you for the fruit, Lady Irvine. Perhaps we should take our leave—the dressmakers get busy after noon. When most of the women of town are finally prepared to leave their homes.” She didn’t try to disguise her disdain, and Belinda found herself smiling.
“We should all take lessons from you, M’mselle Beaulieu,” she said with absolute sincerity. “The world would be a more interesting place.”
Eliza gave her another sharp look, and Belinda smiled again as they gathered themselves to leave.
* * * *
The carriage was Javier’s own, marked subtly with his signet. Belinda, allowing the coachman to help her down from the steps, knew she had been outdone: no one delivered to a dressmaker’s shop in the prince’s carriage would be allowed to pay for her own gowns. A tailor would bankrupt himself giving away wares, if it meant even the briefest notice in the royal household. He might gnash his teeth and pull his hair later, but in the moment, he would find himself without a choice.
And such was the expression on each owner’s face as they explored the row of dressmakers and tailor shops. Gratitude, delight, dismay, relief. There were gowns by the dozen to admire; Belinda asked for more than one to be set aside so she might consider it, but it was Eliza’s approval she waited on, and the street-born woman’s eyes remained shuttered, and no purchases were made. Not until the row was exhausted and the carriage regained did Belinda turn to Eliza with a curious tilt to her eyebrows. “I saw them, Lady Beaulieu. I saw their eyes on your gown, on the cut and workmanship. None of them have anything like it; they would have brought it out. Now they’ll copy it, but my lady, who designed the original?”
Hidden pleasure lit the brown of Eliza’s eyes, although she turned her head away to mask it. “No one who can make another soon enough for the opera.”
“I would not presume,” Belinda said, surprised by her own vehemence. “Fashion is yours to set, my lady. You are the prince’s friend; it is to you all eyes will look for guidance as to the season’s garments. I would not presume.” The passion left her and she exhaled more quietly. “But it seems nothing in these shops met with your approval. Shall I purchase a gown without your guidance?”
“How?” Could it be that Javier shared the knowing that sometimes overwhelmed Belinda? The knowing of thoughts and desires that had so overwhelmed her in the Maglian pub? Hairs lifted on Belinda’s arms, remembering the unasked for intimacy in the overheated room. She shivered. Her thoughts had been unquiet all night, not letting her sleep until too close to dawn, but she had only considered the portent of Javier’s indominable will and how closely it seemed to match the silence she wore within herself like a shield. She hadn’t thought to wonder if that sense of self he’d tried to impose on her might run more deeply, might give him an uncanny awareness of the emotions that swam around him. Fascination and unwarranted hope shot through her, and she turned her attention to Eliza’s response with more interest than anticipated.
And Eliza shrugged, easy dismissive motion. “He knows my tastes. We’ve been friends for a long time.”
Belinda let go a breath of laughter, and with it a sting of disappointment. Javier was a prince, and his strength of will likely born from that, not any childish recognition of her own defenses mirrored in another’s eyes. “How long, my lady? If asking is not presumptuous.”
Eliza’s eyes glittered darkly as she glanced at Belinda. The carriage was moving through streets Belinda didn’t know; she hadn’t heard Eliza give the destination. The houses beyond were still wealthy, though, the streets mostly clear of beggars. No one here would accost the prince’s carriage, whatever their destination might be. Belinda let her gaze flicker back to Eliza’s, aware that the other woman studied her mistrustfully.
“Since I was ten,” Eliza said, “and he was eight. The entire city seems to know the story, so I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. I wanted a pear. I’d never had one, and they talked about them being grown in the royal gardens. My mother forbade me from fetching any, as the price for trespassing is imprisonment or death.”
“Certainly not for a child,” Belinda said, startled. Eliza made a small gesture with her hand, very much like the one