Marius smiled and looked away. “Eliza doesn’t like anyone who lands in Jav’s bed.”
“I do not believe you’re supposed to know that, my lord.”
Marius looked back, eyebrows elevated. “That Eliza doesn’t like anyone who’s in Javier’s bed, or that you’re there, my lady Beatrice?”
“The latter.” A faint smile curved Belinda’s mouth. “The former seems eminently obvious.”
“The difficulty,” Marius said, turning his gaze away again, “with being friends with Jav is that women do not dare tell him no, even when they might otherwise wish to.” He glanced at her again, folding his arms across his chest. “Spare me the insistence that you are bound to me heart and soul and that you only spread your legs for him because you have no other choice. Jav’s hard to resist.”
“Then why did you introduce me to him?” Belinda put her hand on Marius’s forearm. “Women are not so different from men, my lord. We, too, are drawn to power. Why introduce me to him?”
“Because he is my friend.” Marius withdrew a step, making Belinda’s fingers slide away from his arm.
Another voice came out of the distance, not so far away that their conversation might have gone unheard: “And because we’re all damned in our lovers by knowing him. No way to go forward or back without his permission, so we must introduce our paramours whether we will or won’t.” Asselin stalked up to them, shoulders hunched against cold more threatened than felt in the air. “Marius, may I borrow your fine lady for a little while? My sister’s giving another damned recital and my mother expects me to bring a comely woman of marriageable age.”
“You couldn’t find one of your own?” Marius sighed with resignation. “Beatrice, his sister has a voice like a harpy. Your ears may never forgive me if I let you go.”
“But she’s got the body of an angel, Marius. Turn up alone yourself and my mother might see past the merchant street to consider you a prospect. No offense to our lady Irvine, but a Comtesse is a rank worth aspiring to.”
“I’ll come,” Marius said sourly, “if only to be certain Beatrice isn’t being mistreated by the lout I call friend. Shall we all go together?”
Asselin’s gaze, appraising, raked over Marius, then Belinda. “Irvine will do,” he said after a moment, “but Mother would never let you past the front door in those clothes, Marius. Meet us there. I’ll save you enough wine to stop the sound of my sister’s voice from scratching out your ears. Beatrice, if you’d do me a few moments’ honour?” He extended his arm, heightening Belinda’s awareness that Marius had stepped away from her, abandoning her to stand on her own. A flash of unkind playfulness prompted her to take Asselin’s elbow, her gaze direct on Marius.
“If no one else will offer me an arm and warmth against the cold, I suppose I’m forced to your side, my lord Asselin.” She transferred a look of mocking adoration to the stocky man, watching a flush creep up Marius’s cheek before he sketched a short bow.
“My lady. Forgive me. It seems I am inappropriately attired to be seen in the company of nobility. I’ll join you again shortly.” He turned on his heel, clipping across brown grass at a brisk pace. Belinda pursed her lips, looking to Asselin.
“Was that really necessary, my lord?”
“Oh, yes, it was. Tell me, Irvine. How long has the Reformation bitch sat on the Aulunian throne?”
Stillness wrapped around her so swiftly that a chill shot over Belinda’s body. It prickled her breasts and her spine, nestling icily in her groin, and lingered there, a cold throb of desire. She had no fear of betraying herself; she felt her head tilt, a curious smile playing at her mouth, the coldness entirely within. No hairs raised on her arms or neck and her heartbeat remained steady as her own words from a night months earlier were thrown back in her face. “Longer than my lifetime, certainly, my lord.” A moment’s hesitation before she said, “Nearly thirty years. I think there will be a Jubilee held in Alunaer soon.”
“Well done,” Asselin breathed. “Ah, well done, my lady Beatrice, but don’t bother. Marius pointed you out to me days before he introduced you. I know you, Irvine, or whatever your name is. I’ve held your tits in my hands and buried my cock in your cunt, and I’ve known it since the moment he showed me his new true love. You’ve something I want, and that’s all we’ve got to discuss.”
Beatrice’s veneer let a blush slide through, scalding Belinda’s throat and jaw before she regained control of herself. Of the too-quick heartbeat whose pace never should have changed, even with Asselin’s accusations thrown in her face. Beatrice was a dangerous part to play, wearing Belinda down, too thin and close to the surface for the stillness to entirely protect her. She could feel witchpower rising in her, soft golden light that might distract Asselin’s thoughts, might make him forget who and what he knew her as, if she could focus it enough. She had no doubt he’d recognized her, no underlying certainty that she could make him believe he was mistaken with less than the growing power she had at hand. And that, though a temptation, was too great a risk: she and Javier had been cautious in their studies, hiding them beneath the facade of an affair. The idea of flame and a stake to be bound to still edged her thoughts, and Javier’s own fears ran to a far deeper sort of Hell, a true belief in his condemnation in the eyes of God. No; she was not yet prepared to try changing a man’s thoughts through her own will.
Instead, she tightened her fingers on Asselin’s arm, letting a wash of fear at having been recognized come into her eyes and sharpen her voice. “Perhaps this isn’t the place to discuss it.”
Asselin pulled her, without remorse, toward a copse of trees that made shadows and darkness in the daylit park. “Of course it isn’t. But Marius will expect us at my mother’s in less than an hour, and anywhere private enough to suit you will require more time than I’m willing to sacrifice. This will do, Irvine.” Shadows enveloped them as he spoke, leafless branches making vicious lines against Belinda’s skin. She reached for them with the witchpower, half wondering if she could disappear before Sacha’s very eyes. They lengthened, seeming to penetrate her body, darkness as invasive and sensual as a lover.
The cold trunk of a tree pressed against her spine as Asselin pulled her around to face him, deliberately trapping her between the woods and his body. For the second time in a matter of minutes she became aware of her dagger, useless and reassuring at the small of her back. Asselin traced his thumb over the hollow of her throat, making her lift her head and swallow involuntarily.
“My lord Asselin.” Her voice was dryer than she meant it to be, but the stocky lord read it as fear and a dark interest came into his eyes. She swallowed again, letting her pulse ride high and watching his gaze dart to it. “Will you denounce me, then?”
“I’ve got more use for you than that. I knew you weren’t base-born the moment I heard you talk. No uneducated woman cares that much about the politics of another country, not even a good God-fearing one. I don’t know who you are. I don’t care who you are.”
“Then what-?” Genuine curiosity filled the question, draining tension away. The shadows deepened, writhing around her protectively, as if they could help eyes pass her by. Power caressed the darkness, encouraging it, draining out of her and leaving her feeling pale and wanton beneath the weight of Asselin’s body.
“What I want is your passion.”
Belinda laughed, startled bark of sound. “So you think to take me in a park, in broad daylight? I thought you had more reserve than that, my lord Asselin.”
“Not for me.” A leer, sudden and good-natured, curved the blunt man’s mouth and he looked down her body, one hand still at her throat. “Well, but that’s an aside we’ll take care of in a moment. It’s Javier I want you for, Irvine. He’s not the sort to get distracted every time a woman flaps her skirts at him, and a good thing for all of us, too, else he’d be so busy fucking Eliza that no one would see him for months on end.”
“Eliza,” Belinda said, breathlessly, “wears trousers. Perhaps that’s her mistake.”
“Have you ever looked at a woman’s arse cupped in pants, Irvine? It does things to a man even skirts can’t.” He dismissed the statement with another lustful sneer, pressing his thumb into the hollow of her throat. “You’ve kept Jav’s attention for weeks. Trying to earn his trust. Trying to make your voice heard. Tell me it isn’t so. Tell me Marius wasn’t a means to an end.”
Belinda tilted her head back against the bark, swallowing again beneath the pressure Asselin kept on her throat. Desire piqued again, and with it, curiosity. “You’ve made up your mind to that already. What do you want, Asselin?”
“It’s time to move. Push him. Jav’s complacent. He believes that when the old whore finally dies, Aulun will come back to the fold without protest. That in the people’s hearts they are Ecumenics still and that blood will cease to be shed. He’s naive, and he needs a shove.”
“One you won’t give for fear of it being your neck on the block,” Belinda breathed. Asselin twisted a
