asked,” Javier murmured. “What did your family say?”
Eliza shook her head, the action draping stillness of soul over her. Her voice went quiet. “They were angry. But in deference to the station of my friends”—a minute shrug—“they let me keep it shorn so short for a whole two years. Until I got my blood.”
“Is that what happened. I remember you being sulky for weeks and looking like a hedgehog while your hair grew out.”
“No one would marry a woman with a boy’s haircut, Jav. And an unmarried woman is only a burden on her family. My father had daughters enough without the added trial of trying to marry off one who wears a boy’s haircut.”
“I would have taken care of you, Liz. Of your whole family.”
“Oh, aye. My whole family. And the cousins, Jav? And their babies? And the hangers-on and the families down the block who were related by blood three generations back? Until you had all the poor of Lutetia in your chambers, maybe. Maybe then you’d understand what you can’t. It isn’t your fault, Jav. You come from places that are too high.”
“And you won’t let me walk in the low ones, Liz.”
“No,” Eliza agreed. “Because you can’t save us all. You can’t even save one of us.”
He reached out to touch her hair again. “I saved you.”
“And my mother and three sisters died, Jav. Sacha and Marius should never have brought me to the palace.”
“You had the fever, Eliza. What were they to do, let you die? They would have brought you all. They say your mother refused. That she only let them take you because you were so very ill. I remember the second time, too, Liz. You looked so damned fragile, so pale and sick. They were afraid your hair took too much of your strength, and you needed it all to live.”
“And I looked like a shaved skull when I woke up. My mother thought I was Death come knocking on the door when I went home.” Eliza fell silent. “And she was right, Jav. They all died.”
“I would have tried to save them,” Javier whispered. Eliza sighed and put her hand over his. Belinda flinched, feeling the warmth of the woman’s hand on hers, and jerked her gaze to her own hand before looking back toward Javier and Eliza.
Eliza had long fingers, her hands nearly as big as the prince’s, for all that he was a half-hand taller than she. He turned his palm up to lace his fingers with hers, holding on hard for the few moments that she let him.
“I know, Jav. But we all have our pride.” She stared down at the river. When she spoke again her voice was carefully neutral. “It left me barren, you know that? The fever. I used to dream of marrying a prince.” Her smile had no humour in it, only years of resigned sadness. “I knew it was only a dream. Royalty doesn’t marry commoners, no matter how pretty they are. But still, I dreamed. Then the month after the fever my blood didn’t come, nor has it in the five years since. Not just common, but common and barren. No dream can survive that.”
“Eliza.” Cold flooded Belinda’s hands, Javier’s horror her own. He tightened his fingers around Eliza’s, uselessly, and she flashed him another sad smile.
“Sacha knows, can you believe that? I got piss drunk a few years ago and he asked me point-blank, I don’t know why. And I told him. Made him swear not to tell you. Then we fucked. It hasn’t happened again, so he thinks I don’t remember, but I do. Nineteen, I was nineteen and despite looking like this,” she jerked her hand from Javier’s so she could gesture at herself, “I was a virgin.”
“Really?” Javier’s voice broke with surprise and he glowered at the black river below. Eliza laughed without real humour.
“Really. I’d wanted—” She shrugged, stiff, and leaned on the railing, her elbows hyperextended with the pressure she put on them. “I’d make a fine rich man’s mistress, Jav.” She strove to keep her voice light, stretching her throat long to do it. “He’d never have to worry about by-blows.”
“You’re better than that, Liz.”
She smiled and turned to him, putting both hands on his chest and patting her fingers against the soft fabric of his doublet. “Yes.” She sighed and dropped her hands a few inches, putting her forehead against his chest for a moment. Then she stepped back, holding her right hand up.