smile.
“That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? What are your choices, Irvine? Refuse me and I’ll turn you in for a whore and rabble-rouser anyway. Agree, and you might get what you want.”
Belinda half-lidded her eyes, watching Asselin’s eager features a few inches from her own. “And what is it you think I want? You don’t think I’m so foolish as to reach for a throne.” She made it a statement, too offended by the idea to phrase it as a question. Asselin crowded closer, the scent of his desire caught between bodies.
“I think you want so badly for the Red Bitch to be off the Aulunian throne you’ll let a dog fuck you in the arse to get it.” He caught her wrist, sudden impulse to twist her away from him clear. Belinda went solid, refusing to move under the direction and bringing surprise to his eyes.
“You are not a dog, my lord, and you will want me to be able to walk like a woman at your sister’s recital. Does Marius know?”
A flash of acceptance lit Asselin’s eyes, then faded. “That you’re a high-minded whore? No, and I’m willing to keep it that way if you play the way I want you to.” Belinda deliberately widened her stance as he spoke, unspoken acquiescence and understanding of his demand. A hungry smirk curled the broad-shouldered lord’s mouth and he leaned closer. “That this push to make Javier move must be done? Yes. The only one of us who doesn’t think Jav should push his mother or himself is Jav. Marius is a good boy, and I want you to understand that the sweet arguments he’ll make will persuade you.”
“Or else?” The question came lightly, Belinda wetting her lips. Asselin took a breath against her skin as if he could taste her with its depth.
“Or else.”
He was, Belinda thought later, considerably more coarse than she had expected. “Her voice,” Belinda murmured in low accusation, “was not so bad as all that.” Indeed, Asselin’s sister had sung sweetly enough at her afternoon recital to gain the approval of more than one young man’s mother. Like Asselin, she was sandy-haired, though tending more toward blond than her brother, and what were unruly curls on him were long loose ringlets on her. Belinda, left wanting from Sacha’s decidedly selfish desires, had studied the girl’s heart-shaped face and the soft, round curves of her body and wondered without remorse what the girl would look like pink-faced and flushed with need, or if she had ever known passion’s hand. The impulse to find out hadn’t faded, and Belinda had excused herself to walk in the gardens with Marius as quickly as she could. “She’d make a good match,” she added idly. “Better than me, in truth.”
Marius, dressed in a more gentrified manner than he had been earlier, touched her arm in alarm that was only partially mocked. “Do you grow tired of me already, Beatrice?”
She allowed herself one of Beatrice’s easy smiles, tucking her arm around his. “On the contrary, I expect you to tire of me.” She hesitated, then added, “Or for the situation to become unbearable.”
Marius tightened a fist, muscle playing beneath Belinda’s hand. She rubbed her thumb against the hard knot, listening with half an ear as he muttered, “That can’t happen. I have no choice. Nor do you.”
“Have we not?” Belinda slowed, turning Marius to face her. “It may be that I no longer do. A woman does not idly dismiss a prince and expect to walk away unscathed, but you, my lord…”
“You have something Jav needs,” Marius whispered, voice hoarse. Belinda bit her lower lip, filling her gaze with uncertainty and sorrow.
“Me? I’m only a woman, my lord, how could-”
“You’re a woman of faith.” Marius gentled his voice as Belinda looked up at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. “I see you at church. You have no pretenses there. You understand politics. And you are the daughter of an oppressed land. You did not,” he murmured, echoing words she’d spoken weeks earlier, much as Asselin had, “come to Gallin only for the food. How strong is your faith, Beatrice?”
Belinda lowered her gaze, letting calm settle around her again. “As strong as it must be, my lord,” she whispered after long moments. An eyelash-shuttered glance upward took in the pain in Marius’s expression and she went on, refusing the haste that might have eased his agony. “A generation has already grown up as Reformists. The queen is said to be in good health, despite her years. There may be another generation born and raised under her before her days are ended.”
God willing, Belinda thought, a fierce and unusual prayer thrown silently into her enemy’s teeth. She let none of it near her face or voice, watching Marius with the desperation of a woman knowing her path and fearing it. A woman wise enough to seek guidance from a strong man, pretending that any power she might have came from him alone. It was one of the few tactics she’d learned from the queen her mother, whose proclamations of weakness and womanly foolishness blunted her advisors’ realization of Lorraine’s sure military and political hand. “It is a fear we struggle with every day in Lanyarch. We are not quite forbidden our masses, but there are honours and praises for those who give up the true religion for the Reformation. Soldiers watch those of us who bow our heads to the Ecumenic church, and children drift away from God to explore the false hopes of the Reformation. In another generation, our religion might be lost.”
“Rally him to his mother’s cause,” Marius said in a low voice. Belinda lifted her chin, eyebrows wrinkling.
“My lord?”
Marius glanced at her very briefly, then away again. “Even in Gallin, Beatrice, these are dangerous things to speak of.” His voice remained low, making her step closer to him to hear him well.
“You speak of revolution, my lord.”
“No.” The word was sharp as his gaze, though both softened after a moment. “Something more dangerous than that.”
“More dangerous than open war?” Belinda laughed, fluttering sound in the back of her throat. “What-” She let understanding darken her eyes, then shook her head. “My lord…”
“You said yourself, Beatrice. The Aulunian queen is in good health and could well survive another generation. Ecumenics may not survive that.”
“You have so little faith in Cordula, my lord…?”
Marius made another short gesture of irritation. “Island Ecumenics,” he modified. “Our faith is stronger on the continent.”
Belinda drew herself up, colour staining her cheeks as Beatrice’s indignity filled her. “Do you doubt my faith, my lord?”
“Beatrice!” Impatience shot through Marius’s voice. “I didn’t mean you.”
“Only my people. Only all of us who try to keep faith under a godless queen. We are not perfect, my lord. Fear and money bought even Judas. Do you condemn the weak among us for choosing the state religion over a loss of liberty and wealth?” Belinda’s hands shook with poorly suppressed anger. Marius’s mouth turned downward in apology, and he reached for her hands.
“Forgive me. Perhaps I speak with too much sentiment and too little understanding. We are not persecuted here for worshipping God in the true church. Perhaps it is too easy to judge and too hard to understand.”
Belinda turned her face away from him, her jaw set. It was long moments before the role she played softened enough for her shoulders to drop and the line of her chin to loosen. “You speak of things I dare not even say aloud, my lord. You speak of…death.”
“Yes.” Marius’s hands tightened around hers. “Make him see, Beatrice. Make him see that Aulun will be lost without this.”
Belinda looked back at him, stiff with caution. “You believe I have such…sway?”
He smiled a little, the expression leaving his dark eyes reluctant and sad. “Standing here now, seeing you argue, seeing your belief, yes, lady, I do. If you were a man yourself you might make a great general, to call the men to battle. But you are only a woman, and so the most you might do is inspire the men who can make such things happen.”
“The most.” Belinda breathed out laughter. “Is that not rather a lot, my lord? Some say men would never war, but for women.” She fell silent, studying Marius’s face and feeling the rapid skip of her own heart. A handful of words could lay the path to Sandalia’s destruction, if only Marius would speak them. It was not written condemnation, but it might be the hint of chicanery against Lorraine that Belinda searched for. “You believe the regent supports this, my lord?”
His tone went guarded. “I cannot say what Her Majesty may or may not believe.”
“But you called it her cause.” Belinda lowered her voice further, stepping closer to him. She reached for the pool of golden power within her, shaping it with her desire. She wet her lips, looking up at the man through her
