steps. Her breath barely stirred her bosom as she inhaled, and with the exhalation, the man strode by. Expensive boots, black and well-made, the stitching impossible to see at a glance; well-shaped legs. A scent of the outdoors, of horses, of perfume made with an exotic spice: a rich man’s scent. Perhaps Gregori, returning from a visit with Akilina Pankejeff, whose grand duchy put her out of line for the throne, but far above what a count might call his own. There were a few who whispered that Gregori eyed the widowed imperatrix, and laughed in their sleeves at the idea. She was born too high, and he too low, though no one could fault him for his taste in women, and some admired the long reach of his ambition.
A hand closed in Belinda’s hair, knotting in the curls she’d pulled over her shoulder. Her coquettish downward gaze had lost her the chance to watch, and there had been no change in his pace to warn her the man had turned back. She forbore to flinch or squeal as he pulled her head back, forcing her chin up to make her meet his eyes. Hazel eyes, dark with patchy light from well-spaced torches, and a well-shaped mouth thinned with anger. “Better, I suppose, to have it here than wake whatever cock you’ve got roosting in your nest.”
Dmitri! Belinda knew this man, the expressive mouth and low voice a match to the one she’d heard as a little girl, in her father’s own home. Surprise dilated her pupils, one of the few reactions she couldn’t control. For a few seconds the halls seemed brighter, as if early-morning sunshine had somehow spilled through stone and around corners to light the place where they stood. Her pulse betrayed her by bumping higher in her throat, just one beat before she swallowed it down. “My lord?” A soft voice, properly cultivated as benefited a servant of a wealthy house, but with country vowels. Her Khazarian could be high- or low-born, less learned than absorbed in infancy, as had been her native Aulunian tongue. Gallic she spoke like an Aulunian, but that was artifice; she could swallow her accent and make herself sound a native if she had to.
But a country-born serving girl in a Khazarian palace would have no speech but her own, and Dmitri had spoken Aulunian. “My lord?” she asked again, eyes wide with uncertainty that was only partly feigned.
“Do not play me for a fool,” he growled, fist tightening in her hair. “I’ve travelled long and late to meet you, and morning comes on harder than I’d hoped. Time is running out.” Belinda’s chin came up with the weight of his hand, exposing her throat. His gaze flickered to her pulse, and pleasure she couldn’t allow on her face warmed her belly. She had him: the tiniest signs of vulnerability were the ones men could resist the least. The slightest signs of a man noticing weakness were the ones she could exploit the most.
“My lord,” she whispered a third time. “I don’t understand.” He couldn’t recognize her; he’d only seen her sleeping, and that more than ten years ago. He’d changed very little, only the style of his hair, cut shorter now than Belinda remembered. His beard was still thin and trimmed to the line of his jaw, his cheekbones and figure as sharp as they had been a decade earlier. She recognized in him now what she’d been too young to see before: he was, if not handsome, at least deeply compelling. His features might never grace the classic busts of ancient Cordulan emperors, but they would damn a woman’s heart to break. He had, even in repose, what du Roz had lacked: passion.
And he was not now in repose. Irritation turned his eyes from hazel to murky black as he slid his hand behind her neck, pulling her head back another degree or two. His hands were unexpectedly soft, though the touch was not; the hands of a man who had never done heavy work or held a sword. Belinda’s stomach tightened and she pressed her back against the wall, feeling her dagger dig against her skin.
“I think you do,” Dmitri breathed, still in Aulunian. His accent, which had marked him as Khazarian in Belinda’s childhood, was gone, words untainted by any other language. He pressed his mouth against the pulse in her throat, leaning his body into hers. His clothes were still cold from the outdoors. Belinda’s flesh