Joséphine blushed. “I believe you have met my stepmother, your highness.”
“Don’t remind me. Please, you and Julien must come and join us. We’ve been gambling all night, and I haven’t had a single ounce of luck.” Prince Philipe took Joséphine’s arm and led her into the salon, not looking to see if Julien followed. “But I feel that perhaps my luck has suddenly changed.”
Joséphine smiled and followed him to the gaming table, where dice were set out among many colored pieces. Never having gambled before, Joséphine had no idea what they were doing, but she pretended to be interested as she surveyed the board.
The prince took his chair and patted his knee. A few of the courtiers gathered around the table made lascivious “ooh”s of delight as Joséphine made show of arranging her skirts before sitting on the prince’s lap.
“Who’s this beauty?” a man asked with a laugh.
“Gentlemen, this is lady luck. She will be presiding over my dice for the rest of the evening.” The prince unfolded Joséphine’s hand and placed the dice in her palm.
Uncertain of what to do, but knowing it was too late to pretend shyness, she opened her palm and dropped a kiss on one of the dice. “For luck,” she explained, then tossed them into the open space on the table.
The men around the table laughed, and the prince groaned. “Have even you forsaken me?”
Joséphine fought against the blush that crept into her cheeks. “I most humbly apologize, your highness. Perhaps there is a way I can…pay you back for what you’ve lost?”
As she spoke the last, she drew her fingers in a line down the front of the prince’s shirt, toward his breeches. Even through her voluminous skirts, she felt that he was hard beneath her thigh.
He gazed up at her with crystal blue eyes shaded by storm clouds of desire. He ran a hand through his tussled black hair and said, darkly, “Gentlemen, I fear I need to cut our evening short.”
He wants to do it right here, right now! Her heart pounded in her chest. Was this good, or horrible? Had she destroyed her chances by not leading him on longer? She looked to Julien, who covered up his dark expression and nodded encouragingly. Still, she had seen the disappointment there. She had done something wrong.
When the last of them had filed from the room, the prince grinned at her and said, “Now, my lady, how will you prove to me that I am not entirely unlucky?”
Chapter Sixteen
Julien waited outside the red salon for a half hour, then decided that he would rather poison himself slowly with alcohol than listen for every grunt and moan he could imagine on the other side of the door. He left swiftly and went to make sure Sebastien had provided adequate accommodations for Joséphine, in rooms that could not be accessed in the night by randy courtiers. Then, he shut himself away in his own chambers until dinner was served.
He sat at the table with Philipe, of course, and watched as Joséphine fed the bastard cherries and slices of succulent orange. On occasion she would take a bite from a slice, herself, letting the juice dribble onto the tops of her breasts, displayed with alarming lack of restraint by one of the gowns that Marie had made for her. It was not unfashionable at court to wear a daring neckline, and the hint of a pink nipple showed above the lace at Joséphine’s bosom. The prince’s mouth strayed there and tarried far too long as he laved his tongue over the juice.
Life at court was not truly life, but a dance. One that Joséphine seemed to have learned uncommonly well. And why shouldn’t she have? She had been taught by a master. Philipe was as besotted with her as every man at the dinner table, Julien included. He knew he was not the only man throbbing in agony as he watched Joséphine’s head fall back, baring her white throat to the prince’s kisses. But unlike the rest of the men, Julien wouldn’t find a woman to ease his desire tonight. Only one woman could do that, and already she belonged to someone else.
The next day, he accepted an invitation from the Comte de Vincenes to play cards. The Comte was a sour little man with a wretched case of gout, but his company was preferable to watching Philipe paw Joséphine. Or watching Joséphine enjoy that pawing. Still, he could not escape his jealousy completely. All the Comte’s guests talked of was the mysterious new woman at court, who had snared the Prince’s attention completely.
“He takes her to his bed every night,” the Comte said, his beady eyes glittering black in his pudgy face. “If we were only young men again, eh, Julien?”
It would have been better, perhaps, to have left court all together.
The morning of the Prince’s birthday arrived, and Julien dreaded the party that evening. Normally, Philipe’s private party was the highlight of Julien’s year. A masked orgy, always held in the prince’s smaller house on the edge of the palace grounds, the birthday celebration was a night long indulgence in all the pleasures anyone could desire.
All he desired was Joséphine.
He considered the ensemble he had commissioned from Marie. The package had arrived via courier that morning, and Julien had left it unopened on his bed for hours before deciding what would be done with it.
If I am to see this through, I must see it through all the way. Though it pained him to write every word, he sent Joséphine an invitation to tea. A part of him expected her to decline his invitation, but at the appointed time she appeared, looking like a strange imitation of herself in her court dress. Her shimmering scarlet gown made her creamy skin appear paler, and her hair had been carefully dressed in court fashion to tower above her head.
“You look…ridiculous,” Julien laughed when she came through the door.
For a moment he thought she would be offended, but then she laughed with him and reached up to touch her hair. “Perhaps when I have enough footing here at court, I can change the style a bit.”
“I’d say you already have good footing. You’re all anyone can talk about.” All I can think about. Come home with me. He cleared his throat. “And the prince is quite taken with you.”
She flushed to match her dress. “Philipe is…very charming.”
“He must have charmed you a great deal, if you’re calling him Philipe and not trembling in fear of him.” Gods, how he wanted to take her into his arms and fuck her until she forgot she’d ever been with another man. “And how goes your seduction?”
She looked down. “Very well.”
He did not want to know, and yet, he could not stop himself from asking. “He must have taken you to his bed by now.”
“He has tried.” Was that sadness in her voice? “I have refused him.”
“Why would you refuse him? This is what you came here for.” What strange power had possessed Julien that he would argue with the woman he loved to convince her to fuck another man?
“Julien, you taught me, above all else, that pleasure is greater when it is delayed.” She laughed. “Some are suggesting that the prince will announce our engagement tonight.”
If the floor had crumbled beneath him, Julien would have been on surer ground. “Already?”
She nodded, lifting her chin proudly. “Yes. He has discussed it with me. His father has put enormous pressure on Philipe to marry, and since I have, in his words, the most talented tongue he has ever met in and out of bed, he feels I am a perfect choice. You taught me well.”
Julien turned away. “Well, I have fulfilled my promise to your father, then.”
“You promised my father that you would return me married. You never promised that it would be to the prince.”
His stomach clenched. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? He picked up the package from the bed and slowly began to unwind the twine. “I have something for you.”
Joséphine came to stand beside him, close enough that their arms almost brushed. Still, a safe, cool distance. He unwrapped the paper, and gold cloth spilled across the bed.
“What is it?” she asked, almost nervously.
“I had Marie make this for you. I thought it would help you win over the prince, but I see now that you don’t need any help there.” He lifted the costume, careful not to disturb the peacock feathers that had been carefully protected by Marie’s meticulous folding.
Joséphine touched the cloth reverently. “It’s beautiful.”
“You’ll look beautiful in it.” He touched her cheek, unable to help himself. He needed to feel her, to memorize every touch so that he could cherish it long after she was married to Philipe.
A tear fell from her eye as she looked up at him. “I don’t want to do this anymore, Julien.”
He turned away, back to the package, where Marie had included a length of gold chain and a bundle of silk. “There is more.”
If he pretended she had not spoken, he could ignore what she’d said. He unwound the silk carefully, hearing the soft ping of whatever delicate objects were hidden inside. A pair of shoes, made from sparkling glass and etched with gold leaf designs of peacock feathers from the pointed toe to the soft rise of heel. “Fit for a princess, I think.”
Joséphine began to cry in earnest then, and Julien carefully set the slippers aside. He gripped her arms, forced her to look up at him with a stern shake. “Stop this. This is what we’ve worked for. All those weeks. Are you really going to throw all of that away?”
“I am not throwing it away!” She jerked her arms from his grasp. “You are the one who is perfectly willing to let me go. I love you, Julien! You must know that! And you know that you love me, too.”
He opened his mouth to deny her, but the words would not come. “Look around you, Joséphine. Look at this palace, his riches. Can you turn all of that down?”
She nodded emphatically. “I can, and I will, gladly, if you will have me!”
“I will not!” It took all of his resolve to deny her. “Joséphine, I do love you. And it is because I love you that I cannot let you refuse Philipe. He can give you so much that I cannot—”
“Not love!” She shook her head. “He will never love me! He will keep me and he will treat me like a pearl. Just as you said of my father. He will bring me out on special occasions and make a great show of owning me, but that is all he is capable of. You know this, Julien!”
“And you believe I will be any different? After our passion for each other has cooled, as passion always does, do you think I will not run to some other woman’s bed?” He hated himself for speaking the truth, for the hurt was as visible on her face as a handprint would be if he’d struck her. “Marry Philipe. Keep his interest for as long as you can. If you became my wife, we would be together, what, twenty years at most? And then what will you do? Marry a man for money, as your stepmother did, and make both of you miserable?”
“I would rather have twenty years with you than a lifetime with the prince,” she spat. She stormed to the door, and before she left him standing alone, she said, in almost a whisper, “You may think yourself old, but you are certainly not wise.”
* * * *
Night fell, and the limestone avenue outside the palace was lit with torches and crowded with carriages and revelers, all bound for the Prince’s party. Julien had sent Joséphine’s costume to her rooms, and he wondered if she would wear it. He supposed he would see for himself tonight. There was no avoiding the party, it was practically a royal mandate, friend of the prince or no. Only the king refused to attend, choosing instead to sit in his palace and grumble to his closest advisers—and those courtiers unfashionable enough to not be invited—about his son’s lack of morals.
Philipe’s lack of morals used to be one of Julien’s favorite things about his friend. Now that the lack was concentrated on Joséphine, the prince’s attitude seemed tiresome at best.
Julien sighed as he donned his mask and confronted his reflection. A year ago, he would have thought he cut a rather dashing figure in his domino and grotesque mask. To others, he probably still did. But he knew the truth, that beneath his costume, all that remained was a pathetic, old man.