"You are not with me."
"What?" Belinda cursed herself, turning her gaze back to Marius, who watched her eyes older than his years, not so much sad as weary. "Forgive me, my lord. I was lost in thought."
"Thoughts of Javier." It was half a question. Marius lifted his hand to brush his fingers across Belinda's cheek. Her eyebrows drew down, then lifted.
"Eliza, my lord."
Surprise and a trace of hope graced Marius's expression. "Eliza?"
"She doesn't like me."
Marius smiled and looked away. "Eliza doesn't like anyone who lands in Jav's bed."
"I do not believe you're supposed to know that, my lord."
Marius looked back, eyebrows elevated. "That Eliza doesn't like anyone who's in Javier's bed, or that you're there, my lady Beatrice?"
"The latter." A faint smile curved Belinda's mouth. "The former seems eminently obvious."
"The difficulty," Marius said, turning his gaze away again, "with being friends with Jav is that women do not dare tell him no, even when they might otherwise wish to." He glanced at her again, folding his arms across his chest. "Spare me the insistence that you are bound to me heart and soul and that you only spread your legs for him because you have no other choice. Jav's hard to resist."
"Then why did you introduce me to him?" Belinda put her hand on Marius's forearm. "Women are not so different from men, my lord. We, too, are drawn to power. Why introduce me to him?"
"Because he is my friend." Marius withdrew a step, making Belinda's fingers slide away from his arm.
Another voice came out of the distance, not so far away that their conversation might have gone unheard: "And because we're all damned in our lovers by knowing him. No way to go forward or back without his permission, so we must introduce our paramours whether we will or won't." Asselin stalked up to them, shoulders hunched against cold more threatened than felt in the air. "Marius, may I borrow your fine lady for a little while? My sister's giving another damned recital and my mother expects me to bring a comely woman of marriageable age."
"You couldn't find one of your own?" Marius sighed with resignation. "Beatrice, his sister has a voice like a harpy. Your ears may never forgive me if I let you go."
"But she's got the body of an angel, Marius. Turn up alone yourself and my mother might see past the merchant street to consider you a prospect. No offense to our lady Irvine, but a Comtesse is a rank worth aspiring to."
"I'll come," Marius said sourly, "if only to be certain Beatrice isn't being mistreated by the lout I call friend. Shall we all go together?"
Asselin's gaze, appraising, raked over Marius, then Belinda. "Irvine will do," he said after a moment, "but Mother would never let you past the front door in those clothes, Marius. Meet us there. I'll save you enough wine to stop the sound of my sister's voice from scratching out your ears. Beatrice, if you'd do me a few moments' honour?" He extended his arm, heightening Belinda's awareness that Marius had stepped away from her, abandoning her to stand on her own. A flash of unkind playfulness prompted her to take Asselin's elbow, her gaze direct on Marius.
"If no one else will offer me an arm and warmth against the cold, I suppose I'm forced to your side, my lord Asselin." She transferred a look of mocking adoration to the stocky man, watching a flush creep up Marius's cheek before he sketched a short bow.
"My lady. Forgive me. It seems I am inappropriately attired to be seen in the company of nobility. I'll join you again shortly." He turned on his heel, clipping across brown grass at a brisk pace. Belinda pursed her lips, looking to Asselin.
"Was that really necessary, my lord?"
"Oh, yes, it was. Tell me, Irvine. How long has the Reformation bitch sat on the Aulunian throne?"
Stillness wrapped around her so swiftly that a chill shot over Belinda's body. It prickled her breasts and her spine, nestling icily in her groin, and lingered there, a cold throb of desire. She had no fear of betraying herself; she felt her head tilt, a curious smile playing at her mouth, the coldness entirely within. No hairs raised on her arms or neck and her heartbeat remained steady as her own words from a night months earlier were thrown back in her face. "Longer than my lifetime, certainly, my lord." A moment's hesitation before she said, "Nearly thirty years. I think there will be a Jubilee held in Alunaer soon."
"Well done," Asselin breathed. "Ah, well done, my lady Beatrice, but don't bother. Marius pointed you out to me days before he introduced you. I know you, Irvine, or whatever your name is. I've held your tits in my hands and buried my cock in your cunt, and I've known it since the moment he showed me his new true love. You've something I want, and that's all we've got to discuss."
Beatrice's veneer let a blush slide through, scalding Belinda's throat and jaw before she regained control of herself. Of the too-quick heartbeat whose pace never should have changed, even with Asselin's accusations thrown in her face. Beatrice was a dangerous part to play, wearing Belinda down, too thin and close to the surface for the stillness to entirely protect her. She could feel witchpower rising in her, soft golden light that might distract Asselin's thoughts, might make him forget who and what he knew her as, if she could focus it enough. She had no doubt he'd recognized her, no underlying certainty that she could make him believe he was mistaken with less than the growing power she had at hand. And that, though a temptation, was too great a risk: she and Javier had been cautious in their studies, hiding them beneath the facade of an affair. The idea of flame and a stake to be bound to still edged her thoughts, and Javier's own fears ran to a far deeper sort of Hell, a true belief in his condemnation in the eyes of God. No; she was not yet prepared to try changing a man's thoughts through her own will.
Instead, she tightened her fingers on Asselin's arm, letting a wash of fear at having been recognized come into her eyes and sharpen her voice. "Perhaps this isn't the place to discuss it."
Asselin pulled her, without remorse, toward a copse of trees that made shadows and darkness in the daylit park. "Of course it isn't. But Marius will expect us at my mother's in less than an hour, and anywhere private enough to suit you will require more time than I'm willing to sacrifice. This will do, Irvine." Shadows enveloped them as he spoke, leafless branches making vicious lines against Belinda's skin. She reached for them with the witchpower, half wondering if she could disappear before Sacha's very eyes. They lengthened, seeming to penetrate her body, darkness as invasive and sensual as a lover.
The cold trunk of a tree pressed against her spine as Asselin pulled her around to face him, deliberately trapping her between the woods and his body. For the second time in a matter of minutes she became aware of her dagger, useless and reassuring at the small of her back. Asselin traced his thumb over the hollow of her throat, making her lift her head and swallow involuntarily.
"My lord Asselin." Her voice was dryer than she meant it to be, but the stocky lord read it as fear and a dark interest came into his eyes. She swallowed again, letting her pulse ride high and watching his gaze dart to it. "Will you denounce me, then?"
"I've got more use for you than that. I knew you weren't base-born the moment I heard you talk. No uneducated woman cares that much about the politics of another country, not even a good God-fearing one. I don't know who you are. I don't care care who you are." who you are."
"Then what-?" Genuine curiosity filled the question, draining tension away. The shadows deepened, writhing around her protectively, as if they could help eyes pass her by. Power caressed the darkness, encouraging it, draining out of her and leaving her feeling pale and wanton beneath the weight of Asselin's body.
"What I want is your passion."
Belinda laughed, startled bark of sound. "So you think to take me in a park, in broad daylight? I thought you had more reserve than that, my lord Asselin."
"Not for me." A leer, sudden and good-natured, curved the blunt man's mouth and he looked down her body, one hand still at her throat. "Well, but that's an aside we'll take care of in a moment. It's Javier I want you for, Irvine. He's not the sort to get distracted every time a woman flaps her skirts at him, and a good thing for all of us, too, else he'd be so busy fucking Eliza that no one would see him for months on end."
"Eliza," Belinda said, breathlessly, "wears trousers. Perhaps that's her mistake."
"Have you ever looked at a woman's arse cupped in pants, Irvine? It does things to a man even skirts can't." He dismissed the statement with another lustful sneer, pressing his thumb into the hollow of her throat. "You've kept Jav's attention for weeks. Trying to earn his trust. Trying to make your voice heard. Tell me it isn't so. Tell me Marius wasn't a means to an end."
Belinda tilted her head back against the bark, swallowing again beneath the pressure Asselin kept on her throat. Desire piqued again, and with it, curiosity. "You've made up your mind to that already. What do you want, Asselin?"
"It's time to move. Push him. Jav's complacent. He believes that when the old whore finally dies, Aulun will come back to the fold without protest. That in the people's hearts they are Ecumenics still and that blood will cease to be shed. He's naive, and he needs a shove."
"One you won't give for fear of it being your neck on the block," Belinda breathed. Asselin twisted a smile.
"That's the beauty of it, isn't it? What are your choices, Irvine? Refuse me and I'll turn you in for a whore and rabble-rouser anyway. Agree, and you might get what you want."
Belinda half-lidded her eyes, watching Asselin's eager features a few inches from her own. "And what is it you think I want? You don't think I'm so foolish as to reach for a throne." She made it a statement, too offended by the idea to phrase it as a question. Asselin crowded closer, the scent of his desire caught between bodies.
"I think you want so badly for the Red Bitch to be off the Aulunian throne you'll let a dog fuck you in the arse to get it." He caught her wrist, sudden impulse to twist her away from him clear. Belinda went solid, refusing to move under the direction and bringing surprise to his eyes.
"You are not a dog, my lord, and you will want me to be able to walk like a woman at your sister's recital. Does Marius know?"
A flash of acceptance lit Asselin's eyes, then faded. "That you're a high-minded whore? No, and I'm willing to keep it that way if you play the way I want you to." Belinda deliberately widened her stance as he spoke, unspoken acquiescence and understanding of his demand. A hungry smirk curled the broad-shouldered lord's mouth and he leaned closer. "That this push to make Javier move must be done? Yes. The only one of us who doesn't think Jav should push his mother or himself is Jav. Marius is a good boy, and I want you to understand that the sweet arguments he'll make will persuade you."
"Or else?" The question came lightly, Belinda wetting her lips. Asselin took a breath against her skin as if he could taste her with its depth.
"Or else."
He was, Belinda thought later, considerably more coarse than she had expected.
"Her voice," Belinda murmured in low accusation, "was not so bad as all that." Indeed, Asselin's sister had sung sweetly enough at her afternoon recital to gain the approval of more than one young man's mother. Like Asselin, she was sandy-haired, though tending more toward blond than her brother, and what were unruly curls on him were long loose ringlets on her. Belinda, left wanting from Sacha's decidedly selfish desires, had studied the girl's heart-shaped face and the soft, round curves of her body and wondered without remorse what the girl would look like pink-faced and flushed with need, or if she had ever known passion's hand. The impulse to find out hadn't faded, and Belinda had excused herself to walk in the gardens with Marius as quickly as she could. "She'd make a good match," she added idly. "Better than me, in truth."
Marius, dressed in a more gentrified manner than he had been earlier, touched her arm in alarm that was only partially mocked. "Do you grow tired of me already, Beatrice?"
She allowed herself one of Beatrice's easy smiles, tucking her arm around his. "On the contrary, I expect you to tire of me." She hesitated, then added, "Or for the situation to become unbearable."
Marius tightened a fist, muscle playing beneath Belinda's hand. She rubbed her thumb against the hard knot, listening with half an ear as he muttered, "That can't happen. I have no choice. Nor do you."
"Have we not?" Belinda slowed, turning Marius to face her. "It may be that I no longer do. A woman does not idly dismiss a prince and expect to walk away unscathed, but you, my lord..."
"You have something Jav needs," Marius whispered, voice hoarse. Belinda bit her lower lip, filling her gaze with uncertainty and sorrow.
"Me? I'm only a woman, my lord, how could-"
"You're a woman of faith." Marius gentled his voice as Belinda looked up at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. "I see you at church. You have no pretenses there. You understand politics. And you are the daughter of an oppressed land. You did not," he murmured, echoing words she'd spoken weeks earlier, much as Asselin had, "come to Gallin only for the food. How strong is your faith, Beatrice?"
Belinda lowered her gaze, letting calm settle around her again. "As strong as it must be, my lord," she whispered after long moments. An eyelash-shuttered glance upward took in the pain in Marius's expression and she went on, refusing the haste that might have eased his agony. "A generation has already grown up as Reformists. The queen is said to be in good health, despite her years. There may be another generation born and raised under her before her days are ended."
God willing, Belinda thought, a fierce and unusual prayer thrown silently into her enemy's teeth. She let none of it near her face or voice, watching Marius with the desperation of a woman knowing her path and fearing it. A woman wise enough to seek guidance from a strong man, pretending that any power she might have came from him alone. It was one of the few tactics she'd learned from the queen her mother, whose proclamations of weakness and womanly foolishness blunted her advisors' realization of Lorraine's sure military and political hand. "It is a fear we struggle with every day in Lanyarch. We are not quite forbidden our masses, but there are honours and praises for those who give up the true religion for the Reformation. Soldiers watch those of us who bow our heads to the Ecumenic church, and children drift away from God to explore the false hopes of the Reformation. In another generation, our religion might be lost."
"Rally him to his mother's cause," Marius said in a low voice. Belinda lifted her chin, eyebrows wrinkling.
"My lord?"
Marius glanced at her very briefly, then away again. "Even in Gallin, Beatrice, these are dangerous things to speak of." His voice remained low, making her step closer to him to hear him well.
"You speak of revolution, my lord."
"No." The word was sharp as his gaze, though both softened after a moment. "Something more dangerous than that."
"More dangerous than open war?" Belinda laughed, fluttering sound in the back of her throat. "What-" She let understanding darken her eyes, then shook her head. "My lord..."
"You said yourself, Beatrice. The Aulunian queen is in good health and could well survive another generation. Ecumenics may not survive that."
"You have so little faith in Cordula, my lord...?"
Marius made another short gesture of irritation. "Island Ecumenics," he modified. "Our faith is stronger on the continent."
Belinda drew herself up, colour staining her cheeks as Beatrice's indignity filled her. "Do you doubt my faith, my lord?"
"Beatrice!" Impatience shot through Marius's voice. "I didn't mean you."
"Only my people. Only all of us who try to keep faith under a godless queen. We are not perfect, my lord. Fear and money bought even Judas. Do you condemn the weak among us for choosing the state religion over a loss of liberty and wealth?" Belinda's hands shook with poorly suppressed anger. Marius's mouth turned downward in apology, and he reached for her hands.
"Forgive me. Perhaps I speak with too much sentiment and too little understanding. We are not persecuted here for worshipping God in the true church. Perhaps it is too easy to judge and too hard to understand."
Belinda turned her face away from him, her jaw set. It was long moments before the role she played softened enough for her shoulders to drop and the line of her chin to loosen. "You speak of things I dare not even say aloud, my lord. You speak of...death."
"Yes." Marius's hands tightened around hers. "Make him see, Beatrice. Make him see that Aulun will be lost without this."
Belinda looked back at him, stiff with caution. "You believe I have such...sway?"
He smiled a little, the expression leaving his dark eyes reluctant and sad. "Standing here now, seeing you argue, seeing your belief, yes, lady, I do. If you were a man yourself you might make a great general, to call the men to battle. But you are only a woman, and so the most you might do is inspire the men who can make such things happen."
"The most." Belinda breathed out laughter. "Is that not rather a lot, my lord? Some say men would never war, but for women." She fell silent, studying Marius's face and feeling the rapid skip of her own heart. A handful of words could lay the path to Sandalia's destruction, if only Marius would speak them. It was not written condemnation, but it might be the hint of chicanery against Lorraine that Belinda searched for. "You believe the regent supports this, my lord?"
His tone went guarded. "I cannot say what Her Majesty may or may not believe."
"But you called it her cause." Belinda lowered her voice further, stepping closer to him. She reached for the pool of golden power within her, shaping it with her desire. She wet her lips, looking up at the man through her eyelashes, and curled her fingers around his. "I would not betray you," she whispered. "I understand that she could not voice such beliefs in any way, for fear of being accused of plotting regicide. A royal assassination is a desperate measure, my lord. It breaks the laws of God and man alike. Worst"-Belinda crooked a tiny smile, letting wryness colour the desire she pressed on Marius-"worst, at least for a king, is knowing that to assassinate another royal opens the possibility that he, too, might die in such a way. I understand," she whispered again. "These are not things which we dare speak of aloud. But tell me, Marius, tell me in truth. Do you believe that this is what the queen and regent wants?" She brought his hands, over hers, up to the cool skin of her chest, pressing his warm knuckles below her collarbones. They looked like lovers, her mouth turned up to his, so close that a kiss might be exchanged instead of words. Marius's claims would carry no weight in a court, but Belinda had no need to justify herself to a judge. She only needed a place to begin, a thread of confirmation from the lips of a man close to the regent's son.
And he was desperate to please her. She could feel that in the lines of his body pressed against hers, could almost taste it in his breath. So close to him, and open to the witchpower Javier had awakened in her, it was easy to mistake Marius's desire for her own. Easy to accept thwarted pleasure from earlier as desperation now. She moved a half step closer, crowding her hips against his. Need flared in him, and the grip with which they held each other's hands abruptly opened a channel between them. Uninhibited glee shot through her, joy like little she'd ever known: this stealing of thoughts, the gift of witchpower, was what she was born to, even more than being her mother's tool. It burned through her so brightly she had to fight off laughter, had to swallow a yearning to take Marius's desire and make it her own, and then to ride it until they were both left exhausted.
But stillness won out, habit stronger than the urge to play, and she made herself listen to the young man's rapid-fire thoughts, savoring them as if each was a precious morsel.
She is faithful, he was thinking, he was thinking, faithful to God if not to a single man (but if not to a single man then not to any man and I might have her, too). She trusts me, God above, help me, see how she looks at me, with trust (and desire, she wants me, it is only Javier standing in the way) faithful to God if not to a single man (but if not to a single man then not to any man and I might have her, too). She trusts me, God above, help me, see how she looks at me, with trust (and desire, she wants me, it is only Javier standing in the way)-a thought, Belinda realised curiously, that held no jealousy in it, merely hope. I will never win her if I lie now (what would she do if I kissed her? would she scream? would she slap me? would she fold with desire and damn the consequences?) and I ask her to do something terribly dangerous- I will never win her if I lie now (what would she do if I kissed her? would she scream? would she slap me? would she fold with desire and damn the consequences?) and I ask her to do something terribly dangerous- "I believe," he whispered, the true words drowning out the chaos of his thoughts, "that her majesty would look...favourably on a course that would free Aulun from its Reformatic prison." Thick emotion, caution and nervousness, swirled around him, sinking into Belinda's skin. "I believe that with the support of her son, she might"-he swallowed, slow and tense-"she might take action that might otherwise seem...unthinkable." So careful; he chose his words so carefully. Belinda bit her lower lip, then pulled herself even closer to him, releasing his hands so she might put her fingers into his hair.
"I will try," she promised, a breath below his ear. The embrace felt like a lover's, their bodies dangerous against each other. "For Aulun. For Lanyarch." She pulled back, meeting his gaze with wide eyes. "For you, my lord."
Marius groaned and sank his hands into her hair, pulling her mouth up to his for a kiss that drowned her with its need. The heat of his desire rolled through her, building until she was forced to break the kiss, hands against his chest again.
"We must not," she whispered. "We cannot. Not yet. Not if I am to do this thing with the prince. Forgive me." She looked up at him again, pulse leaping in her throat. "Forgive me, my lord. A day will come when I am yours."
"It cannot come soon enough." He shoved her away, not far away, keeping his hands on her waist but putting space between their bodies. "You must succeed, Beatrice. I cannot bear any of this if you do not succeed."
"I will." Belinda gave a jerky nod, stepping back. "I swear, my lord. I will." Then she smiled, fragile thing, and said, lightly, "When do you think it might snow, sir?"
Marius forced a laugh and offered her his arm. "Soon. Soon, my lady. Winter comes on stronger than we know."
Snow fell two nights later. Belinda stood in the shadows of Javier's balcony window, face turned up to the silent white stars falling through the night. The flakes tickled her cheeks where they blew past curtains to land on her, almost imperceptible weight gracing her eyelashes. They lingered a moment, then turned to drops of water, beading until their accumulated size spilled them down her face. Snow tears, Belinda thought. Precious as a virgin's. The air, heavy with the silence of snow, seemed warm and comforting. Belinda stepped out into it, and was caught by an arm around her waist. Javier drew her close again, lowering his head over her shoulder. "Discretion, Beatrice."
"Do you think we're fooling anyone?" Certainly not Marius, the one whom Javier might most intend to hide from. Belinda shook her head fractionally, in dismissal, and waited for the prince's answer.
"Yes," Javier said. "Not that you're here, not that you're my lover. But in our true purpose in meeting? They cannot suspect it."
"It cannot be found out." Belinda shivered, curling her arms over Javier's. Rather than relax into her closeness he stiffened, lifting his mouth away from her shoulder. Discomfort flared in him, the clarity of words and thought broken before she could read them, his skin taken from hers too quickly. Only uncomfortable familiarity lingered, making Belinda twist in his grasp to peer up at him. "My lord?"
"It cannot be found out." He echoed the words in a hoarse, low voice, strain suddenly telling tales. "You know what they would do to us, Beatrice."
"I do." Another tremble ran over her skin, too appropriate to forbid. "I don't like to think on it."
"Nor I, and yet it has haunted me since childhood. You have no idea," he said, abrupt and startlingly harsh. "Beatrice, to find even one other person like me...you have no idea. I only wish I knew if we were damned together, or granted salvation." He put his arms around her again, a wordless ache of loneliness answered rising in him and sweeping over her as their skin touched. "It must not be found out," he repeated. "Only the ignorant and superstitious would begin to believe what you and I know as truth, and they would free us from our curse with fire."
Belinda turned to smile up at him, deliberately pushing away nightmare thoughts. "Are you accusing me of being ignorant and superstitious, my lord? I believed you instantly." Her eyebrows rose, mocking horror. "Are you claiming it is not not true love that brings us together in so many darkling hours? My lord, my heart breaks. How could you?" true love that brings us together in so many darkling hours? My lord, my heart breaks. How could you?"
"I make no such claims," Javier said promptly. "I would never dream of dashing a lady's hopes."
"Unless your mother or uncle instructed you to," Belinda said wryly, turning again so she could watch the snow fall. The balcony floor was too warm to sustain it, flakes melting where they landed. Turmoil coursing through Javier's emotions, a chagrined distress at odds with his calm exterior.
"I have no choice, Beatrice," he said eventually. "What would you have me do? I am who I was born to be."
"As are we all, my lord. I meant no harm. I know the obligations a man of your station has."