The Queen's Bastard (30 page)

“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.”

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.

“Who says only men can wear pink? Or would you pretend that you’re too weak for the color, as they say women are?”

Beatrice might have stood her ground, but Belinda knew better than to fall for the taunt. She found herself eyeing the fabric more covetously despite herself, and had ignored Eliza’s triumph. It was frothy muslin, so light it would take layer after layer to give it a decent weight. That, Eliza had agreed with, though the final dress still all but floated, and with the afternoon sun behind her Belinda knew full well her figure would be visible through the gown’s layers. It was not at all innocent.

And yet, looking at herself in the mirror, her hair piled into ringlets that fell around her shoulders, even feeling lush and sensual, Belinda’s reflection to her own eyes looked virginal and soft. Pure. The costume was so far from fashionable it would very possibly horrify Sandalia, but if its outrageousness passed muster, the effect was exactly as Javier had asked.

“What I want to know is what’s beneath all that diaphanous material.” Javier spoke from her bedroom door, his reflection appearing in her mirror only after his voice wrapped around her. Belinda tilted her head toward his image, smiling.

“I thought you were waiting for me at the palace.”

“I thought I’d better investigate Eliza’s creation, to make sure we weren’t both to be humiliated.” He came into the room, drawing the knot free from her cloak and catching it as it fell. “My mother may have a stroke, Beatrice.”

“You said innocent,” Belinda said lightly. “Would Eliza deliberately humiliate me in front of the queen?”

“No,” Javier said so steadily Belinda believed him. “Mother likes Eliza, so far as she grasps her existence at all.” He dropped a curious kiss on Belinda’s bare shoulder. “Perhaps I should warn her you’ve been dressed by my friend. It might alleviate her shock somewhat.”

“I have other, more ordinary gowns, Javier,” Belinda murmured. “If you disapprove—”

“On the contrary. I approve enough that I’d prefer to keep you here and discover what’s beneath that dress.”

“I am, my lord.” Belinda turned around with an impish smile and stood on her toes to brush her mouth against his ear. “Nothing you’re unfamiliar with.”

“You’re a woman, Bea. It’s a woman’s gift to be eternally mysterious.”

Belinda laughed aloud and kissed Javier a second time before threading her arm through his. “Your mother’s taught you well. Shall we not keep her waiting, my lord prince? I do not,” and for once Belinda spoke with all honesty, “want to make a bad impression.”

“You won’t,” Javier promised, and with the murmured words, escorted her to the Gallic queen’s court.

Sandalia, Essandian princess, queen of Lanyarch and regent of Gallin, was not a tall woman. Javier had done her a disservice with his teasing about her figure; even in the straitlaced corsets that were fashionable, her petite curves were hinted at. Nut-brown hair, richer than Belinda’s, was neither dyed nor powdered to hide signs of aging; unlike Lorraine, Sandalia had years yet before age began to catch her. She’d borne Javier as little more than a child bride, her husband lost to battle within weeks of Javier’s conception, and she had ruled Gallin in her son’s name and with her brother Rodrigo’s support for more than two decades.

Belinda was surprised to find her heart beating rapidly as she approached the throne. The assembly was far from the formal audience at which she’d met her own mother ten years earlier, but her own anticipation of the event was far more acute. Then, she had been preparing to kill a man for the first time, with no idea that meeting the Titian-haired queen would bring understanding to a vivid memory from the first moments of her life. Today she met another target, much higher in rank than the unfortunate Rodney du Roz had been.

Du Roz. Of the rose. A startling clarity and question fell over Belinda even as she heard Javier murmur her name, even as she curtsied deeply and kept her eyes lowered, waiting for Sandalia to assess her. In nearly all her guises she called herself Rose, or some variation thereof, stealing her father’s pet name for her in deliberate deference to him, and making a purposeful connection to the girl she’d once been.

How much of it, she wondered for the first time, was an homage to the first man who’s life she’d taken? Surprise burned her cheeks and she reached for stillness, then let it fade again: the flush might do her good under Sandalia’s watchful eye. Let the Gallic queen think her a Lanyarchan provincial, shy and overwhelmed at meeting the woman who was arguably the rightful ruler of Belinda’s homeland.

“Rise.” Sandalia’s voice was sweeter than Lorraine’s, a soprano of operatic quality, if it could be trained to sing. Belinda straightened from her curtsey, daring to lift her eyes to the queen’s for an instant, then dropping her gaze again as benefited her station. “We presume our son’s little friend designed your gown, Lady Irvine.”

Irritation flared in Javier’s eyes, as open to Belinda as the impulse for a hard look that she doubted he would dare lay on his mother. A sting of sympathy went through her; Belinda, in Eliza’s place, wouldn’t care for the condescension in Sandalia’s tone, either. That Javier felt outrage spoke better of him as a man than Belinda might have thought, and for an instant her heart softened toward him. There was nothing he could say, certainly not in public, that would not make him look the fool and insult his mother. One might be rude to street urchins, even, or especially, when they weren’t present, but offending the queen was a mistake no one would dare.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Belinda’s whisper barely reached the throne. Sandalia leaned forward, brushing her fingertips against her thumb, not quite a snap of sound.

“Come forward, Lady Irvine. Let us examine Eliza’s artistry.”

Javier’s chagrin faded at the interest—no more than polite, but there—in Sandalia’s tone, and at his mother’s use of Eliza’s name. Belinda took two careful steps up toward the throne, its daised height helping to make up for Sandalia’s diminutive size. Jav’s throne, angled to the right and a step below the queen’s, still put his head nearly level with hers; she was, indeed, not a tall woman. “Turn,” Sandalia ordered, and Belinda did, eyes cast out and up to examine the throne room briefly and thoroughly from the closest she might ever come to royalty’s vantage.

Courtiers and hangers-on watched with envious eyes, belittling gazes, anger, and lust; they were a wash of colour, coveting Belinda’s position above them and resenting her for it. It took no gift to understand that; she could see it from their expressions, painted with politeness that lay too thin over rage: there were daughters who belonged where she now stood, favoured of the prince. There were sisters who had been overlooked. Belinda would find no friends within the Lutetian court, though should she hold her place with Javier, she had no doubt that dagger-smiling women would flock to her side.

“Pink,” Sandalia said when Belinda had completed her circuit. “An unusual shade for a woman, Lady Beatrice.”

Sudden impishness caught Belinda with a smile. “It was that or a tartan, Your Majesty. Mademoiselle Beaulieu thought the dress better suited to pink.” She let the Lanyarchan burr come through strong in her Gallic, everything about her delivery bright and delightful, though her heart hung between beats and she felt nothing but calculation as her gaze flickered to the queen again, seeking approval at her audacity.

Her heart crashed into motion again as Sandalia lifted an eyebrow so discreetly it didn’t so much as mar the smooth skin of her forehead, then allowed herself a full-mouthed twist of a smile that reminded Belinda unexpectedly of Eliza. “We are inclined to agree.” Sandalia’s voice warmed a little more, her brown eyes curious on Belinda’s face. “It is not an unattractive shade for a woman of your colouring. We’re not certain we would see it as pink at all, if there were not so many layers to enhance it. Tell us, Lady Beatrice, do you think we would look well in Mademoiselle Beaulieu’s fashions?”

Hope surged from Javier, so sharp and controlled it cut through Belinda’s heart. She kept her eyes from him, knowing that the answer couldn’t be tainted by seeking his approval; Sandalia would see that, and think less of her, and even more, less of Eliza, for it. But the queen had called Eliza by a title, far from the belittlement she’d first used, and that, combined with the question, emboldened Belinda to lift her gaze and study Sandalia’s petite form with a cautiously critical eye.

“Your Majesty…” Belinda tilted her head, then took a deep breath, risking her place in Sandalia’s court on a moment of truthfulness. “Your Majesty, if you will forgive a blunt Lanyarchan assessment, you have a form that women envy and men covet, and very likely the other way around as well.” Dismay sparked from Javier’s direction, but Belinda went on, eyes earnest on the queen. “This style of gown would enhance Your Majesty’s finest assets and help to prove that youth’s bloom is not yet gone from Your Majesty’s face or figure. That said, Your Majesty is not especially tall, and truthfully, I would have to see one of mademoiselle’s gowns on Your Majesty to say whether the straight lines of current fashion lend a gravitas and height that a woman of power might feel necessary, or whether the soft femininity of looser lines might enhance her strength in its own way. I would like very much to see it,” she finished, deliberately wistful, then added a twist into her smile. “If for no other reason than I believe Your Majesty would look lovely in this fashion, and the idea of the Aulunian queen echoing it amuses me. It would suit Your Majesty; it would not suit her.”

Nor would it. Belinda thought Lorraine too wise to fall for such an obvious prat, but she was vain and considered herself—rightfully, as a queen—as a maker of fashion. Moreover, there was something inherently youthful about the loose lines of Eliza’s design, and Lorraine’s vanity was tightly tied to an unaging, girlish self-image. To have such a fashion come out of Lutetia and to have it look poorly on her might injure an enormous pride that Belinda had no need to prick, but which suited Beatrice enormously.

Emotion raged behind Sandalia’s mild expression. Belinda could all but taste it, sudden glee on the Essandian princess’s part at the idea of flaunting the sixteen-year gap between her age and Lorraine’s. Belinda had no need to touch the queen’s hand and read her thoughts: amusement and avarice washed off her, almost as clear as words, and echoed the lines Belinda wanted her to follow. Setting a new fashion, one that played to her youth, would remind not just the Gallic and Essandian peoples but the Aulunians, that Lorraine was aging, and Sandalia still so young as to be able to bear another heir. That she was only just young enough hardly mattered; Lorraine, at fifty-five, still seemed to flirt with the idea, and if a people could accept that, they could far more readily believe that thirty-nine-year-old Sandalia might mother a second child.

Moreover, there was the question of Javier. Lorraine had no heir and Javier, as grand-nephew to Lorraine’s father’s, first—and by the Ecumenical church, only legitimate—wife, had in the eyes of many the only genuine claim to the Aulunian throne. Sandalia was comfortable in her position as regent, reluctant to give away her power to a son whom some murmured should have taken the throne at his sixteenth year. Reminding Aulun of Javier’s presence, even in so simple a way as introducing new fashions that played to vitality and beauty, could benefit an intention to set the prince on Aulun’s throne, leaving her own seat in Gallin unchallenged.

Belinda lowered her eyes, no longer certain if she followed Sandalia’s emotion or her own—
plan
, she found herself thinking, and the stillness came over her whether she wanted it to or not.

We face insurrection against our own beloved queen.
Robert’s words hung heavily in Belinda’s mind, his voice as clear as if she heard him speaking now. She had come to Lutetia to seek out a plot against a pretender reaching for Aulun’s throne, and to whisper word of that plot in her father’s ear when the time came. That the seeds of it lay dormant in the men and women she’d met, Belinda had no doubt. It was too soon, too soon by far, to know whether Sandalia herself strove for the ends threatened by Robert’s warning, but something new shaped itself now. If those ends were not yet in place, then Belinda herself might put them there, might push and prod the pieces into place in order to devastate Gallin and Essandia alike, leaving Aulun and Lorraine and the Reformation unchallenged in western Echon.