I heard a deep sigh, and then sound of the mattress shifting. “I remember.” It was Lady Kingsclere. Her voice sounded similar to Belles, but with a tired sort of maturity. There was a long pause and I considered backing away from the door or even knocking, but my feet were frozen to the floor.
“You could have done more.” Belle spoke again, angrier this time. “Sent her away, threatened her, punished her, something. But you just watched.”
My chest seemed to shrink, and I almost stopped breathing. Belle had never said much to me about her relationship with Lady Kingsclere. Now that I thought about it, my lover’s behavior struck me as strange. Belle was loyal to her last breath. Why hadn't this loyalty extended to her own mother? She had not seemed as concerned about Lady Kingsclere's weak, mentally vulnerable condition as I would have expected.
“I was selfish,” Lady Kingsclere admitted in a low voice. I could picture her face, eyes lowered, hands clasped in the folds of her skirts, chin bent, but not tucked in shame. Lady Kingsclere was not pretentious, but she was proud. “I wanted what was best for my daughter. Both of my daughters.”
“That thing is not your daughter.” I almost staggered backward, as if struck by the venom in Belle's words. “I hardly consider her human at all. She is a murderous, sadistic, power-hungry snake. That is the daughter you defended.”
“She isn’t my daughter, not anymore.” Lady Kingsclere paused. “I was wrong. I should have been with you. I was too consumed with a wife's grief to remember that I was a mother, too. I was not strong enough. Maybe if I had not let you feel so alone, none of this would have...”
More rustling and the sound of a choked sob through the door. I could hardly believe it. Crying was so unlike Belle, especially in front of someone else. “Do you know what it is like to lose both of your parents at the same time? Oh, you were still breathing, but you were not alive. And to have your sister, who should have been your comfort, following you, telling you that you were worthless, that you would never get the money. I didn't care about the money.” Her words were frantic, desperate. I wanted to open the door, but could not find the strength.
“Mocking me, torturing and raping servants...and I could do nothing. I was fourteen. Who would listen to me? It made me sick. But I survived. She didn't kill me. She enjoyed watching my conscience do the tormenting for her. I hated myself for letting her. It grew to be a habit, doing nothing. I had nothing left to care about. I doubted human goodness. And then...”
And then there was me. The thought came to me so suddenly that I was sure it did not belong in my mind, but in Belle's. And then there was me. I realized why Belle had found me so fascinating, had fallen in love with me. What I had considered to be my naïve foolishness, my embarrassing innocence, had been Belle's salvation. Talking about books. Doting on Jessith. Smiling at the servants. How long had Belle spent wandering the manor halls like a wraith without seeing a single spark of happiness?
I was far from a perfect person, I knew, but I was untouched, a small piece of the regular world that had not been swallowed by Luciana's shadow. And when Luciana had tried to consume me, I had survived. Suddenly, I felt less like a shy, silly girl, and much more like a woman.
I opened the door. Belle and Lady Kingsclere started. Both of them were sitting on the bed. The image fastened itself in my mind; a smaller, brown-haired woman with wisps of gray about her cheeks reaching for her daughter, pale skinned and trembling. Both of them were crying. I walked between them, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. I imagined the gaping, soul-sucking emptiness I would have felt without Belle, and could not hate Lady Kingsclere for abandoning her daughter. After all, she was trying to find her way back.
“Sometimes,” I said, “you have to cry before you can smile again.” Not as poetic as some of Belle's secret verses, but I thought it was appropriate enough. Belle stared up at me with helpless, glassy blue eyes, and I wanted to weep, too. “Belle, she is your mother, and she loves you.” That set off another round of hot tears. They spilled onto my hands as I cradled her chin.
And then, in what I consider to be no less than a minor miracle, I let Belle go and she turned her crying face to our mother. She opened her arms and Belle collapsed into them, her lean body falling slack like a puppet with broken strings. I kept a steadying hand on her back and let them cry together.
***
It was a wonderful, strange dream…Belladonna and I were lying on a blanket, watching white-streaked clouds blow past on the high wind. The lonely call of a bird and the whispering of leaves were the only sounds in our ears. Short, trellised walls with climbing ivy surrounded us on all four sides. The sun was a gleaming golden coin, and it shone warm upon our faces. We smiled at each other. The breeze was at our backs, tossing my light hair and strands of Belle's thick, dark curls.
In Belladonna's clasped hands were two roses, one red and one completely white. She offered the white rose to me, and as I took it with my left hand, a forgotten thorn pricked my finger, the fourth one from my thumb. One drop of blood rolled off of my fingertip and fell onto the rose, staining one of the white petals, a bead of red clinging to the flower's pale curve.
I put the rose in my right hand, careful of thorns this time, and held out my pricked finger. Belle pressed her lips to the small purple mark and I felt new skin grow over it. She kissed the center of my hand and the pulse in my wrist. Her soft lips found mine and the sweet ache in my chest swelled until I had to kiss her back.
Her dress came undone at the back under my quick fingers and soft skin poured out into my hands as I tried to fill myself with all of her. Her purple-black hair was plastered to her neck and shoulders, soft ropes of it spilling over onto me, warm under the sunlight. We pressed close, two lovers with one skin, her lips mapping the freckles scattered across my cheeks and the bridge of my nose as my hands roamed over her corded back.
And then it was a dream no longer. Belle's comfortable weight settled over me in our bed as she kissed me over and over again. And of course, I kissed her back. So, this was what had inspired my dream. Her thumbs stroked my neck, the undersides of my wrists, finding the softest places. I trembled, and she cradled my face in her hands. Those blue eyes begged me to let her take, claim, possess.
A strange urge tugged at my heartstrings, and I shifted beneath her, turning onto my side, and then my belly. I tossed Belle a smile over my shoulder, the tips of my cheeks burning with twin spots of pink. I did not know why I wanted her to make love to me this way, but the idea was somehow irresistible.
Belle's forehead lifted as surprise, but pleasure shone in her handsome face. She hurried to fold her body over mine. Her hands stroked my hips as her teeth caught and held my neck. “Who would believe me if I told them my sweet, innocent Ellie let me have her from behind?” she purred between bites and kisses to my vulnerable throat. “But I would never tell...you belong to me.”
She drew my thighs apart a little too quickly, claimed me a little too roughly. Her fingers slid deep inside of me, filling me with one hard stroke. She twisted and curled until she hit the right angle, and I gasped to let her know when she had found it. I raised myself higher, breathing heavily as she kissed the back of my neck. I felt incredibly exposed and vulnerable in this position, but there was something intoxicating about being taken this way.
Still quivering and stretched tight around her fingers, I felt Belle’s hips begin to push against mine, using them to aid the thrusts of her hand. I let out a delighted cry and buried my face in the pillow as she took me, our warmth running together over her hand and my thighs. The hardened tips of my breasts dragged over the mattress as Belle and I rocked together, and I felt hers pressed tight against my shoulder blades.
“Mm, smooth, so warm...Ellie, you're all soft velvet around me.” She coaxed me to raise my hips higher, holding me just so. With a sigh, she pressed her warmth into the swell of my backside, and I hissed as I felt wetness against my skin.
Belle flicked lazily over my sensitive bu
d. It was straining at its hood, a hard little point against her thumbpad. Knowing that she felt every pulse of the tiny bundle, every flutter of my muscles, embarrassed and excited me. Held under her thumb, with her other fingers stretching me, she knew all of my secrets.
Belle paused for a moment, hovering over me, leaving me empty with a deep ache. I knew what she expected without words. She wanted me to beg for her.
“Love, please, touch me...” I pleaded, rocking back into her hand.
“Oh, you mean here?” Her firm strokes had me arching until the muscles in my back screamed.
“Harder...” Her thrusts came harder, faster, and her teeth latched on to the line of my shoulder. Her thumb swiped over me again and again, grinding in tight circles, and I screamed.
Waves of pleasure swelled and crashed inside me. I clutched down around her fingers, pulling impossibly tight before I broke down in a series of shivers. My entire body pulsed, and more wetness spilled out from deep inside of me, slipping over Belladonna’s fingers. She groaned and came with me, her hips jerking unevenly as she rode through her own release.
My crest seemed to last for an eternity, and I rocked into her hand until I had nothing left to give. I felt Belle tremble against me as I sobbed her name. We held still, breathing heavily, both of us overcome. I could hardly look at her as she tenderly reclaimed her fingers. My muscles clung to them greedily, unwilling to let her go, but with a few whispered words and a soft kiss to each eyelid, I relaxed for her. Sensing my feelings as only a lover could, she tilted my chin and gazed into my eyes, her hand still covered in my wetness. “Shy, dear heart?” she asked, kissing my nose.
Hiding my embarrassment, I dipped my head and began cleaning her hand with my tongue. With my head bent, I could not see Belladonna's face, but I knew she was smiling. “Not too shy.” She sounded more than a little smug. It did not bother me. She deserved to be smug.
When I determined that her hand and lips were clean, I told her about my dream. She looked thoughtful as I described the roses, the trellis, and the golden sun. “It was wonderful. I almost wish I could go back. But since you gave me something even better than my dream, I'll forgive you.”
“I suppose you'll want an outdoor wedding, then. I thought so before, but I never remembered to ask.”
I was mute and still as a stone. Belle looked at me strangely, only just noticing my expression of surprise. “I said that I suppose you'll want an outdoor wedding...”
“An outdoor wedding,” I repeated. A wedding? For us? I could hardly imagine it. Well, I had wanted to imagine it, but could not bear to dwell on an event that I had dreamed of since childhood, but would never experience. Belle had called me her wife, but I had assumed it was a private endearment between us.
“You didn’t think I would marry you?” Belle looked almost hurt, and I hurried to kiss her frown away.
“No, I want to marry you. But you said we could never let the world know we were married.”
“I wasn't planning on putting out an announcement. I just thought it would be nice to invite some of the people who already know and have a small ceremony, even if it isn't legal.”
The idea instantly appealed to me. “I want to have an outdoor wedding, and I want it to be by my mother's hazel tree. Cate and Sarah can be my bridesmaids, and—”
“Ellie, I love you, adore you, and want to marry you so that I can spend the rest of my life with you, but if you start planning the wedding now, I will go mad from lack of sleep and exhaustion.”
“You’re exhausted?” I feigned disappointment as my hand crept down her smooth belly and stole between her legs. “Too exhausted for this?”
“Yes, too exhausted,” Belle said in a strained voice. But of course she was pretending, and I got to show her my enthusiasm for her idea after all.
CHAPTER 10
CATE HAD A ROUNDABOUT way of letting me know that we needed to talk. She could not come right out and say it. She had a habit of pausing in her work, staring at me with her wide doe eyes and pale cheeks. She would not say anything, and I would not say anything, until one of us shook our head and looked away, hunching the line of our shoulders.
We were in her room the third time this happened, and Cate was the one who turned away first. I was growing frustrated with her games. “Are you going to tell me?” I asked, not caring if I was pushing.
I saw Cate's throat bob nervously, and she took a breath of preparation. “I'm leaving Baxstresse,” she said, still turned to face the opposite wall.
I abandoned the stool I was sitting on and rose to my feet. “Leaving?” It was a single word, but there were a thousand unspoken questions straining behind it, bursting in my mouth.
“I have to leave,” Cate said. It was a firm, unwavering answer, and I should have been proud of her decision, but I could not help feeling hurt. I wanted her to stay. “I am not leaving you, Ellie. I'm just leaving Baxstresse.”
“There's a difference?” Cate's back flinched visibly at my sharp tone, and I felt guilty for snapping at her. “I'm sorry. You’re free to do whatever you wish with your life now. I just don’t want you to go. Can’t I change your mind?”
Cate pushed herself off the wall. She glanced over her shoulder out at the rest of the room, gazing past the fiery line of hair against her cheek. Her face was set firmly, but not harshly. She had made up her mind. “Ellie, I came to Baxstresse as a child to pay a family debt. When I started to become a woman, Luciana noticed me. I was never happy here until I met you. There are too many ghosts in this manor. I need to find my own place, my own way—”
“You can't leave yet,” I interrupted, using the only excuse I had left. “You have to stand with me at my wedding.”
Cate smiled at me, her cheeks flushed with pleasure. “Ellie, I would be honored to stand with you at your wedding. But I'm still leaving.”
“Will you come back?” As proud as I was of Cate's newfound confidence, I did not want to lose her forever.
“Yes. And I'm not going to leave this very moment.”
“I can't keep you here, can I?” I said softly.
Cate turned toward me fully and took me in her arms, giving me a fierce hug. “No, you can't. You are my dearest friend, but not my mistress.” And neither, I realized, was Luciana. That thought made me so happy that losing Cate did not seem quite as horrible.
Another thought struck me. “Cate, did you have a vision telling you to go?” Although a seer's visions were not written in stone, the seer usually sensed how likely the occurrence was. They were rarely wrong.
There was a moment of silence, and I wondered if Cate would answer my question at all. “Yes, I did. I saw a dark wolf running through the high trees.” Her voice took on a strange, deeper timbre, and she sounded much older. “I need to leave. I need to find...something.”
I knew she was holding something back from me, but I did not press her this time. “I know you will find it, Cate. And I will do whatever I can to help you, as long as you come back to me. If you forget, I will go out looking for you.”
“Oh, Ellie, how could I ever forget?”
I kissed her cheek and let her go.
***
Once again, I found myself looking for a dress. “I wonder why clothes seem to take up so much of my time,” I complained to Belle, crossing my arms over my breasts. “First the three-night ball, and now a wedding dress...”
Belle rolled her eyes and turned the page of her book. “Wear one of those three.”
“Belle, you should know better. Those are party dresses, not wedding dresses.”
“Why does it matter? We are only inviting a few people, and none of them will care if you are not wearing a proper wedding dress.” Belle must have sensed my growing irritation, because she closed the book. “I meant that I think you will look beautiful in anything you wear.” She sounded so sincere that I could not stay mad at her even though I knew she was just trying to get out of trouble.
“I want our wedding to be perfect.”
“It will be, because you are the one I am marrying.”
“That was a little too much flattery, dear heart,” I said, but I was secretly pleased and forgot how sore I was about the dress. “I would have worn my mother's wedding dress, if...” I let my voice trail off. By mutual consent, Belle and I did not mention Luciana's name if we could avoid it. Not because we were afraid of her, but because it was unpleasant to think about her or talk about her.
“Stop worrying about the dress.” Belle patted my hand and opened her book to the page she had saved. “I will figure something out for you.”
The next day, Lady Kingsclere asked me up to her room after lunch. Curious, but not particularly worried, I made my way up the stairs to her suite of rooms, taking the servants' hallway out of habit. I opened the door to her study to find Lady Kingsclere sitting at her desk, catching up on correspondences. “Just a moment, dear.” She finished her letter and signed it with a flourish.
I waited, my weight shifted to one hip in a very unladylike fashion, hands clasped behind my back. Lady Kingsclere gave me a slightly disapproving look and I straightened, but it was followed by a smile. Strangely, it reminded me of something my mother would have done. “Belle tells me that you need to borrow a wedding dress,” she said, standing up and pushing the chair behind her desk back in place.
My forehead wrinkled. Lady Kingsclere and I were the same size, but I really did not want to wear the dress she had used at my father's wedding. There were too many convoluted emotions attached to that memory. Lady Kingsclere, like Belle, was very perceptive to my facial expressions. “Not that dress. Come, I’ll show you.”
The Second Sister (The Amendyr Series) Page 22