by M. J. Scott
Chapter 10
Cameron escorted Sophie back to the ballroom, walking behind the emperor and his guards. The members of the Anglion delegation followed in their wake, and the space between his shoulder blades itched with the weight of the glares he could only imagine they were directing at him.
As first meetings went, what had just transpired was not promising. The lack of any assurance about what kind of reception awaited them if they returned to Anglion was disturbing. Disturbing enough that he was fighting the urge to take Sophie and vanish into the night once more. To run, to put it bluntly.
Only the knowledge that they would be unlikely to make it past the palace gates, let alone the city limits, kept him trying to come up with an alternative plan.
If the tightness of Sophie’s grip on his arm was any indication, she was as upset as him. Goddess. He wished they could stop for a moment. Talk. Form a plan. But the emperor was moving and they must move with him. And then be swept up in whatever came next.
The party walked into the ballroom and the noise died almost instantly, the musicians cutting off mid-note and the chatter of conversation silenced.
The emperor seated himself on the dais and proceeded to make a short speech in which he welcomed the Anglions, while not distinguishing Sophie and Cameron from the envoys.
His pronouncement caused a shocked murmur of response that rippled and spread across the room before silence descended once more.
“We need to—” Sophie started to say, but before she could complete her sentence, the crown prince strolled across from where he had been standing to the right of his father, bowed very elegantly to Sophie, and asked her to dance.
Ladies didn’t refuse requests from crown princes to dance at their father’s balls. Not even royal witches. So Cameron had no choice but to watch Sophie walk the length of the room, the crowd opening up to let her and Alain pass before closing behind them again, and then take her position on the dance floor.
“Easy,” Henri said softly from beside him. “Don’t glower so. At this precise moment, a dance with Alain might be the safest place for her. It is a clear sign of the emperor’s favor, that he has sent his son to partner her to open the ball.”
“That doesn’t necessarily help up when it comes to . . . .” Cameron lifted his chin slightly in the direction of the barron who stood with Sir Harold and James—how was he going to get a moment to try and talk to James?—off to the left of the dais. The three of them were trying not to look uncomfortable and not entirely succeeding.
“They are displeased with you and you wife, I gather. You cannot do anything to change the fact that you came here. So perhaps it is not so bad that they be reminded that the emperor is protecting you, as he said?” Henri replied with a shrug. “For now, best we find you a dance partner as well so it doesn’t look quite so much as though you are plotting how to punch the crown prince on the nose.”
* * *
Sophie had little alternative than to act pleased to be partnering Alain. She smiled at him as they crossed the room, and as they waited for the courtiers who had abandoned the dance floor to hear the emperor speak to take their places once more.
Alain complimented her dress and made other small talk before the musicians started to play, but once they began, he merely stepped forward and swept her into the dance. The music swirled around her, the room spinning into a dizzying whirl of couples circling and swaying. Thankfully the hours spent with the dancing master earlier in the week seemed to have imprinted some memory of the steps on her feet and she was able to keep up with the prince, the movements of the dance easier once a partner who knew entirely what he was doing had control over her.
After the initial burst of concentration required to find her place in the rhythm, she managed to remember to look up at her partner.
“You dance quite well, Lady Scardale,” Alain said.
Was there an unspoken “for an Anglion” implicit in that statement? “Thank you, Your Imperial Highness. I have always enjoyed dancing.”
There. Polite chitchat. She would behave just as though she were at a ball at Kingswell and she had no greater concern than making sure that Eloisa was enjoying herself and that she herself danced with whomever amongst the court she had been told to dance with or who happened to ask her.
She wouldn’t have picked Alain though, if she were choosing a partner. She watched his face, ready to react, but he appeared more interested in watching those around them. Seeing how they reacted to his choice of partner? Or perhaps trying to catch glimpses of himself in the mirrored walls?
Aristides had been dressed as befitted an emperor, but his clothes had been designed for elegance and authority. Alain’s approached something closer to gaudy. The gold embroidery twining around his sleeves in patterns of snakes and some strange bird she didn’t recognize was heavy enough that she wondered that he could even lift his arms for the dance. And where Aristides had chosen white as the base for his clothes, beneath all the embellishment, Alain’s jacket was a poisonous shade of green.
He danced well though and didn’t let her falter as they moved through the steps of one dance and then another. But on the whole, she would have been happy to trade his perfect dancing for a partner who was less accomplished but more . . . well, not attentive. She didn’t want the prince’s attention. But it would be far more pleasant to be dancing with a man who saw her as a person, not a game piece to be manipulated.
Though truly it would be far more pleasant to be almost anywhere else, so maybe her partner didn’t matter overmuch.
The strains of the tune altered, morphing into a different, slower melody. The dancing master had warned them about this, that Illvyans often danced four or five long dances without stopping before they changed partners. There were no clocks on the walls of the ballroom, so she was just going to have to grit her teeth and keep dancing as long as the music lasted.
Once she had done her duty with the prince, then perhaps she would be able to fade into the background as much as possible for the rest of the ball.
Though, as she watched various degrees of speculation and curiosity spark on the faces of the dancers moving past them, she wasn’t so sure that would be possible. The crown prince had deemed her worthy of notice. So had the emperor by inviting her to attend the ball in the first place and announcing her status as an honored guest. Unless the Illvyan court was wholly unlike the Anglion one, there would be a flood of those desperate to learn more about her and Cameron, and equally desperate to determine if any connection to them could be used to an advantage. She would not lack for partners.
“Such deep thoughts,” Alain said abruptly, his gaze returned to her. He spoke Illvyan, though to his credit, he didn’t speak at the rapid-fire pace of the couples around her. “Are you always so quiet when you dance, Lady Scardale?”
She made herself smile up at him. “Forgive me, Your Imperial Highness. I was merely enjoying the spectacle. Such a beautiful room.” She widened the smile. “And I need to concentrate, unfamiliar as I am with your music.” Not to mention trying to keep track of the snatches of Illvyan that she caught as the dance took them within close range of the other couples. As well as holding herself ready to translate whatever Alain himself might say to her.
Perhaps she should have requested the reveilé after all. Court intrigue was always difficult enough without trying to navigate it in a language she wasn’t sure of.
“Well, you make it look effortless,” the prince replied. Then he smiled at someone over her shoulder, and the amusement lighting his eyes sent an uneasy shiver down her spine. “But perhaps I can do something to make you feel more at home.” He rotated her with a few quick steps and she found herself face-to-face with Sevan Allowood, dancing stiffly with a blond woman gowned in pale green. Sevan’s eyes narrowed on Sophie, his expression stiffer than his steps.
“A friendly face, mayhap,” Alain said. He nodded at Stefan’s companion. “Lady du Plutars, it has been too long since I had the pleas
ure of your hand on the dance floor. Perhaps you would indulge me by changing partners?”
Goddess. She couldn’t think of anything less likely to make her feel at home than having to dance with Sevan, who had spent much of their audience with the emperor glowering at her and Cameron.
But she doubted the prince would care to hear her objections. Before she knew quite what was happening, Sevan’s partner had stepped out of his arms and the prince deposited Sophie neatly into them.
Conscious that doing anything but complying would cause a scene, she raised her arms to the required position and felt Stefan’s hands close around her. One over her right hand, another at her waist. His skin felt oddly chilled despite the warmth of the room. Perhaps he was as nervous as she.
“Sir Allowood,” she said politely as they swung back into the pattern. She wasn’t entirely sure that was his correct title. He was a cousin to Barron Nester but a distant one, and not an eldest son, unless she was remembering the particulars incorrectly. He didn’t stand in line to inherit either title or wealth and worked as some sort of clerk for the queen’s revenue collectors.
Exactly the kind of younger man who often focused on climbing the ranks at court with ruthless ambition by making themselves useful to the monarch or the senior nobility. In Sevan’s case, by attaching himself to the treasury. And volunteering for a delegation to Illvya was exactly the kind of task which might appeal to a man trying to distinguish himself. Which would explain his presence amongst the envoys better than his tenuous connection to Barron Nester.
So politeness would seem prudent.
“Lady Scardale,” he returned. He stared down at her, dark eyes cold as his skin.
She remembered the look of disgust he’d given James earlier. This man was not her friend. Should she play the meek mouse or try to find out what in the goddess’ name was behind this so-called mission to reclaim her and Cameron? Perhaps treading a path somewhere between the two would be wisest.
“That was neatly done,” she said, nodding in the direction of the prince’s back, revolving away from them.
Sevan’s grip tightened on her hand. “If you imagine I can influence the crown prince of Illvya, then you are mistaken, milady.”
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t think it was you. Did the barron make a request? Or did the crown prince come up with the scheme?” That seemed more likely. She didn’t see why Alain would wish to do the barron any favors. But this was the second time he’d forced the situation. The question, then, was whether he was manipulating things on his own or at the behest of his father? The former seemed preferable. So far, the emperor had seemed neutral in this affair. It would be better if he remained so. No doubt he had his own agenda, but right now her instincts said she was safer under his protection than with the Anglions.
Which would have disturbed her far more if she hadn’t more immediately pressing concerns. Like finishing the dance with Sevan and then getting far away from him.
So. Best to find out what he wanted. And he didn’t seem to be readily volunteering the information. “After all, this is a fairly innocuous way of ensuring we have the opportunity to converse less formally.”
Presumably that was what the emperor wanted. Or he wouldn’t have thrown a ball to announce their presence in Lumia, let alone made public the news that he was receiving an unexpected Anglion diplomatic delegation. He could merely have summoned them to the palace to meet the envoys secretly.
Of course, she wouldn’t put it past Alain to have arranged the meeting between Sevan and herself for his own amusement. From what she had seen of him, he was the type to find disruption diverting. She recognized the type. Eloisa had done her share of testing of her father’s authority in her time as well.
Perhaps it was a failing of crown princes and princesses once they came of age. To be bred and trained to take the throne but not be able to do so until your mother or father died or otherwise vacated it must be an odd sort of limbo. Like the anticipation before one’s Ais-Seann, waiting to see if you were going to have power or not. Only they remained in that state for years. Decades even.
Which might just incline one to find occupation and entertainment in other pastimes. Like court politics. Being in permanent waiting would be difficult to bear.
As was the current seething silence coming—or not—from her partner. She wasn’t in the mood to prevaricate endlessly. If Sevan was dancing with her when he so clearly disliked her, it was because he had been ordered or manipulated into doing so. “So, Sir Allowood, what are we to discuss?”
“If you believe that I wish to converse with a traitor, then you are also mistaken,” Sevan said in a harsh rush.
Traitor? Sophie almost stumbled to a stop in the middle of the ballroom but Sevan’s grip tightened—almost painfully—and kept her upright.
“I am no traitor,” she hissed at him. “I fled in fear of my life. Someone tried to kill me.”
“Yet here you are. Firmly ensconced in the court of your queen’s sworn enemy.”
Her mind was still reeling. Traitor? He thought her a traitor? Did the rest of the court? Or even the other envoys? Did Eloisa? “Exactly where you are standing, too,” she pointed out.
“I am here because I was sent by my queen,” Sevan said. “Not because I ran like a salt-cursed thief in the night.”
“Well, there you have the advantage of me, sir,” she said coolly. The initial shock of his allegation was fading into something colder. Not quite anger. Something far less emotional. As though the part of her brain that kept her alive had taken charge. “And the benefit of not having someone attempt to murder you in your bed.”
“So you claim.”
Sophie thought of the man they’d left dead in their room on the night they’d fled Kingswell. It was not a pleasant memory. “I do not claim it. It is the truth.”
“The truth is a body and your defection.”
At least he knew there had been a body. She and Cameron had wondered if someone—whoever was behind the attack—would attempt to spirit it away, leave no evidence of why they might have vanished. “Are you telling me that you think there is an acceptable reason for a man to sneak into my chambers at night? My husband already being there with me,” she added. “What possible excuse could there be? No one who meant well toward me would have done such a thing. And I have no reason to kill a man, let alone to lure one to my chambers and do it there. That would make me a most incompetent plotter, would it not?”
“And yet you did not remain to determine who he was or leave him alive so that he might be interrogated. Convenient. As it was to leave him dead and then turn up here.”
She pressed her lips together. Arguing with the man wasn’t going to change his mind. His words had the ring of the true believer about them. Whatever theories or arguments were being put forth in Kingswell to support her being brought home, he had apparently favored the ones that thought she deserved to be punished rather than rescued. In Sevan’s mind, she had clearly been tried and convicted of some crime or other.
That meant that she couldn’t trust him. Mostly likely couldn’t trust any of the envoys. Even James, much as she could see that Cameron wanted to.
Barron Deepholt had been brusque but had stopped short of making actual threats, yet here was Sevan accusing her of treason in the middle of the emperor’s ballroom. If he was acting on his own—or on the orders of someone trying to suborn the main diplomatic mission—or whether he just was clever enough to avoid letting slip the true mood of the court back home, she didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
So, softly, softly for now. Keep the Anglions circling around her. Do nothing to attract their suspicions or their ire while she and Cameron tried to extract more information out of them.
Maybe Henri could assist. Now that the existence of the Anglion delegation had been revealed to the court, surely information had to begin to flow throughout the palace. No court could keep secrets for long. Too many people jostling for status and favor. In those circumst
ances, information became currency for the advantage it proffered.
She would have to find a way to obtain some of that currency for herself.
The dance continued, the music changing again to a melody paced somewhere between the first and the second tunes. Sevan made no move to release her or slow his pace and let them retreat from the dancing, so she set her face to a smile and continued, mind racing with each step she took.
When the music finally faded to silence, she tugged her hand free a little too quickly for strict politeness but hid the move by reaching for the fan hanging at her side. She snapped it open, fluttering it rapidly, a barrier between her and the man still watching her with dislike and distrust. He couldn’t reach for her again without drawing attention, so she dropped a quick curtsy.
“Thank you for the dance, Sir Allowood. It was most . . . instructive. But now I find myself in need of refreshment.”
She whirled and retreated into the crush of dancers before he could reply.
* * *
Cameron had lost sight of his wife amongst the milling whirl of dancers. Immediately after the crown prince had led Sophie away, Alain’s wife, Crown Princess Nathalie, had stepped up and curtsied daintily before him. Unlike her husband, the princess was golden-haired and blue-eyed, coloring displayed perfectly in the shimmering gold gown she wore.
Also unlike her husband, Nathalie did not seem much inclined to talk. She responded politely to the few conversational forays he made but didn’t attempt to lure him out herself. Was she annoyed about having to dance with an Anglion? Resentful of her husband dancing with Cameron’s wife? Or was she just not talkative?
Whichever of the options was the truth, it was something of a relief to be able to focus on the dancing and not have to speak as well. Sophie had learned the Illvyan dances more quickly than he had during their hurried hours of rehearsals. She had more practice at dancing, he supposed. Most of the time when he’d attended court balls, he’d been standing on the sidelines, dressed in uniform and protecting Eloisa. That didn’t involve dancing.