No woman would pull away from a prince; the gesture was instinctive, but also intended to confer honour. “Are you warm enough?” he asked solicitously. Belinda dropped her gaze and reveled in allowing herself a tiny smile in place of laughter.
“Yes, my lord. Thank you.” Bland and polite, they left the carriage behind as Javier guided her through a series of gates and into a midnight garden. They walked in silence, the charged topic between them set aside as Belinda loosened her fingers from Javier’s arm and took a few steps ahead of him into the warm, scented grounds.
Fruit-bearing trees clustered together thickly enough around pathways to cut evening moonlight into dapples and strips of white-blue light, shifting with the slight breeze. The air that stirred between them was warm and light with sweetness, the rich scents of ripening fruit. The paths were well-tended but not pristine; smaller bushes overflowed and tangled their thin branches into the walkways, easily torn if a wanderer did not watch his feet.
Belinda turned back to Javier, catching the prince standing still in a shaft of pale light. The moon was a harsh mistress to him; her blue tones made lilac shadows in his hair and hollowed his cheekbones. She took blood from his lips and made his skin seem fragile over the bones, too pale for life.
But she brought out the lightness of his eyes and named their true color grey. In her light he looked like a creature from another world, perhaps one of the underhill dwelling shee the Hibernian island west of Aulun had legends of. Belinda gazed at him, entranced, then shivered, trying to cast off his spell as she lifted her chin. “My lord?”
Javier shook himself, as she had just done. “Forgive me. I was only admiring how well the moonlight suits you.” He made a moue and brushed the words away disparagingly. “For though it sounds like it,” he said, and Belinda started to smile, “that is not a line I try on most women. Forgive me; it sounded absurd.”
“It sounded charming,” Belinda corrected with amusement, then extended her hands a little as she turned to encompass the gardens with her embrace. “This is all yours.”
“Yes.”
“And we’re alone here. Without guards or spies.”
“Yes.” Javier’s voice lowered as he came closer. “No, my lady Irvine. There is nowhere in a palace without guards or spies. Your country estates may be more forgiving, but here there is nothing that cannot be bought and paid for, and so there is nothing that goes unwatched.” His hands came around in front of her throat, unfastening the clasp of her cloak with an easy twitch of his fingers. The cloak fell away and Javier put his hands on her hips, stepping closer. The freedom Belinda had felt in donning the gown that Eliza had sent was compounded by shock: through thin silk, without the weight of petticoats between the fabric and her skin, she could feel the heat of Javier’s hands with far more intensity than she was accustomed to. His lips brushed her shoulder and she shivered, letting go a soft laugh that had more in common with desire than amusement. Javier pulled her hips back against his, mouth brushing her shoulder a second time.
“There is one sort of assignation that is hardly unexpected.” His breath spilled over her skin, warm compared to the surrounding air. Belinda’s stomach tightened, knots of responding need making bright aching points in her breasts.
“My lord,” she whispered, then wondered what she thought she might say next. A token protest? A refusal? Javier chuckled as his hand lifted from her hip and found, unerringly, the pins that held her hair up. He tugged them loose, dropping them to the ground as her hair loosened and fell around her shoulders. He inhaled the scent, then brushed it out of the way and slid his arm around her waist, mouth against her shoulder again.
“My lord?” Mocking words, although gentle. “Do Lanyarchan men not bring their women to lovely places for seduction, Beatrice? Surely you didn’t think we would have an innocent walk in the gardens, a quiet talk about the witchbreed—!” The final word was no louder than the others, but with it he pulled loose the laces that held her gown in place. It fell away more easily than Belinda expected it to, Javier pushing the sleeves from her shoulders and letting the fabric rumple to the ground around her ankles. Belinda could feel her tiny dagger pressing itself