Beside her, Marius inhaled a deep breath of caution, but the words were already spoken, and she met Javier’s eyes with her own forthright gaze, waiting.
The air between them…flexed. Belinda saw the subtle hand motion, the stretching of Javier’s fingers that had stilled not only his lifetime companions, but even herself, not so long before. But this time it accompanied something more, a test of Belinda’s will versus Javier’s own. It was as if he put his shoulder into a stubborn, stuck door, expecting it to give way with a single shove. Belinda had felt men wield power before, knew the confidence that came with a lifetime of making decisions and being respected.
This was more. This was imposition, Javier’s will intending domination not through fear or respect, but simply because he could. And even that didn’t go far enough; Belinda had known men like that, too, who forced themselves and their desires on others because they had the strength that others did not. Javier seemed to have none of the impulse toward cruelty that such men-like Gregori-had, nor any apparent lack of confidence that often fed the need to domineer. This was less hurtful than those things; this was merely an extension of the man, an extension that edged on familiarity. He expected to triumph; he would, without question, triumph. His centre of confidence held, waiting for her to break.
Instead, she understood.
It felt like the stillness. Externally imposed, active rather than protective, but it carried that calm centre of invulnerability. Nothing could touch that force of will, and because nothing could touch it, no one could resist it. The thrill of recognition shot through Belinda’s body in sensual excitement, bringing on a shiver. Never in her life had she felt anything like her stillness within another; never, in fact, had she even imagined she might encounter such a subtle and personalized power. Her pulse jumped in her throat, excitement desiring to overwhelm her facade of calm. She pushed it down, tingling with curiosity and enthusiasm, and for a moment another emotion swam over her, as it had done in the Maglian pub. Expectation radiated from Eliza and the other two men, and from Eliza, too, a sense of smug satisfaction. They knew, all of them, that Belinda would succumb to the prince’s will and offer up an apology. It was as sure as the sun rising in the east.
Belinda lifted her chin, her fingers wandering to stroke the hollow of her throat, vulnerable and inviting. Javier shifted his weight forward, barely enough to perceive, and Belinda held her breath, judging the spark in the air between them.
It didn’t flex again, Javier’s will already loosened, but the core-so different, what she felt from him, compared to the stillness she had learned to hide herself in. He had chosen to channel his energies another way, into activity. That dynamic core within him pressed its advantage, seeing Belinda showing weakness in the most flattering form a woman could offer it, sexual availability. She could feel, almost as if she were in his skin, the heat of want that spread from his groin and fed his hidden strength. Belinda encouraged it a few seconds, retreating into herself. Javier leaned forward another fraction of an inch.
Belinda wrapped golden stillness around herself so nothing could touch her, and met the prince’s gaze without fear.
Javier flinched.
He flinched, then straightened, mouth slightly open with surprise. He wet his lips, tongue caught between his teeth for an instant, before a slow, appreciative smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Then I had best reconsider my complaints, had I not? Perhaps I speak of things that I do not well understand.”
Eliza’s scowl darkened again; beside her, Belinda felt Marius slump in unsurprised dismay. There was danger in introducing any woman to a friend, but especially when the friend was a prince. Marius had not expected to lose her so quickly, but he felt the change in energy between them, knew something invisible had passed between them, and laid open a new path for them to follow. Then he squared his shoulders, jaw set with determination. Belinda almost smiled at his resolution: he could not have said it more clearly if he’d spoken the words out loud. Javier could not be expected to wed a minor noble from a country so ill thought of it was often called Northern Aulun rather than by its own name. Marius would not give up his own hopes yet. He would fight for the lady’s hand, and only accept defeat graciously when he had no other choice. Belinda admired him for it even as the prince’s curious energy drew her toward him. Only Asselin watched without changing demeanor, the lying, raw honesty that defined him in Belinda’s mind seeming to shield him from the shock of a woman crossing swords with his prince.
“It’s a rare man who admits he may not fully understand a thing.” Belinda chose her words carefully. “My father would have said, a wise man.” She imagined Robert preaching the line, and let her own laughter echo through the stillness she still held wrapped around her. It warmed her without coming close to the surface, without darkening her eyes or curving her mouth. Javier inclined his head very slightly.
“I thank you, Lady Beatrice. I doubt I have the years for wisdom, but God granting, perhaps someday I’ll grow into it. And if lovely women are to dispense it, so much the better for all of us.” He flashed a grin, disarming and bright, at his companions, and they slowly loosened their hold on confusion and suspicion. All but Eliza, whose sulk deepened. She had no more idea than the men did what had passed between Belinda and the prince, but her position was already jeopardized. She would trust nothing of Belinda without a direct order, and even then would keep one eye on her purse. For a fleeting moment Belinda considered taking her aside to promise her own innocence in matters of pursuing the prince, but to make a liar of herself with actions would do no one any good.
Javier was speaking; Belinda turned her attention back to him, replaying the words she’d heard without listening in her mind. There is to be an opera this Friday evening, he’d said. “I dare say between the four of us we might scrape up enough to add a ticket to our party,” he suggested. “If the Lady Irvine might care to join us?”
The Lady Irvine turned her gaze on her erstwhile companion of the evening. Marius’s cheeks were flushed with more crimson than the heat of the club warranted, but he bowed his head gracefully. “Would you accompany me, lady?” The penultimate word was stressed very faintly, as if the tiny declaration of possession would go unnoticed by the others if he was careful to bring only a little attention to it.
“The opera,” Belinda echoed, both amused and embarrassed to hear a thread of genuine apprehension in her voice. “I don’t know operas, my lord.” She did, though only in the abstract; fables in music, she’d read, with extraordinary songs and costuming. The art form had been birthed in Parna, and only lately; to find it burgeoning in Lutetia surprised her, for all that Gallin’s capital city thought well of itself as a centre for art. “What does one wear?”
Pure malice, disguised as delight, from Eliza: “Don’t worry, darling.” Her smile was so sharp it made Belinda want to laugh. “I’ll help you.”
Not even the men missed that. They exchanged guarded looks, and Javier cleared his throat. “Perhaps between my sister and I, we might provide some assistance.” His teasing reminder of their purported relationship only fanned Eliza’s anger. She sat back, eyes snapping and bright, and made a short chopping gesture with her right hand. For the first time Belinda noticed jewelry there: a ring carved of stone, something pale enough to nearly blend against her translucent skin. Alabaster or maybe marble, Belinda thought clinically, and wondered who had given her the bauble.
“As you will,” Eliza said. As if her desire could override the prince’s, Belinda thought, but it wasn’t her purpose to destroy the group. Not yet at least. She didn’t know enough about them. They might prove more useful unified than they would separated.
“I would never presume to doubt the prince’s taste or knowledge of women’s clothing,” she began. Javier let out a snort of laughter and lifted his wineglass.
“By which you mean, you are about to doubt it in an extravagantly polite fashion. And here I thought the Lanyarchans called a spade a spade, Lady Irvine.” He drank deeply of his glass, never taking his eyes off her as she let a smile of acknowledgment ghost across her face.
“A spade is one thing, my lord. Insulting royalty is rather another.”
“And yet,” Javier said. Belinda smiled, and turned her eyes to Eliza.
“I would rather trust a woman’s judgment,” she murmured, putting herself into Eliza’s hands entirely. She might pay for it by appearing at the opera in a whore’s costume, but the risk was worthwhile. Eliza’s gaze shuttered, small triumph obscured by uncertainty. “Lady Eliza, would you help me in finding a gown for the opera? I would be in your debt.”
She felt Marius relax marginally. By putting the onus on Eliza, Belinda circumvented both owing the prince anything, and left the field fractionally more open to the young nobleman. It was not a direct refusal, which would have risked too much-might even have risked a breach in Javier’s friendship with Marius-but it lay out rules of
