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 wanton, 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."
Nina shrieked again, spitting a curse that spilled new tears from her eyes and turned to dry sobs inside a breath. Belinda leaned down, kissing tears away and touching Nina's breasts. She could taste her servant's thoughts if she wanted to, helpless repetitions of resignation struggling with the need to defend her own honour, discomfort at the erotic potential of her mistress's touch, a horrifying acquiescence that hungered for more. "Nina." Belinda whispered the name, taking her hands away and shifting to sit at the head of the bed, lifting Nina's head into her lap. "Are you afraid, Nina?"
The girl nodded, dying hope coming into her eyes, into her thoughts. Perhaps her mistress would let her go from the nightmare she'd been brought into in the dark hours, if she admitted to her fear. Belinda's soft smile made that hope blossom and Nina twisted, not in rebellion this time, but in supplication. Love me, protect me, save me, I'll do anything Love me, protect me, save me, I'll do anything spun through the desperate action and Belinda's own body tightened with desire. "Do you want him to fuck you, Nina?" spun through the desperate action and Belinda's own body tightened with desire. "Do you want him to fuck you, Nina?"
Belinda felt hot tears spill along her own temples, felt the tension in Nina's neck as the girl shook her head frantically. Another smile curved Belinda's lips, offering another shard of cruel hope to her serving girl. Power sang through her, encouraging, dominating, and Belinda leaned closer to whisper against Nina's ear. "Do you feel any desire now, Nina?"
Nina shook her head again, coldness in her body and thoughts telling Belinda the answer was true. The witchpower needed no gathering: it was there, golden and heavy, exploring the nuances of Nina's emotions. It heated and shot a throb of need into Nina along thin tendrils of connection, so sharp and unexpected that even Belinda gasped with it, uncertain if it had been her own choice to fill Nina with aching want. Belinda knew that aspect of desire all too well, memories of a lifetime's training at learned arousal in a submissive position rising, then spilling into Nina. Caught by her own lust and the witchpower's strength, Belinda focused on the ache in her own body and the heat of need climbing in her.
Nina gasped, eyes unfocused. Her hips relaxed, then lifted in a different way. Her nipples hardened under the onslaught of desires chosen for her, and triumph blossomed in Belinda's breast. Hungry with the ability to do so, she sent shame through the witchpower, and watched tears fill Nina's eyes again, even as she whimpered behind her gag and pressed her knees apart. Emotion washed back to Belinda, need rising until it hurt coupled with Nina's humiliation at her body's sudden betrayal. Belinda let the shame go, replacing it with rage. Nina vaulted upward as best she could, straining and twisting, cords standing in her neck as she screamed deep, raw sounds of fury against her gag. Belinda fed that, her own breathing growing ragged, until Nina's eyes were shot with blood from the force of her protests and sweat soaked her body. Belinda sensed, more than saw, Marius hovering a few feet away, too taken with the sights to retreat and utterly uncertain of his place there. Nina's diametric changes in emotion excited him beyond his comprehension, as did the girl's dark head in Belinda's lap.
"Is that better?" Belinda whispered the question over Nina's hair as she released the rage. "Have you fought enough, love? Do you think we believe your anger?" Sensuality bred from exhaustion slipped in with the words, slow need throbbing again. Nina turned her head, whimpering as her body betrayed her again, and finally her gaze came to Marius. He took a rough step forward and she moaned behind her gag, lifting her hips. "Touch her," Belinda commanded, and he put his hand between the girl's legs as if Belinda manipulated his desires as well. Nina sobbed and Belinda flooded her with the impulse to submit and offer herself to the merchant youth. She accepted it, spreading her already-wide legs and pleading with her captured voice and eyes. A curve slipped over Belinda's mouth: she had no sense of Nina believing her emotions and needs were anything but her own, betraying as they might be. A servant girl was an easy target, bearing nothing like the will of a prince or queen, but it could be done. Her gift extended that far.
Belinda looked up, a smile still playing her lips. Marius was trembling, his hand sealing the heat between Nina's thighs. "Do you wish to be cruel to her, m'sieur? As I was to you?"
A flash of heat scored off him, then faded as he shook his head, uncertain of which woman to look at. Without touching him, Belinda couldn't know his thoughts, but the emotion that poured from him said despite the momentary impulse, his better nature was true. That he wanted the helpless servant was unquestionable, but he had no need to do her brutally. Belinda pulled her lower lip into her teeth, watching the youth with dark eyes, and sought out that instant of spitefulness that had sparked through him.
It was there, buried beneath an overwhelming eroticism at the strength Belinda had shown the night before. He was a man; he did not think of himself as submissive, and yet he'd given her his throat and, mortifyingly, his arse, and liked it all. Belinda grasped that moment of humiliation and played it forward, making it larger than it had been; making him think on and remember it, when he preferred to put it away.
There was a woman here who could not resist him, Belinda whispered into that sliver of embarrassment. A woman who could not use him the way he'd been used. A woman to regain his manhood through, a woman to dominate and show his strength to. She would not dare laugh at him as Beatrice had seemed to, or would she? Was that amusement in her wide eyes now, recognizing that he'd been taken by a woman? Was she gagged to stop her laughter, those sounds in her throat not need or fear or desire, but mocking?
Marius curled his lip, hand twisting at Nina's crotch to slam soaking fingers inside her. She cried out behind her gag and Marius's eyes darkened further, free hand fumbling at his leggings to loosen them. Belinda's heart raced, lip caught in her teeth as she leaned in, unable to stop herself from encouraging his building outrage with her own body language. Her breasts spilled forward, close to Nina's face, and she felt a spike surge through the man, as his imagination had the servant suckle the mistress.
Belinda nearly laughed with split concentration, feeding enough of her own raw want to Nina to keep the girl on the agonizing edge of fear and desire. At the same time she drew on Marius's barely acknowledged desire for domination, turning it and feeding it into anger that it had happened. He closed his hand over Nina's throat and replaced his fingers within her with his cock, a hard claiming that pulled a raw gasp of pleasure from Belinda. Nina cried out in bewildered pain and Marius tightened his hand at her throat, every struggle she made pushing him deeper into the violence Belinda had called up in him. She laughed, rocking her own hips forward with enthusiasm, floating on physical and emotional links to the two she had made unwilling lovers.
It was easy. easy. Too easy, perhaps; sex and passion were easily built upon, the mortal weakness for pleasure. So easy she'd become lost in it, letting newfound power stretch and explore even beyond what she would have thought to be her own limits. Too easy, perhaps; sex and passion were easily built upon, the mortal weakness for pleasure. So easy she'd become lost in it, letting newfound power stretch and explore even beyond what she would have thought to be her own limits.
Beneath lust, beneath desire brought to the boiling point, the thought that the witchpower was controlling her made a cool angry place inside her. Whether it did, whether it could, she would not allow it to happen freely. Belinda licked a hungry tongue over her lips, rolling with the need that built between Nina and Marius until it lay so close to completion it seemed nothing could stop it.
She threw her head back and with all deliberate cruelty, as much to herself as to the bespelled pair beneath her, called the stillness. Proving to herself that she could could. The witchpower was second to the stillness. It had to be, even if it could burn away that recollection with passion. It had controlled her. Now she must control it.
Stillness swept over her, a lifetime's practise stronger than any desire she had ever known. She distanced herself from the passion that wet her thighs, slowed her heartbeat and ignored the pain nipping at her breasts until it was gone.
Marius, unprepared for sudden flaccidity, croaked in disbelief, all his desire for violence, for sensuality, drowned as thoroughly in Belinda's calm as it had been built by her witchpower. Nina cried out again, dismay at the cessation of emotion; Belinda had not even left her her own dismay and fear at what she'd been brought in to. There was nothing left for either of them, no climax, no pleasure, so cold and wrapped in the survival trait Belinda had developed for herself were they.
Passion was easy. Cutting its throat was power, and that power lay in the stillness, not the witch-magic itself. Relief trembled deep inside her, that even lost in pounding want, she could bring herself back under rein. Belinda rose from the bed a paragon of tranquility, dressing gown gathered around her breasts and leaving her shoulders bared. Marius lifted his head, face twisted with befuddlement, and she touched his cheek, heartbeat slow through years of training. "Finish her while I dress, my love."
Not quite trusting her now-silent witchpower, Belinda released her hold on the lovers, leaving them nothing but their own emotions, Nina's fear and Marius's bewilderment. The young man scrambled away from the servant girl as Belinda left the bedroom, wrapped in carefully held stillness.
"I'm doing this for Jav." Eliza thrust her jaw out with the words, laying them flat between herself and Belinda. Belinda dropped her eyes, letting Beatrice's easy smile quirk her lips.
"So am I." She lifted her gaze, meeting Eliza's evenly. "With that in mind, we might make the best of it." Marius, flushed and flustered, had left before the noon bells had tolled. Belinda had climbed the stairs, skirts gathered and curiosity high in her mind, to investigate what he had left behind.
Nina, exhausted, confused, blushing to the tops of her breasts, had been left curled on her side, bindings released to let the girl huddle around herself, small and afraid. Surprise had wrinkled Belinda's forehead. She would have taken the order brutally, the finish she demanded was one the pretty serving girl would never wake from. But that was her training, her expectation, and her cold way of facing the world. Marius was, at his core, a kind man; if Belinda had doubted it before, she no longer did. Left with a living, breathing, blushing girl, she'd bathed Nina herself, finding herself unaccustomed to the gentleness she felt at doing so. She liked the girl, and if Nina were to live, then best to do right by her, as much as could be done.
Nina had been calm when the bath ended, able to meet her mistress's eyes. Whether a need to survive overcame humiliation or whether Belinda's careful attempts to alter the girl's memories were successful, Belinda was unsure. If her ministrations had worked, Nina's night had been spent in Beatrice's bed, indeed, against the cold and a fire that had burned out without new wood to feed it. Belinda told herself there was nothing of soft-heartedness in trying to rebuild the girl's thoughts, only a test to see whether she was able, but a thread of unusual guilt ran beneath the experiment. She had been roughly used often enough to wish the edge could be blunted, and she'd been trained for it. Nina had found herself caught in a web she had no chance of understanding, and it brooked unexpected sympathy within Belinda's heart.
She'd offered Nina a length of cloth to dry herself with, deliberately brushing her hand over the girl's naked breast. Nina had squeaked, a small sound of startlement that flooded Belinda with the same innocent confusion and desire that a similar touch had once brought, and Belinda had been satisfied with her investigation. Nina had been set to airing a room for Eliza, putting out bedding and wall hangings of equal quality to the ones in Belinda's rooms, and Belinda had gone to await her new housemate.
Eliza arrived with almost nothing. A stand for the wig made of her own lustrous black hair, a trunk barely touched with clothes. Her men's wear was blatantly folded on top of the few items within the trunk, and she shook them out now, as Belinda watched. "Nina will do that," Belinda offered softly. Eliza's lip curled.
"I don't need a servant, Beatrice. I've done for myself all my life."
"I know. But if we're to make the best of this, there's no harm in settling into the house like you belong, is there?" To her surprise, Belinda meant the question, oddly hopeful she could make a friend of the prince's beautiful friend. "Nina honestly won't know what to do with herself if she finds all your things already put away."
"Nina knows I'm a guttersnipe," Eliza snapped. "Just as everyone else does."
"Eliza." Belinda took a few steps forward, putting her hand on the taller woman's shoulder. Eliza flinched away, jaw set again. Belinda dropped her hand, but not her voice. "Have you noticed the prince has a friend from each obvious class, in you three? The nobility, the merchants, the poor. You were all too young, I think, for him to make that choice deliberately, but if you play it right now, it could make him even more beloved than he is. No one expects you to become something you aren't. You know where you're from, and God knows the nobility will never let you forget it. But if you're generous with your time and your money and bring the poor to Javier's attention, even the nobility won't be able to despise you outright. And the poor will love you for it."
Eliza spat, the sound so violent Belinda expected to see a glob of moisture land on the bedpost. "The poor will hate me as much as my father does for living."
"Javier loves you," Belinda said steadily. "The poor will see you as one of them who touches the stars. You can give them all a dream. Dreams are more precious than coin, sometimes."
"What would you know about it?" That was spat, too, but Eliza had stopped putting her own belongings away.
Belinda drew her lower lip into her mouth, searching for an answer honest enough to ring true without belying the persona she'd assumed. "I could see it from the prince's face," she said after long seconds. "That to him, sleeping with the pigs was a colourful expression. That it was outside the possibility of reality. I wasn't born to nobility, Eliza. My title came with my marriage bed."
Eliza's shoulders stilled as if she dared not breathe until Belinda's confession was through. For her part, Belinda took a deliberately deep breath, speaking to those squared shoulders. "We were landed, though not generously. No Ecumenic seems to be well-endowed now, not after a half century of Walter rule. My husband was old, his wealth a gift for loyal service to the Reformation queen. We had no dowry to offer him, not even my beauty."
Eliza's shoulders pulled back, a twitch as loud as words. Belinda cast a smile at the floor. "Don't bother," she murmured. "You're beautiful, Eliza. I'm pretty. I don't need protests to other ends. Besides, it wasn't beauty my husband desired. It was a girl wellborn enough to not cause comment and ordinary enough to...not cause comment. He had certain pleasures," she said to the slight turn of Eliza's head. "Pleasures a beautiful bride might have dared object to, or that a father with his daughter's beauty to sell might have found ways to avoid. Pleasures a young man might risk saving a beautiful woman from. I...didn't offer those risks. I never slept with the pigs," she added more clearly, and out of all of it, that was the lie that stung to speak, "but I know more of that life, from my childhood, than I do of this one." She fluttered a hand at Eliza's room.
"Your husband," Eliza said in a high voice, "died of old age." There was a question around the edges of her statement, one that neither woman would allow to come to the fore. Belinda's heart went tight, internal expectation that she didn't allow near her features.
"I was fortunate." Her voice, too, was high and soft. "Perhaps there's someone you know whose age is creeping up on him."
Stillness, as profound as any Belinda knew, settled over Eliza again. When she spoke, it was not to the topic at hand, its weight too heavy in the afternoon-lit bedroom. "Do you really think they could be made to see me as something other than Javier's whore?"
"I think that if that's what you want, you'd better begin by growing your hair out."
Eliza turned, a startled hand going to her shorn locks, protest blackening already dark eyes. "It's that or wear your wig all the time, and hair's cooler than a wig. You're acting out of defiance." To her own surprise, sorrow curved Belinda's lips. "You're throwing it in their faces, that you're a woman protected by the prince and so you dare to do the unconventional. I know you don't like me, but I have no reason to lie to you when I say you aren't physically capable of being conventional. You'll be beautiful when you're sixty, when all the rest of us are merely old. Wear the wig," she said softly. "Grow your hair. Put aside the men's clothes and dress in your own gowns. Set convention. Be generous to where you came from, and yes, Eliza, they will see you as something other than Javier's whore. Not all of them. There will always be small-minded and bitter people. You'll have to be stronger than they are. But you are are beautiful. You'll be able to make most of them love you." She sighed. "And you'll be able to make Jav regret all his life that he's not the one who can have you." beautiful. You'll be able to make most of them love you." She sighed. "And you'll be able to make Jav regret all his life that he's not the one who can have you."
She kept her hands relaxed at her sides, against the impulse to curl them. The card she played was a dangerous one, using simple words and an unexpected truthfulness to ally herself with Eliza. The more-or less; she was as yet uncertain as to which it was-subtle manipulation of emotion lay within her capabilities, but Belinda found herself unwilling to indulge in that game. Alliances forged with words were better-known to her, more trustworthy, and would leave no mark of molding on Eliza's mind. Whether that was even a risk worth considering, Belinda didn't know, but better to avoid it if she could.
Besides, she admitted in a rare moment of honesty, she simply wanted the dark-haired beauty to like her. Friends were a luxury she was unaccustomed to indulging in, and a hazardous one at that, but Beatrice felt the lack more than Belinda ever allowed herself to.
"And will I have to share him with you?" Eliza's voice was still careful, her body still held in statuesque quietude. Belinda coughed out a derisive breath.
"A Lanyarchan provincial? His fascination for me is fleeting, Eliza. You'll have to share him with someone, but it won't be me. My sights aren't set that high."
"He's never shown even so much fascination for me." Strain cracked Eliza's voice now, making her sound more youthful than she was. Belinda finally dared move, taking herself to stand before Eliza and offer her a hand.
"There are four of you, and none of those men are your brothers. Giving yourself to any one of them changes the balance. Gives weight to that couple's desires over the other two. Javier is a prince. Royalty does not afford friends easily. It may be easier, and wiser, to refuse to see you, than to risk the only friendships that go back so far as to withstand the test of sovereignty. You were children," Belinda whispered. "Parents might care for the rank of person their children associate with, but children care nothing for it. You, I would think, most of all, more than Sacha or Marius, even, would stand that test. All you wanted was some pears." Her smile was fleeting and sad.
"How do you know us so well?" Eliza didn't take Belinda's hand, but her question lacked accusation, filled instead with resignation. Belinda lowered her eyes to the floor, self-same smile turning wry.
"Envy, perhaps," she replied, discomfited to find a degree of truth in that. Only a degree; the larger part was in needing to know, to see clearly, for her own survival. For the survival of her queen. "That, and I've been made a satellite around a body that works. Perhaps it's easier to see you from the outside, looking in."
Eliza sighed, turning her gaze away, and after long moments swore under her breath. "Have you ever had to grow your hair out from this length, Beatrice? It looks and feels horrible."
Belinda's mouth quirked, eyes bright. "We'll just have to find someone skilled enough with scissors to make it bearable. Or buy you a sheerly impossible number of wigs."
"With Javier's money." A note of bitterness sounded in that and Belinda, despite the earlier rebuff, deliberately reached for and caught Eliza's hand.
"Not if you don't want to. I have money of my own."
"I don't."
Belinda tilted her head, curious; Javier had accused Eliza of stealing more than a palmful of coin off him, and Eliza had claimed to him that she had cash. But that might have been a fob to make a prince cease worrying; there was no reason to suppose the cheapside beauty still had the money. "Well, then. We'd better set about doing something about that, hadn't we?"
"You've taken her under your wing more fully than I'd expected, Bea." Javier lay sprawled on a divan in Belinda's sunroom, one long leg kicked over its edge, the other knocked up rakishly so his free hand could dangle over his knee. Belinda sat tucked into a chair beside him, allowing him her fingertips to pluck and drop idly as he watched her household run.
In ten days her home had been transformed. Eliza, given her head and a budget, had stalked through the Lutetian streets to make tightfisted deals with merchants bewildered by the stacks of coin she left even when they insisted a friend of the prince couldn't possibly be expected to pay for the wares she bought. She purchased cloth, bejewelments, threads, all manner of sewing material, and before the first day was out a quiet young woman appeared at Belinda's door, jaw set with determination. She would not, she explained hastily, be able to come back for the gown herself, but she would send her serving-maid. As it was, her mother believed her to be on the way to visit a friend, but rumour had sparked in the streets and she had seen for herself the gowns that Eliza wore. She wanted to be the first outside the prince's intimate circle to wear a fashion made by by Eliza, and was willing to risk her mother's angry hand to have that first gown. Eliza, and was willing to risk her mother's angry hand to have that first gown.
Eliza, irrationally offended at the link to Javier, had opened her mouth to refuse and Belinda had stepped on her toes with a solid heel, accepting the commission while Eliza's full mouth whitened with annoyance and pain.
"Don't be absurd," Belinda told her acerbically, once the girl was measured and gone again. "You've taken a loan out from me. I have no intention of letting you welsh on it through foolish pride. Now, unless you intend to sew every gown yourself, I'd suggest you turn some thought to hiring a seamstress or two, and if you've any sense you'll take one from your old address."
Eliza had spluttered, railed, and ultimately acquiesced. By morning she had three seamstresses, all from her old quarters, and Belinda had kept Nina running all morning to bathe the three more thoroughly than they'd ever known in their lives. Eliza's mouth had tightened, but she hadn't argued; there was no profit in staining expensive fabric with dirty hands, or holding it against bodies smelling of refuse and shit when there were baths to be had. One of the women nearly refused the hot water, until Eliza reminded her of the pay she'd be earning for a little cleanliness. Muttering about it being against God's will, the woman had climbed into the tub and emerged forty minutes later looking a decade younger than she had going in. She'd asked twice for a bath since then.
"It's not my wing," Belinda said mildly. "It's the chance unshadowed by your wings, my lord. I'm glad to help." She was privately delighted at how true that was; watching tautness fade from Eliza's stance as it became clear she could succeed on her own was worth the disruption to the household.
"Unshadowed," Javier murmured. Belinda shrugged.
"Close enough for her pride. They come to her now because of your friendship, but in six months' time they'll come for her creations, and in five years most of them won't remember she was your friend first."
"Will she make something for you?"
Belinda arched an eyebrow. "If I pay her, but if you'd like another gown to ruin on your garden floor, my lord, I'd as soon wear a muslin shift that can be replaced more easily."
"No." Humour curved Javier's mouth momentarily. "I want something to present you to my mother in."
"Your mother." Belinda's heart gave a sudden uncharacteristic thump, filling her throat. A note of panic cut through that fullness, Beatrice's shock at the idea of meeting the regent briefly overwhelming Belinda's own tense delight, though as seconds passed her own emotions conquered those of the role she played. She ached to meet Sandalia; after months in Gallin's capital city, waiting on the queen's return, she would finally have something to report to her "dearest Jayne." There had been no sudden move against Aulun in the months she'd spent in Lutetia; indeed, if a plot was moving at all, Belinda half felt it was she who lay at the heart of it. Perhaps Robert's intelligence was overblown.
Or perhaps the plotting of a queen's murder was a slow and careful thing. Belinda felt the prickle of hairs wanting to stand on her arms, and refused her body that tiny show of emotion. "I had not thought..." The protest was token, a whisper, something to ease the amusement on Javier's face.
"You can't go skulking about the back halls of the palace forever, and," he lowered his voice, "I have no intention of putting you aside just yet, for reasons you know well. Better you meet her," he said more briskly. "Become a part of the court. Perhaps you'll even find yourself a better match than Marius."
"Would you take me from him, then?" Belinda asked, allowing the question to distract her for a moment. "It's cruel enough what you've done. Would your friendship survive handing me to another noble?"
"Even if it were Sacha," Javier said with arrogant confidence. "Marius's heart would break, and in a week he'd find a new love. He's my man, Beatrice, and his soul is a true one."
"All the more reason to treat it well."
Javier sat up, copper hair falling into his eyes. "Beatrice, are you telling me you're in love with Marius? Do I keep you from your heart's match?" Teasing and jealousy both tinged the question, Javier's will flexing unconsciously toward her, as if to bend her to the answers he wanted to hear.
"No," Belinda said, neither influenced by his extended power nor lying. "But a loyal man should be treated well, not used callously for his good heart." As she'd used him, she reminded herself without rancor. His visits now were a paroxysm of discomfort, the merchant youth barely able to keep his eyes from Nina, nor willing to allow himself to look at her. Belinda's work on the serving girl's memory seemed to have held, and she showed no discomfort or interest in Marius's presence than was dictated by their classes. Belinda lifted a shoulder and offered Javier a smile, letting thoughts of Marius slip away. "No matter. I would be honoured to meet your mother, my lord prince. Is she...is she like you?" Belinda drew her fingers over his, the question light and cautious. He chuckled.
"Flat-chested and redheaded, you mean? No." A judicious pause. "She's a brunette."
Belinda laughed aloud, taken entirely by surprise. "I've seen paintings. She's not flat-chested, either. You know what I mean, Jav." Her voice lowered. "The witchpower." There was no more vital piece of information. She'd come to Gallin expecting the challenge of-Better not to think it, not when her own gifts could pluck thoughts from the air around someone she touched. She withdrew her hand from his, knowing Javier might keep a similar secret close to his own heart.
"Is your mother?"
Belinda thought of Lorraine, slender and elegant on her throne. She was fond of pearls, their creaminess playing up her pale skin. Belinda shook off the image as surely as she'd forbidden herself thoughts of her duties in Lutetia. "My mother died when I was born."
Javier shrugged, languid motion of dismissal. "Then there's no comparison to be made there. You and I are what we are, Beatrice. We won't worry about others, except in the impression you're to make on them. Have Eliza make you something innocent, Bea. Mother will know better, but she likes the illusion that the women I keep are nothing more than youthful playmates."
"As you wish, my lord."
10
There was nothing innocent to the gown's cut.
In a decade of learning to dress to hide herself, to please men, to make herself beautiful or plain, she had rarely worn something that made her feel as unrestrained as Eliza's design did. It was not that it was overly immodest, or lacking in underlayers; the gown Belinda and Javier had ruined had been more daring in that respect.
Part of it was the sleeves. Capped and ruffled, they followed the curve of her shoulder, just covering it, and left her arms bare. Belinda had objected: it was October, and the palace was often cold. Eliza sniffed without sympathy and handed her a cape.
Even that enhanced the gown. The cloak's ties, stretched across Belinda's collarbones, made the round scooped collar's dip seem all the more extravagant. Her breasts were shelved high, a new corset tucked beneath them, and a broad ribbon made a waist of the dress immediately beneath her bosom. It flowed loose from gathers below that, and above offered a shocking expanse of bared skin before a lace ruffle that scraped her nipples made a nod toward propriety.
Most extraordinarily, it was pink. Belinda had gaped at the fabric when it was brought in, unable to stop herself even as smugness played at Eliza's mouth. "I thought you were putting away mannish things," Belinda'd managed to protest, and earned Eliza's laughter for it.