The Queen's Bastard (24 page)

“What’s to like or not like? She’s a pretty woman and she must be a good lay or you wouldn’t keep bothering with her. It’s not like you, though, Jav. We’ve been friends since boyhood, the four of us, and you’re the one who’s kept that sacrosanct. Now you invite this woman in without a hitch or hesitation?”

“Marius invited her.” Belinda hadn’t known the prince could be sulky. She smiled again, into her glass, and watched the men through her eyelashes. Years of long practise kept her from wriggling with amusement, or permitting herself the giggle that fought its way through her, but the grin she gave free rein to. Delight in success pounded through her like sexual arousal, thrills of excitement and interest making her overaware of her body. How easy it would be to carry out her missions, if she could sit unseen in a room with men who had moments ago been fully aware of her presence. If she could learn to walk within the shadows—she didn’t dare try now—she might become the most successful and secret assassin Echon had ever known.

“Marius showed her to us,” Asselin disagreed. “You invited her, Jav. You’re the only one of us who can.”

“Sacha, that’s not true—”

“Yes, my prince.” Asselin’s voice softened, sympathy in it. “It is. It’s why we’re never more than four, Javi. We can only present outsiders. It’s your will that takes them in or leaves them to the cold.”

Javier slumped in his seat, expression unguarded and youthful. “You haven’t called me that in a long time.”

Asselin crooked a smile. “We haven’t been boys in a long time, Javi. I don’t like to use it around Marius and Liza.” His grin went more sheepish. “We knew each other first. I think of it as my name for you, and if I used it, it would become theirs, too.”

“Jealous lordling,” Javier said, but he leaned forward to reach for Asselin’s hand, grasping it a moment.

“Rarely.” Asselin sat back with a sigh and kicked his heels out on the rug. “Which brings us, Jav, back to Eliza.”

Javier lifted his eyebrows. “She’s become a jealous lordling? Sacha—” The prince straightened, curious dismay wrinkling his forehead. “Is that why none of you have married? Because of me? Because you think you need my…approval?”

“Oh, God, Jav, don’t tie the noose yet. There are moments when you’re our only line to freedom. Marriage beds will come soon enough. They’re political machinations, not full of love and romance. It won’t make any difference if you like our wives. Hell, it won’t make any difference if
we
like our wives. A woman’s got no strength to come between the four of us anyway.
Which,
” Asselin said, “brings us back to Eliza, Jav. Again.”

“All right, all right! God in Heaven, Sacha. What’s the problem?”

“Her father’s found her out, Jav.”

Javier’s eyes shuttered, light in them turning black. “Then I’ll protect her.”

“She won’t let you, Jav. She never has.”

“Don’t be absurd. She has rooms here—”

“She’ll refuse them as long as Irvine is here.”

Javier came up short. “Is she as jealous as that? Beatrice is—”

“A distraction? A toy? Easier to believe when she’s not on your arm every evening and in your bed every night. Are you going to introduce her to your mother?”

“God,” Javier said with feeling, then exhaled. “I’ll have to, if I continue with her. Mother’s absence has been—”

“A gift?”

“Not unwelcome.” Javier glanced at the stool where Belinda sat, as if imagining her there. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, watching with interest. After a moment he shook his head and turned his attention back to Sacha. “But once she’s returned, I’ll have to make the introduction. I can’t put Beatrice aside right now.”

Fascinated horror lit Asselin’s eyes. “Good God, man, you haven’t gotten her pregnant, have you?”

Javier blanched and shuddered. “No. My God, no. It’s—There are other things. Other reasons.” He shrugged, making an end of it. Sacha sighed explosively.

“You’re bewitched, Javi. Look, Liz won’t come to my home, either, but if she goes home her father will likely—”

Javier lifted a hand. “I think I have a solution. One she won’t like, but it may appeal. Sacha, don’t tell her you were here talking about her, all right?”

“Do I look like a complete fool?” Asselin demanded. Javier gave him a slow grin and Sacha laughed. “Some friend you are. All right. All right, Jav, but make quick work of it, because she’s got nowhere to go.” He looked around. “What the hell happened to Irvine? I thought she was bringing more drink.”

Belinda cocked an eyebrow curiously, then gathered her skirts and stood to slip through shadow in search of wine.

Dawn came on before Javier brought the subject around to Eliza and offered up his plan. Belinda sprawled across his bed, hair twisted over her shoulder into a mocking semblance of propriety. Javier stood at his window, watching the mist-coated palace grounds as sunlight struggled to break through the grey. “So your women will all be under one roof?” Belinda murmured. “Convenient, my lord.”

He scowled over his shoulder. “It’s not like that between Eliza and myself, Beatrice. I thought you knew that.”

“I do. I was only teasing, my lord.” She stood and crossed to him, putting her fingertips on his shoulders. “Then why?”

“Eliza’s father doesn’t like her friendship with me.”

Belinda’s eyebrows shot up. “Doesn’t like a friendship with the
prince
?”

“He thinks I…” Javier turned his head, uncomfortable. “Abuse the friendship.”

“Abuse. A powerful man, a beautiful woman.” Belinda’s eyebrows remained elevated. “Few would call it abuse.”

“They are very poor.” Javier’s jaw set. “Poor enough that a father might only see his daughter as a victim in such a relationship.”

Belinda stepped back, letting surprise stiffen her movements. “Poor…? She speaks so beautifully, my lord.”

Disdain flashed through Javier’s expression. “High-born tones can be learned. We’ve been friends a long time.”

“Yes.” Belinda stiffened further, flushing as she glanced down. “Of course, my lord.” She knotted her fingers together in front of her belly, turning her palms up. “Another father might use such a relationship as leverage into a good marriage,” she suggested. A glance at Javier through her eyelashes found him shaking his head.

“It might’ve if she wasn’t as stubborn as the day is long. Her mother and three sisters died five years ago of a bad fever. Eliza was the only one who survived. She refuses to grow her hair back out and behave like a proper woman. Her father’s hand…is growing heavy.”

A shiver spilled down Belinda’s spine, making the hairs on her arms stand up against the light fabric of the dressing gown she’d stolen from Javier. “Then why come to me, my lord? You must know…” She hesitated. “Eliza considers me a…rival.” She chose her words with delicacy, watching the prince for his reactions. Javier let out a breath that bordered on laughter.

“I’m aware. But I can hardly place her with Sacha or Marius, can I? A woman at least has the gloss of appropriateness. Besides,” he finally met her eyes again, “it would divert talk from our relationship.”

“Or compound it, my lord.”

Javier flashed a grin. “Which might do as well. Please, Bea. I don’t ask favours that often.”

Belinda lifted her eyebrows again as she offered Javier her hands. “Is she going to want to murder me in my sleep, my lord? Ought I sleep with one eye open every night from now on?”

“You sleep enough nights with me that I think you’re safe.” Javier lifted her hands to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “Perhaps sleep with both eyes open those nights you don’t.”

“So you’d have me get no sleep at all,” Belinda teased. “Very well, my lord. But I warn you: we may become fast friends and both toss our heads and laugh when you come calling. Women are strange creatures.”

“Then I’ll have gotten what I deserved for putting the two of you together. That dress, Beatrice. The one you wore to the opera.”

She tilted her head, curious. “Aye?”

“It was Eliza’s design. It’s her true talent, making beautiful gowns. With your help, she might soon be able to begin a business of her own. It’d be good for both of you: she wouldn’t be under your roof anymore, and she wouldn’t be under her father’s.”

Belinda frowned, shaking her head. “If it’s her design, my lord, why on earth hasn’t she begun a business already? Certainly with your patronage—” Her chin came up. “Ah.”

Javier quirked an eyebrow. “Ah?”

“She won’t take your help, will she? Too much pride.”

Javier inclined his head. “I remember, as a child, the beggars who flung themselves at mine and my mother’s feet as we walked into church. I thought then that pride was a provenance of the wealthy. When I met Eliza I realised that the poor have an even more desperate pride than the rich. She’s never let me help her, except when she was too ill to object.”

“The fever?”

Javier nodded. Belinda’s chin lifted again in new understanding. “Your doctors saved her but not the rest of her family.”

Javier nodded a second time. Belinda stepped back, pressing her fingers over her lips. “Her mother. Her sisters.” She didn’t wait for the prince’s nod, though it came again. “No wonder her father hates you, my lord. Four for one. I wouldn’t trust your intentions, either.”

“They wouldn’t let me help,” Javier murmured. “Her mother allowed me to take her, but not the rest of them.”

“You are a prince, my lord. How could one poor woman stop you? And how could one wretched man beg your mercy for the rest of his family when you had shown preference to one?”

Javier met her eyes, helpless. “I didn’t want to offend them. Does my rank give me the right to disrupt the lives of others as I see fit?”

Belinda laughed out loud, throaty and warm. “Isn’t that what royalty does, my lord?”

Javier’s spine stiffened, his face gone pale with anger. “Yes. And that is why I do not care to do it myself, Lady Irvine. I try to respect those around me.”

“Unless they are too inconvenient.” Belinda stepped forward again, curling her fingers in his shirt. “In which case, there is always the witchpower, no? An extension of yourself. You can hardly be blamed for making use of it.” She stood on her toes, brushing her mouth against the pulse in his throat. “It is a peculiar and fine line to dance, my prince. But you are a rare man if you are willing to walk it at all. Most would never think twice of imposing their will as they saw fit, given the means and opportunity. I will try to help make Eliza a dressmaker with clientele all her own, as untouched by your helping hand as is possible, if you, my lord….” She lifted her eyes, bright winsome smile teasing him, “will but come back to bed now. It’s very early, and you’ve no duties until the tenth hour.” Belinda put on a pout, then drew him toward the bed. “Is it not a fine bargain I make?”

Javier laughed and let himself be drawn.

“In a pig’s eyes.”

“Liza—”

“Like hell, Javier, no. I won’t.”

“I need you—”

Eliza snorted, derisive, and turned to stare challengingly at the prince. “I need you,” he repeated with as much patience as he could muster, “to watch her.”

Silence. Belinda held her breath, feeling herself barely more than a shadow under the starry skies. She was not supposed to be there, no more than Javier himself was: she could feel, subtly, his pleasure at having escaped the guards that evening. Not his thoughts; those were too well-shielded, only readable in a handful of moments when she touched his skin. The impressions were enough, though, carrying Belinda with them as if she belonged inside the prince’s skin herself. She’d left his chambers well before duty called him to work, intending to return home and begin arranging for Eliza’s arrival. Only a few steps outside his rooms, though, she found herself filled with burgeoning curiosity. It had been rare impulse that prompted her to follow him, less to observe his day than to see if she could manipulate the stillness and the silence into making people believe she wasn’t there. If she could do that under the watchful eyes of a prince’s guard, under the gaze of men who were supposed to see everything that happened around their ward, then she had discovered power indeed.

It was exhausting, draining beyond anything she knew. Even now, simply thinking of what she did sent trembles through her, as if conscious recognition threatened to shatter what control she had. It had been easier earlier in the day, and as the strain grew so did her intent to maintain it. Power of any kind was worth only as much as could be grasped and held. Limits were there to be pushed and explored, but more critically, acknowledged in a moment of necessity. She had slipped after the prince for nearly twelve hours now, following him into the privacy of his bedchambers and into the courtly halls of the palace. No one had noticed her.

No one would ever know. Belinda twisted her hands, a small gesture like she held a garrote and had a slender throat to wrap it around. It would take mere seconds in the pretender queen’s presence to slaughter her, and with the stillness so profoundly wrapped about her, no one would ever see Belinda to blame her. The idea of that opportunity made her heart beat harder, sending heat through her core until it became sexual excitement. Robert had not told her to kill Javier’s mother. Regicide was a dangerous game, and with one royal murdered, eyes might turn to another as the next possible victim. Her duty was merely to discover the breadth of plots against Lorraine, and end them.

Sandalia’s death would be a resounding note to end them on.

And that was a childish impulse toward a glory Belinda would never be allowed to acknowledge. Should she succeed in assassinating the Essandian princess, Robert might know of it. Lorraine should, could, not, though in the secret places of her heart she might suspect.

Belinda’s heart fluttered in her chest, spiking sickening joy into her throat. That would be enough. To have her mother know Belinda’s loyalty would be enough. For a startling few seconds tears burned her eyes, heat scalding her cheeks as she thought of it. There was little enough that the queen’s bastard could do to connect herself with her royal mother. A death offered from the daughter as a gift to the mother was the greatest intimacy Belinda could dare imagine, an insurrection stopped and a kingdom preserved. That was who, and what, the secret daughter was. Belinda curled her hands into fists against the heady fear she might fly away on the breathless hope of securing her mother’s throne for years to come.

Shadows glimmered and twitched around her, sinking deeper into her skin as if they’d drink up the failing pool of witchpower from which Belinda drew. She allowed herself one last shaking sigh, a sound of desire that men would count themselves fortunate to earn from her, and straightened herself, letting go of powerful wishes in order to maintain her hidden presence a few minutes longer. She quested outward, careful exploration of nearby emotion, riding that as strongly as she dared. She wasn’t yet ready to try influencing those emotions, but every experience of another’s mental state would help her when that time came.

Javier was easier by far than Eliza, Belinda’s hours with him helping her to read him even without the witchpower. She let her eyes lid, wetting her lips as tendrils of golden power threaded outward, settling around Javier and testing him, seeing what she could read without giving herself away.

The prince cast a wordless prayer in the guise of a glance at the heavens, leaning wearily against the bridge railing. His quiet pleasure at escaping the honour guard was still there, though muted beneath wry frustration at Eliza. She, like Sacha and Marius, could forget the guard, so long as they lingered at a semi-respectful distance. Javier himself never forgot. It made the few stolen hours when he shook them off all the more precious. Spending them arguing, even with a beautiful woman, was far from his preference.

Eliza held her mouth in a pinch, eyes guarded, though at least she listened. Belinda felt almost nothing from her: faint challenge, angry acknowledgment. After a few seconds she let her sense of the other woman go; Javier was the more important of the two to understand. Eliza’s voice was low and cutting, distorted by distance as Belinda severed the faint link of power she’d held to the dark-haired woman. “Don’t you trust her?”

Javier groaned and looked to the sky again. Thin clouds, pale against the blackness, blocked out patches of stars, and his breath steamed to wash away another handful of nighttime diamonds. Belinda’s own gaze flickered upward, half expecting the stars to be blocked by the shadows that wrapped her. Instead, a handful of them glittered hard, picking out the form of a dragon in the sky.

It brought with it memory, a cold winter night when Belinda was a child, so clear that for a moment it overrode the discussion held by the two she watched. Robert had stood beside her, his warm arm around her shoulders to ward off the night’s chill as he’d picked out figures in the stars. A lion here, a bear there, a hunter presiding. A dragon, his spray of fire a scattering of stars across the night sky. Belinda had turned a dubious look on her father, insisting, “The others are real. Are there dragons, then, Papa?”

Robert lowered his hand from the stars to study her with a grave expression. “There are, Primrose.”

Belinda’s eyes widened until cold crept into their corners, a chill of ice lacing through her vision. “What are they like?”

“Nothing like you would imagine, Bella. Nothing like you would imagine.” He’d picked her up then in a rare and unexpected hug, and carried her back into the house to warm up over a cup of mulled wine and sweetmeats left out by the cook. Belinda smiled at the stars in thanks for the memory, then brought her mind back to the conversation she spied upon.

“I trust her,” Javier had already murmured. “But my judgment may be clouded.”