“Well, I’m back now, and I grovel pathetically at your feet.” Rafe made her a flourishing bow. “But look, I have…” He stopped, taking in her attire for the first time. Her lips were rouged too red, her yellow dress far more expensive than she could’ve afforded, the glittering diamond-and-gold necklace at her throat far too ostentatious for an unmarried woman. He realized why she was in the far corner of the room, talking to undesirables like Blisbain, why this area was given a wide berth by the rest.
“Yes, Rafe?” Bryony must have sensed some part of his thoughts, for she raised her chin a fraction in cool challenge.
Rafe glanced around the room, noted the avid stares. Much as he wanted to shake Bryony, this wasn’t the place for an argument. “Not here.”
“The conservatory, then.” She turned in a rustle of expensive skirts and led him through an archway, a short tunnel, and into a dark space full of the scent of damp earth and mold. Light slanted in from the ballroom behind them. Rafe moved to one side so that he wouldn’t cast a shadow on Bryony, who sat down on a plain stone bench, pulling her skirts close to her, all prim convent-educated debutante, hands folded in lap, ankles crossed, back straight.
Rafe folded his arms. “Why, Bryony?” He addressed Lord Brenwood’s prized crawler, a purplish-green fungus, over her head. He couldn’t trust himself to look directly at her. “I told you I’d take care of you. That I’d fix it so that…”
“I didn’t think you’d come back. When we heard what happened to the embassy…” Bryony touched the diamond drops in her ears, the necklace at her throat. “These are just baubles. I’m not doing this for fine clothes and jewelry, Rafe. I have to eat, you know, and keep warm.”
“I left you money.”
“I sent it back, Rafe. The day you left.”
Rafe threw her an incredulous look. “You’d rather live off some protector, than accept a gift from your brother? Bryony, it is my duty—freely and gladly given—to provide for you!”
Bryony looked away. “I know how little you have. The Ministry pays you a paltry sum for the work you do, and Lord Grenfeld is not able to make you much of an allowance with the troubles in the agri-caves. I will not be beholden to you.”
Rafe nearly ground his teeth. “You are my sister—my full sister—and I consider you to have as much right to respect and inheritance as I do.”
“Pity our father did not see it that way.”
“You know why, Bryony.”
“Yes, I do. He preferred to have two sons instead of one and a daughter, so he passed me over for you.”
“Bryony…” He could not disinherit himself or reinstate her, or he would’ve gladly done it. Only their father had had that power, and he was dead. Rafe’s fists clenched at the injustice that was built into the law. He could not fathom what life was like, knowing that you were full-blooded noble, but unable to use the name of your family, unable to inherit, unacknowledged, orphaned, given over to cold stern women to raise, as had happened to Bryony. As happened to far too many, though most could only suspect their parentage. Rafe had counted himself fortunate when he had met his sister and dear friend as a boy. Now he considered that their knowing each other had only brought his sister pain, constant salt in the wound of her abandonment. “I…”
“Oh, Rafe.” Bryony leaned forward and touched his hand. “It is not your doing. Things are the way they are and we must both make the best of our lots. For me, it is this.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Rafe knelt, heedless of the damp that seeped through his trousers. “I have not been entirely idle about your situation. Look, here are the papers. A position in the Queen's household is being held for you.”
Bryony made no move to take the proffered missive. Her eyebrows lifted. “Me, in the Queen's household?” He had never heard such honest astonishment in her voice. He was glad to surprise her so.
“Yes,” he said, eagerly, “as one of the Ladies of the Wardrobe.”
Only then did Bryony take the paper, holding it between two fingers as warily as if she handled a spider. Slivers of green wax fell onto her golden skirt, where they lay, smooth and unblemished, like fake leaves. Rafe watched her face as she scanned the letter, then dropped it into her lap.
Bryony looked up, her eyes wide and dark with emotion. “But my interview with Lady Glenrun was such a disaster! She spoke to me so brusquely, and I made such a ninny of myself under her withering stare, I was sure I had botched it.” Bryony fidgeted with the lace on her sleeves. “They’ll never take me now.”
“Uncle Leo—”
“No Rafe, he won’t. They won’t even let a divorced woman serve the Queen. They dismissed Amelia Silvermine over that rumor regarding the Oldmill son. The Queen’s ladies must be above reproach. No, this road is closed to me.” She brushed her skirt, and wax and papers all fell to the ground. “Besides, I will no longer live as an indentured servant. I will not fetch and carry for anyone, not even the Queen.”
“And the alternative you have chosen is so much better?” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice.
"Dear one, I am not selling myself. The real me, the heart and soul of me, is untouched in all this." Bryony laid a hand over her heart.
Rafe stared at her from across a vast gulf that had opened up between them, a bottomless gulf that there was no bridge across. Something small inside him—the boy child he had been, looking up to the self-possessed girl, the older sister he had never known, reading aloud in his sickroom—wanted to throw away his sharp disappointment, fling his arms around Bryony, and tell her it didn’t matter, nothing she did would make her less shining in his eyes, but he couldn't. For the first time he saw Bryony as someone other than his cool sensible older sister.
Bryony opened her mouth, no doubt to argue her brother into some kind of grudging capitulation. She had a way of making you agree with her, in spite of your will, but before she could say anything the conservatory was cast into shadow as a large fat man oozed into it.
Rafe stiffened.
“There you are, my dear,” said Lord Verney, swarthy in complexion, marks of sickness pocking his face. "I have been searching high and low for you." An insolent reproach was in his voice, an insolence he would never have dared to use on a lady. “I want a dance.”
“My brother just returned home, Lord Verney, after a trying time,” said Bryony with a meekness Rafe had never heard from her. “Please give us another few moments.”
Verney cast Rafe a gloating look. “Certainly, my dear.” He bent down and kissed Bryony on the cheek, a gesture she accepted with resignation rather than pleasure. Her gaze pleaded with Rafe to not make a scene. He tightened his lips.
Verney straightened, flicked Bryony’s cheek with a fat finger. “Not too long, though! I don’t deck you out in those clothes and jewels so that you can hide your beauty in the conservatory.” He raked Bryony with a look as physical as a grope. Rafe went rigid with loathing.
Verney left and Rafe muttered an expletive. Bryony stood and rested her hand on his tense arm.
“Of all people, Bryony, why Verney? He hates the Grenfelds, and he’s sitting in Rocquespur’s pocket!”
“He was the only one who would have me, to spit in the Grenfelds’ eye. But I have my own plans and they don’t include being at his call for a moment longer than I have to. I’m saving up for my own shop, and”—Bryony lowered her voice—“I can pass information to you. I know you’ve been investigating him. There’s been some kind of special delivery at the warehouse Verney’s renting from Rocquespur. I heard them talking about it. Go there. Find out what they’re up to.”
Rafe gripped her shoulder. “I don’t want you getting involved in this, Bryony. They’re dangerous men, especially Rocquespur.”
“I’ll be careful. But I want to help. You’ve done so much for me already, Rafe.”
“Before you go.” Rafe spoke quickly, not wanting to detain her too long and subject her to Verney’s ire. “About when you were at the convent.”
“Yes?” Bryony’s lips thinned at the mention of the place.
“Did you know a girl with dark eyes and silver hair? Tall, quiet, rather frightening?”
“Isabella!” exclaimed Bryony. “How do you know her? We thought Rocquespur had had her vanished.” Bryony made a knife-slash motion against her throat.
“Rocquespur?”
“She was the daughter of the previous Marquis. She disappeared soon after the new one succeeded to the title. Rumor had it that the current one did away with her or that she ran off to the Trans-Point states.”
This new piece of information certainly colored things differently. “Did you know her well?”
“No. She wasn’t a cast-off like the rest of us. Her father even visited her on occasion. She had her own separate room instead of living in the dormitories, and studied privately with some of the Sisters. I barely spoke to her.” Bryony kissed his cheek. “I must go. Verney wants to show me off.”
Paper rustled underfoot as she left. Rafe picked up the discarded appointment letter, crumpled it, and thrust it into his pocket.
Bryony as Verney’s mistress! It left a bad taste in his mouth. The sooner he could get Verney and Rocquespur packed off to prison, the sooner she’d be free.
He had no desire to indulge in dancing or light-hearted chatter. Time to get back to work.
Rafe emerged from the conservatory into the froth-and-giggles world of the ballroom. Light bludgeoned his eyes and laughter grated on his ears. Many of Lady Brenwood’s guests were crowded around a mage-made novelty, a fountain whose sparkling wine-colored liquid misted into droplets that turned into translucent gold and green and red butterflies. The tiny illusions ghosted across the crowd, and dissolved into spray against cheeks and hair. Lady Brenwood was too busy basking in the admiration of her guests to notice Rafe.
He studiously avoided noting a yellow dress among the dancers.
A woman in red standing on the far side of the room caught his eye and raised a glass in acknowledgement. Rafe had never been formally introduced to Sable Monarique, but the actress was hard to miss with her statuesque figure and warm chestnut skin. An exotic transplant from across the Divide, Sable was also the mistress and, rumors suggested, a prime influence and manager, of the Marquis of Rocquespur. Rafe returned the salute with a half-bow—he couldn’t help admiring the woman who’d played the role of a tragic embattled queen in last year’s best drama.
She answered with a slow smile, then returned to the eager young men around her.
Sable was Rocquespur’s public face; if she were here, then the Marquis probably wasn’t. Pity. He could’ve tried needling the famously-composed older man into revealing chinks in his armor.
Being a persistent pest was something he’d refined since his childhood years.
Rafe started to cross the room, easing through the margins of the dance floor. He’d have to find Amanthea, and hope she’d be satisfied with the promise of a house call instead of a dance. He had no heart for dancing right now.
Rafe paused for a brief cordial conversation with a portly gentleman on his way to the gaming tables, then glanced through a temporary gap in the dancers,
And stiffened. A maidservant offered a platter of treats to a group of dowagers seated on gilt-footed purple couches. The maidservant’s face was in profile, and her hair hidden under a large lace cap, but there was no mistaking that alabaster complexion or the cool poise with which she proffered the edibles.
Isabella.
R
AFE STARTED ON TO
the dance floor, sidestepping to avoid the dancers, easing his rude passage with an apologetic smile and a “Sorry, spotted a fellow” until he got to the purple couches.
The dowagers, holding tiny china plates piled high with scones, berry preserves, and stuffed mushrooms, were unattended.
Rafe looked around. There, a figure in a white collared shirt, an embroidered red vest, and black skirt. He tracked her movement through the crowd, which opened up enough for him to see Isabella offer her platter to a pair of youths. To Rafe’s disappointment, they refused, waving their dismissal with scarcely a look at the platter or its bearer, more likely intent upon Lord Brenwood’s wine.
Isabella’s next stop was near the doorway. The elderly gentleman took his time choosing, his fingers hovering over first one, then another of the treats. Rafe stationed himself in a nook, sharing the space with a bright blue urn sprouting an enormous bouquet of fake scented flowers. When the gentleman had made his pick and turned back to the ball, Rafe stepped out from the shadows.
“Aren’t you going to stop and wave that platter of delicacies under
my
nose?”
Isabella’s back was to him; he saw the merest stiffening of her shoulders before she turned in one smooth movement and held out the platter. “Forgive me, sir. I had not seen you. Would you like to try some of these delightful little stuffed mushrooms?” Her face and voice were expressionless.
The mushrooms were in varying shades of black and brown, some smooth and uniform, others white-flecked and cracking. Their fillings oozed out the sides. Rafe pursed his lips, and, like the elderly gentleman, let his fingers hover above them
“Lady Brenwood is known for her attention to little details. Look at this one with the bright blue filling. It precisely matches the hue of that urn behind me. I wonder what gives it that peculiar shade?”
“I don’t know, sir. I can ask in the kitchens, if you like.”
“No, I don’t like, actually. I want this platter right in front of me for now.” It was nice to have her be at a disadvantage for once. Rafe stood between her and the exit, and the ballroom and corridor were full of people. Even if she threw the platter at him and ran, she wouldn’t make it far. Running through crowds was about as effective as swimming in syrup, unless you had someone go in front of you shouting “Leper!’
“Do you think this stuffing is made of silverfin guts? They make me nauseous. I would hate to lose the contents of my stomach all over this polished floor—and your lovely borrowed costume.”
“Floors can be cleaned. So can clothes.” Her extended arm still held steady at both wrist and elbow, the platter was exactly where she had first raised it.