woman’s eyes. “Do you doubt your position here that much, mademoiselle?” She was aware of the fascinated, noisy silence of the three men, and knew Eliza must be equally aware. There was one more step she could take, a final taunt she could press, but she waited instead, watching nuances of expression flick across Eliza’s face.
Eliza finally gave the only answer she could, moments before silence stretched out unbearably. “Of course not.” She inhaled, about to make further excuse, then turned her head away and snapped her fingers, gesturing for wine. The soft sound broke tension in the booth and laughter replaced challenge. Sacha pressed her about Lanyarch, and Belinda answered, more than half a mind given to her part. The four she sat with had been friends long enough that they were given to answering questions put to another; long enough that they finished sentences together, often using precisely the same words. Eliza’s vowels never slipped from the upper-class accent; it was the only detail that left Belinda uncertain. The woman’s dress was outrageous, her hair unbelievable—many women wore their hair that short, but only so extravagantly coifed wigs could be more comfortably worn over it. Belinda had never seen a woman dare public scrutiny with her hair shorn. That she did laid to rest a lingering question Belinda had; only a woman who had a protector of great power would buck convention and wear her hair in such an astonishing style. Even so, there would be a story behind it.
Belinda nearly laughed at her own interest. It could wait, though. It would wait, while she bared herself to the four friends, pouring out a life’s history for Beatrice Irvine. It was she who must be accepted; even for a union she never meant to consummate with Marius, the muster she had to pass was not the approval of his mother or father, but of these three, a family he had made for himself. This trio represented the reason she had selected Marius as her target, though to have been introduced to them so quickly was beyond her expectation. Once she’d passed the barrier they created she could feed her own curiosity, perhaps most particularly regarding Asselin and the life he led, as duplicitous as her own.
“No,” she said for the second time, to Sacha, letting exasperation and amusement fill her voice. “We do not still paint ourselves orange and blue and go into battle naked. Lanyarchan nights are too cold for such things.”
“I’m crushed,” Sacha replied. “I’ve always hoped we might pick a war with Aulun so we could see the northern savages in their full and painted glory.”
Belinda leaned in, dropping her voice to confidentiality. Sacha, an easy mark, shifted to hear her better. To her delight, the other three, Eliza with a degree of reluctance that was overcome by interest, leaned in as well, leaving them all clearly within hearing distance as Belinda infused her voice with both gentleness and mockery. “I assure you, the women of Lanyarch have long since been too sensible to join such war parties. I can only gather, then, that you have an abiding desire to see the full glory of a naked man. I cannot promise the wonder that’s a Lanyarch man, but if you are truly desperate for the sight of armies of naked men, I suggest you visit the baths, my lord Asselin.”
Asselin spluttered. James threw his head back and laughed, pure as bells. Belinda sat back, smugness playing around her mouth. Beside her, Marius puffed with pride and delight, his own cackles of amusement a deeper counterpoint to James’s laughter. Even Eliza’s mouth curved with disapproving humour as she poured Asselin another glass of wine.
“You lost that one, Sacha.” The final score was voiced by James, who shook his head, grinning, and gestured at Eliza. “All around, sister dearest, and let’s have a drink to Marius’s good taste in women.”
The request slowed Eliza, her gaze darting to Belinda before she shrugged, an expression built more with the faint twist of her mouth and a flare of her nostrils than with a lift of her shoulders. Belinda saw it; the men did not. In response, in gratitude and in acknowledgment, Belinda lowered her head and eyes very briefly. Another degree of tension faded away, given voice by the full measure of wine Eliza poured into Belinda’s glass. Belinda curled her fingers around the stem, thanks offered in the lifting of the glass and the glance through her eyelashes.