for it would spite the Red Bitch, but I could offer you grounds in Brittany,” Javier whispered. “Enough to be landed gentry; enough to command a certain power yourself.” He took a breath, still holding the wine flask out, away from his body, away from Belinda. “Enough to make coming to the crown more than a pauper’s walk.”
A smile found Belinda’s mouth and turned it half up long before Javier finished his plea. “To spite the Titian Bitch,” she echoed. Her heart hurt, sending spikes of pain through her arms and into her palms, down her belly and to the soles of her feet. The heart should not be able to make pain in such far reaches of the body, she thought, but it did, as surely as it had taken up all the room for air in her lungs. “A Lanyarchan lady strengthening Prince Javier’s claim to that throne. Throwing Cordula’s faith in Lorraine’s teeth, a warning that we will stand together. It is-” She had to swallow to loosen the knot that her throat had become. “It is an excellent ploy, my lord prince.”
“It is not,” Javier said with great care, “only a gambit.”
Pain lanced through Belinda’s chest again, forcing a laugh. “Is it not? What would your queen mother say to that?”
“Nothing flattering.” Javier dared a smile that looked to hurt as much as Belinda’s breath did. “I would make you my wife, Beatrice.” He cast the wine away, coming toward her to take her hands. “I may not be allowed to.” The frankness there deepened his voice and made raw cuts of it. “But I will if I can. Yes, what I presented to my mother is a game, but she doesn’t know about your power. Our power. I have no intention of putting aside a woman who could be the heart and centre of my reign in ways no one else could ever understand. Forgive me for the method of it, Beatrice, but I beg of you, will you play this game with me?”
For the second time in her life a man got down on his knees, as if he were to make a love match, and asked her to marry him. And for the second time Belinda put shaking fingers into his hair, and whispered, “Yes.”
BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE
13 November 1587 Lutetia “You wanted movement, my lord Asselin.” Belinda spoke the words carefully, not out of respect for Sacha but out of respect for her own swollen jaw.
She had not come traipsing home to tell of Javier’s proposal with a light heart, nor had she needed to. Eliza met her at the door with a fist balled so hard Belinda was certain she’d heard the other woman’s knuckles crack when the hit landed. It had been Eliza’s only comment; Belinda hadn’t seen her in the two days since, nor did she expect to for some time yet. Belinda had opted to remain at home in the interim, as much to give the city time to spread gossip as to let the bruise fade. It had been, she ungrudgingly admitted, a magnificent hit. And she should have seen it coming. That she hadn’t struck a note of discordant humour in her, and she spent entirely too much time studying the knuckle-shaped bruise along her jaw.
Sacha, the lag-behind-for Marius had visited as well, expression bleak and tempered only with the faint hope Belinda realised Javier must have given him, that she could not possibly be expected to actually wed the prince- Sacha had only come around after two days, and his outrage was as plain, if less physical in nature, as Eliza’s had been. He, who had been quite free with laying his hands on Belinda’s person, was a study in avoiding doing so now, although his fists clenched and opened as he stalked her parlour.
“I wanted movement, Irvine, not our friendship shattered! Have you seen Eliza?”
“She left.” Belinda worked her jaw carefully, putting cool fingers against the bruise. “I assume she went to you or Marius until her temper passes. Her things are still here.”
“She’s gone, Irvine. No one has seen her. Not since Tuesday morning.”
Belinda turned toward the stocky lord with genuine horror clenching her stomach. “Gone?”
“Marius is holed up sick as a dog, all the spirit kicked out of him, and Liz is gone. You call that movement, Irvine?”
“You didn’t ask me to protect your friendship.” Belinda turned away again, startled by the ache cutting through her body. “I’m Lanyarchan. Lorraine won’t like this at all.” She had taken her bruised jaw and retreated to her bedroom after Eliza stormed out, writing a hasty letter to her “dearest Jayne” that warned him of the Gallic prince’s clever plan. Lorraine would be a fool to act on the empty threat presented by Belinda’s unexpected engagement, but the act could be made, and a trap laid in which to catch a queen. “Surely Eliza could see it was a ploy. Doesn’t she know Javier better than that?”
“Eliza’s not looking with her eyes.”
“Are you?” Belinda cast the question without expecting an answer. Sacha growled, so low and deep for a moment she thought an animal was indeed locked in the room with her.
“You’re a nothing, Irvine. A backwater noble-”
“From a country Lorraine struggles to dominate, whose faith is backed by Cordula’s power and therefore the possibility of Essandia and Gallin’s armies. You wanted movement, my lord Asselin,” Belinda repeated. “I am attempting to provide it.”
“You’ve done nothing. This was Javier’s idea.”
“Are you sure?” Belinda asked, but shrugged. “Does it matter? Without me there would be no alliance to dream up. What,” she asked more pointedly, “do you want of me, Asselin?”
“I want your word that you won’t go through with this farce.”
Belinda barked laughter, then winced, putting her hand against her jaw. “It is not the provenance of a minor noble from Northern Aulun to determine whether she will or will not marry the prince of Gallin, Sacha.” She used his name deliberately, a reminder that in comparison to a prince’s rank, he was barely more than she. “Would you have me standing at the altar and refusing my vows?”
“If necessary,” Sacha snapped. “He can’t marry you, Irvine.”
“I think you and Her Majesty are in accord on that topic. Her objection I understand, but your motivations make me curious. I’d think I would make a less offensive choice than a carefully bred pureblood who could never accept Javier’s casual friendship with Eliza or the importance of you and Marius in his life.” She hadn’t seen Akilina since the night Javier had proposed, and curiosity ate at her. It would be easy to learn from Viktor whether his mistress was infuriated over the development, but Belinda was reluctant to face the palace with Eliza’s handiwork still visible on her face. Cosmetics could cover the bruise, but a keen eye would see it regardless, and it smacked of a weakness Belinda was unwilling to show.
“Perhaps I simply want him to marry Eliza, so our quartet isn’t disrupted.”
“Then you’re far more of a fool than I’d thought,” Belinda said. “He couldn’t even if he wanted to, and not just for the station she was born to.” Eliza’s confession to Javier on the bridge hung in Belinda’s ears, and the spasm of anger that crossed Asselin’s face said he, too, remembered why their gutter-born friend could never aspire to the throne. That Belinda had reminded him of Eliza’s flaw was clearly no kindness, and she moved to soften his temper with quiet words: “I hope she comes back soon, Lord Asselin. Does Javier know she’s gone?”
Fresh irritation curled his lip, her sop a failure except in redirecting his anger. “Javier’s been cloistered with his mother for two days. Haggling out the details of your wedding, I’m sure. He won’t hear me, and he twists with guilt every time he looks at Marius. You’ve destroyed us, Irvine.”
“You won’t believe me when I say that was not my intent.” Belinda gathered her skirts and lifted her chin, displaying the bruise to full effect. “Perhaps I can distract him from his mother for a little while. I’ll tell him about Eliza, my lord. It’s the best I can do.”
“No.” Sacha’s gaze turned ugly. “It’s the least you can do.” Belinda pulled stillness around herself, hiding in plain sight in the thin November sun. It would be easy-appropriate, perhaps-to enter the palace with fanfare and pomp, but she found herself shivering with distaste at the idea.
She wondered, too late now, what Robert would say to the hand she’d played. An engagement to a prince meant portraits, drawings, discussions of her face and figure across the breadth of Echon. It meant the ordinary prettiness she’d hidden in would no longer be a disguise, her anonymity gone. She might still move among the lower ranks without fear of discovery, but a placement in a household like Gregori’s might be forever out of her reach again. It was a thought that should have come to her before she agreed to Javier’s mad plan.
And yet. And yet, had she thought, she would have chosen the same path she now walked, separate and in shadows, because from within she could more closely monitor Javier and his mother. Could more closely direct them into dangerous waters, all to Aulun’s benefit.
