Banner of the Damned (24 page)

It was possible he was expecting
Her
. Fury seethed inside Carola,
until her gaze was caught, as always, not by the old-fashioned artistry of the apartment’s decoration, but by a sliver of her own reflection in the gloss over a miniature painting of the Lassiter mansion.

Carola studied the smooth heart shape of her face, steadied by the reassurance that her countenance gave no clue to her thoughts. So absorbed was she, that for that moment she was unaware of her beloved’s attention.

He studied the startling mirror images, profile to profile, one highlighted with the bright rays streaming in the window, the other reflected darkly against the rich wood of his door. He remembered the last time he’d attended one of Carola’s parties; the heat, the stifling mental atmosphere. Everyone invited sat in a circle around her as she talked in her sweet, light, precise voice about the latest play. Later she’d paused, encouraging others to speak as she watched her own reflection in the rain-streaming windows.

He returned to his painting.

No betraying emotion showed. Restored to the slow, steady breath of composure, Carola looked into the bright room at Kaidas, who painted on, apparently unaware that he was more compelling than any mere daubs, his paint-stippled hands moving with delicate care. She scratched at the open door.

He set aside his brush and got to his feet to bow. She intuited from his lack of surprise that he had known she was there. The lure of the hunt quickened in her. She would woo him, and she would win him all to herself. But first she must bind him with all the honor she possessed.

She curtseyed back. All quite proper. She would rather he have waived the bow, or better if he’d walked over and shut his door—the sign he wished to be intimate—but his behavior was perfectly correct.

Heat flamed again under her ribs. What was that he was painting? One of those damned cups! The heat of rage overwhelmed desire, burning all the way up to her throat. She’d been able to discover where he went and how long he stayed, at great expense, but so far, she had not been able to determine if he’d given Lasva one.
How
she longed to find and destroy them all.

At least this one, painted so in public, would have to have an appropriate purpose—yes, there was royal blue queensblossom intertwined by graceful golden vines with royal lilies of white. Relief made her breathe easier. “That is a thoughtful gift for the Royal Princess,” Carola said, coming forward and examining the cup. “Ah, how delightfully you paint! I wish I had such an eye. I could look at it forever, I confess.”

“May I finish it?” he asked. “If I wait too long, I lose the rhythm of the pattern.”

“It would be my pleasure to watch.” She smiled.

The cup was striking. The queensblossom petals were so tiny, each blossom perfectly made. He touched his brush to the liquid gold and with deft strokes finished the last curling stem.

Then he laid down the brush, picked up another, and dipped it into the cobalt. He began painting stylized ivy vines around the base. When she was certain his attention was absorbed in his task, she shifted her gaze to him, craving the exclusive right to kiss the long lashes shuttering those black eyes under the wicked lines of his brows. She yearned to caress him, to revel in the certitude that no other hand would be permitted to touch the hard jut of his cheekbones; to have at her command the choice, whenever she desired, of playing with the single lock of hair that fell neglected over his broad brow—
his
curls, not hair dresser’s art. Her hireling had insisted he had no hair dresser nor even a body servant. Just a man who tended his horses and came inside to tend his clothes. He did not even paint his nails, though few of the most dedicated riders did.

Strictest etiquette required the person of superior rank to make the proposal, but, before that, go-betweens would normally have made certain what each party expected.

She would—she
could
—no longer wait. “Will you marry me?” she asked, and when he looked up, his expression impossible to interpret, she said what she had not intended to say, “The queen favors my suit.”

She should not have to say it—by all reason he should be the supplicant here. But he wasn’t. She was.

He said, “I know.” Then he bowed, the low, correct bow of assent, and relief eased the tightness in her chest. “I accept. When should this event take place?”

“We have nothing to wait on,” she said, triumph restoring her poise. “And sufficient reason to make it soon.” A delicate hint about the debts.

“True.”

Was that mockery? He bowed again, quite correct, except for the paintbrush still gripped in his fingers. He seemed to see it, and with another slight bow, “You will permit?” He tipped his head at the paints.

She gestured. She would be generous toward his little idiosyncrasies. They were so much a part of his style. He must, however, understand what becoming the Duke of Alarcansa meant. This was the difficult part—the part that ought to have been arranged between them by a mutually accepted party. She could not wait, but she could not risk
bluntness, for if he refused—if he repeated the conversation—how court would smile behind her back!

How
She
would smirk in triumph.

“I will return home to Alarcansa when the court leaves for Sartor tomorrow,” she said.

One, two leaves, and then he paused to dip the brush. Kaidas understood the statement. As delicate as a diplomat, the duchess had given a command to escort her home.

His eyes, so dark you could not distinguish the pupils, were impossible for Carola to read.

“You are tired of Sartoran music, then?” he asked finally.

He did not know, or pretended not to know, that she had never visited Sartor. A surge of terror made her grip the back of a nearby chair. No, wait,
did
he know? “I love good music and find it both civilized and inspiring,” she said. Her words were measured, rational. Elegant. “But I have musicians at home. And Sartor hasn’t produced anything new for years.”

There. That was oblique enough, surely?

It wasn’t. Where she heard elegance, he (not looking at that practiced, smooth countenance) heard the quick breath, the slightly hissed sibilants of demand and anger: marriage with Carola did not come with freedom. She wanted him in Alarcansa, under her eye.

He showed no reaction as he painted with quick, sure touches. Kaidas knew his duty. His father—devoted only to his own pleasure—had even bestirred himself to make certain he knew his duty. But he waited—a heartbeat, a breath—gripped by an image of Carola’s pretty little fingers inexorably binding white ribbons not around his hair but around his neck.

There was no escape.

Duty required him to speak.

His own honor required the words to be given with
melende
. “Permit me to offer my escort.”

Carola dipped into a low, gracious curtsey. These words came as sweet relief, followed by sweeter triumph. Far sweeter.

He asked, in a polite voice, “When would you depart?”

“Once we have paid our respects to the queen.” When he heeded her wishes, she would always be generous. “There will be pleasant events enough in Alarcansa this summer, which ought not to be neglected while our wedding is being arranged. And not just in Alarcansa. I would not want to miss your father’s hunt. He said he’s bringing out the new doe, is that true?”

“True indeed,” he replied, his fingers steady, steady. “She’s reputed to be as fast as Kansl.”

Kansl was the Lassiters’ most famous buck, running hunts for almost ten years and the garland only thrown around his neck by three extremely good riders. Comparing the Lassiters with their wild, beautiful deer had become trite, but that was the way Carola thought of her beloved. He was a wild buck, to be garlanded with Alarcansa crimson.

“Ah-ye! I shall enjoy making a wager or two in support of the doe,” she said, conscious of graciously offering him a long rein. “What is her name?”

“Vriss.” Another leaf painted. The ribbons were wound round his neck.
Melende
demanded that he run with grace. “If you wish to stay with us, our house is what the others have forgivingly termed ‘rustic.’ But it has its comforts,” he said, painting a curling vine.

It was acceptance, but not surrender.

Carola unclasped from around her neck a huge, faceted blue stone in the shape of a great tear. She swung it before the window and said, “I had thought to give the newborn royal princess my grandmother’s sapphire, which was given her by a queen, because it matched the color of her eyes. The blue, framed by your blue-and-gold cup, would make it the more beautiful. Is that not a charming idea, to join the stone with this cup as joint gifts?”

His hands stayed steadily on his task. In a court filled with people who either had unlimited wealth or affected to, gifts were meaningless unless they were either made by the giver or carried historical significance.

The Lassiters had no principle jewels, no medals awarded by kings or queens, nothing famed for cost or art or acquisition. Whatever they once had, his father had sold over the years, to satisfy debtors. Kaidas had discovered his talent for painting at a young age, grasping that art was not valued unless it was rare.

“Kaidas. You who love beautiful things, do you not admire?” The high, precise voice insisted.

He paused in his painting.

Carola held the gem to the window. Blue shards caught the summer sunlight and danced around the room, startlingly brilliant. “Blue and gold are lovely indeed.” She smiled. “The Lirendis knew that when they chose them for royal colors. Yet I find I much prefer the crimson of good wine, drunk from the cup made by a master hand.”

Alarcansa crimson. Not a ribbon, then, he thought, glancing at that
swinging prism as she dropped her hint about her expectation of a lover’s cup, but a chain around his neck.

Exigencies put the chain there; style determined how he wore it. “Shall I send the gem with my finished gift, then?”

“The two will complement one another beautifully,” she replied in that determinedly gracious tone and stepped toward him.

He could not forbear a bid for a small measure of freedom. “Will you be good enough to place it there, within reach?” he asked, not pausing in his strokes.

She understood enough about painting to know that there was a rhythm to the execution of patterns, and so she said, “I will wait until you finish the ivy vine.”

He looked up then, and she smiled her most understanding smile. “This gem, gift of a queen, gift to a future queen, must not be risked in the hands of careless servants or awkward visitors.” She watched his hands at their steady task, then studied his expression. He seemed to be absorbed in painting, and so she added, as lightly as possible, “The Dukes of Alarcansa, ever since the Definian family inherited the title, have always safeguarded our treasures. I will show you that record before we wed.” His mouth tightened, and though it could have been on account of his exacting task, instinct warned her that her message had been clear enough. So she chattered on, as pleasantly as possible, “You will have to read the record of my great-great-grandfather, when the Chwahir last tried to conquer us. You might not know that they came over the pass above us, trampling our vineyards. It’s terribly exciting.”

He laid down his brush then, and she closed the distance between them at last, clasping the gem about his neck, then, with a quick twitch, making certain it lay outside his shirt, where it looked quite handsome, she thought. He was now hers.

He picked up his brush again. “I must finish.”

Of course, he must be left to paint.

“Someone is surely organizing something. Wear the gem to the party, at which time we will present our gifts to the royal princess together.”

He bowed his assent.

Tatia waited in the garden, her eyes anxious.

“He will escort me home,” Carola breathed, and Tatia tapped her fingers
lightly on her fan in applause. “And he wears my gem for the Name Day gift—we will give our gifts together before the entire court.”

“Oh, Carola, I would not have dared. But I am so happy for you!”

“And I am so happy.”

“The princess shall soon be mourning at Willow Gate,” Tatia cooed as they entered the Rose Walk.

“I’m sure of it.” Carola spied a new-bloomed rose at the very top of a bush. With a quick snap of her fan she struck it from the stem. “It is a good lesson even for princesses to learn that to wish is not always to have.” She laughed and struck another rose, sending petals spinning and fluttering in the breeze. “As for him, I will give him anything he wants. I will adore him and make every day over to pleasing him. But first he must understand that I will never sleep in an empty bed.” She struck another rose so sharp a blow the petals scattered all across the path as the bees buzzed angrily, and birds scolded overhead.

T

She made her way to her rooms, and found me awaiting her.

“Any private messages?” she asked, her forehead tense.

My throat hurt. I knew what she wanted to hear, but I could not give it to her. “Just public ones. All lily-shapes. Congratulations.”

“Emras, two things.” She pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, then dropped her hands. “First, will you organize the Name Day party, and send out verbal messages? Everyone is waiting in expectation. I know I can trust you to arrange it with appropriate style. Second, may I borrow your robe?” She ripped her sleeve ribbons free and dropped them, a careless gesture I had never before seen.

Then she stripped off her overrobes, which settled in a sun-yellow puddle at her feet, leaving the cream-colored body gown.