was certainly her own fault, with Nina occupied as she was.
Marius, a high-collared cravat not quite hiding bruised tooth marks on his neck, stood outside the door with eyes dark and haunted. “Beatrice…”
Belinda caught him by the sleeve and pulled him inside, molding herself against him as the door closed behind him. “Did you sleep? Your eyes, my lord…”
“I could not.” His voice was hoarse and Belinda smiled against his chest, then turned a sweet gaze on him as he clutched her upper arms. “I shouldn’t be here, but I cannot think for desiring you, Beatrice. What have you done to me?”
“Young lust, m’sieur. Young love. This is its taste.” Belinda loosened his grip on her by lifting her hands to touch his collar. “I was cruel. You must forgive me, please.”
He hissed, jerking his head, though his pulse leapt as she touched the marks she’d left. “Did you find a girl to sate your need, my sweet?” Her own heartbeat rose too quickly, surprising her with the dark playfulness in the question. She’d thought her power replenished, with no need to take more, but the impulse to tease the young merchant rode her heavily, pressing her beyond good sense back into passion. Good sense: she clawed at the memory of it, aware of how quickly it had fled her the night before, and feeling it falter again as Marius shook his head with another quick hard motion. Laughter and desire, so tied together she could fight neither, spilled through her, and Belinda stepped back, taking his hands. “Then let me help you.”
Hope flared in his eyes, so bright it made her laugh again, breathless. She shifted her shoulders, letting her dressing robe fall loose, so that only her arms, pressed to mound her breasts as she drew Marius with her, kept it in place. His gaze dropped to the soft flesh she displayed, arrested by it. “Lady Beatrice.” His voice was thick, tongue clumsy with desire. “I would not have imagined you so…” He swallowed, unable to find the word.
Belinda wet her lips, walking carefully up the stairs, each step taken backward so Marius kept his eyes on her body. “So wa
nton, my lord?” Her own voice was hoarse, more artifice than desire, hiding laughter instead of showing need. “I said my husband was old, not well suited for pleasing a young woman. I did not say he was…unimaginative. He had a young wife, and certain…desires to play out.” Laying the blame on a man who’d never existed, making him cruel and hard and creative, made it too easy to blur the line between herself and the role she played. Too easy, but necessary: Beatrice should never have Belinda’s expertise, not without an excuse that a young man, half in love with the idea of rescuing a lonely widow, could accept. “Let me show you how I can ease your need.”
She knocked her bedroom door open with her hip as she spoke, Marius fixated on her until Nina’s shrill scream broke through the gag as a pathetic, high sound. She twisted on the bed, hands knotted, hips raised as she struggled against her bonds and only tightened them with her efforts. A blush scarred Marius’s cheeks, his gaze torn between Belinda and the writhing, bound girl on the bed. “You have admired her, have you not?” Belinda whispered. “She has known a man’s touch before. Take your pleasure from her, and think of me.”
Nina screamed again, bucking and flinging herself against the bed. Marius flinched, his colour still high, and spoke with no conviction: “She does not want me.”
Belinda released his hands, letting her robe flutter around her as she went to the bed. “She will,” she promised, confidence burning inside her. More than confidence: a drive to prove herself, to explore, to control; all things lying outside Belinda’s sense of self, lying beyond her long-imposed stillness. There were reasons to draw back, reasons that seemed far away and faded behind a wall of golden fire. It was without hesitation that Belinda sat at Nina’s side, stroking her hand down the younger woman’s belly as she repeated, “She will.”