The Queen's Bastard (12 page)

Marius tightened his hand over Belinda’s at his elbow. “Lanyarch,” he echoed. “I apologize, lady. It’s difficult to know—”

“Were I a sympathizer to the Reformation, would I attend worship here?” Ice slid through Belinda’s voice, her spine stiff with restrained indignation. “I have not chosen Gallin as a retreat entirely for the food, sir. If you will excuse me.” She shook off his hand and swept forward, her skirts gathered away from the cobblestone roads. A few quick steps put passersby between herself and him, and she heard him call out a quick, frustrated apology before cursing. Smiling, she let the crowd take her away, confident of a hook well set. The midweek worship would be early enough to see him again. If she were a good judge, he would be there, fretting at his lost chance and hoping for a new one.

He was not. Nor was he at the following Sunday sermon. Belinda searched the cathedral pews, quick glances to the left and right. If Marius was there, being caught looking for him would undo her cool dismissal. But the staid and proper merchants hid him nowhere in their ranks. Other young men caught her eye, and she let her gaze soften; if she had to begin again, it would be easier if the first impression she left was not an unapproachable one.

She didn’t like doubting herself; it wasn’t like her to be such a poor judge of character. She heard nothing of the sermon, but rather watched the priest with blind eyes, considering her own tactics and wondering where she had gone wrong. Perhaps she’d been too cold, too challenging. Perhaps he had less of the hunter in him than she’d anticipated. Or perhaps it was merely something as simple as his mother having higher sights set for the boy, though she would still expect him to attend church.

Belinda exited the cathedral with the crowd, casting a judging eye at the morning sun. It was not yet noon and carried little of the day’s heat with it. She stepped out of the line of traffic to shake open a parasol, grateful for the reduction in glare the moment she set it over her shoulder. Certainly Marius’s mother would not forbid him worship entirely. She would try a final time, at the afternoon gathering, and accept disappointment and defeat if he were not there. She would find another mark, but it galled her. What gossip had told her of Marius Poulin had made him seem the perfect catch, and she was unaccustomed to having to try more than once to set her line.

Arrogance, she admitted to herself, the thought bringing a small smile to her face. Arrogance served her well; it gave her the confidence to gain the attraction of nearly any man, from soldier to noble. Confidence made up for lack of beauty; few people understood that as thoroughly as she did. And beauty was its own handicap. It was safer to slip through courts and intrigues as a pretty woman rather than as a beautiful one. Beauty, like that with which her mother was bestowed, would be remembered where mere prettiness would not. Of course—Belinda found herself smiling again, and men smiled back at her—of course, Lorraine had power as well, which made even the most unattractive of women beautiful. But it, too, carried its price. Power meant a lifetime of political bargains. Lorraine’s choice was the power of solitude, her beauty aging and fading as she played one suitor against another, knowing none of them held love in his heart for her. Even desire was questionable, except desire for the throne she sat on. Not for the first time, Belinda wondered if Lorraine entirely trusted the feelings Robert Drake harbored for her. More, Belinda wondered if she should. He had never pursued her hand in marriage, choosing never to threaten her autonomy or power. If anything kept them together, it was that, Belinda thought. Robert was willing to accept a more subtle power, to let a woman sit above him. He was an unusual man, and for that Belinda felt a small, startling surge of pride.

Her mood restored, she shook herself and began down the cathedral steps, still smiling. Confidence had failed her, this time. It was no doubt good for her to lose one once in a while. It reminded her that she was only human.

“Mademoiselle?” The pleasant male tenor came from behind her. Belinda straightened, her smile turning pure with recognition before she schooled her features into calm curiosity and turned. Only human, perhaps, but not so poor a judge of character after all.

“Marius Poulin.” She offered her hand, a delicate arch to her fingers, trusting he would curve his hand beneath hers. He did, bowing very slightly over her hand. As he came to full height again he lifted his eyebrows in question, the faintest pressure on her fingers. She inclined her head as slightly as he’d bowed, and he stepped forward, turning to tuck her hand into the crook of his arm. “I thought,” Belinda said, “that perhaps you had abandoned me.”

“Not at all. I’ve spent the past ten days cloistered in my garret, beating my brow and rending my breast, searching for a way to undo what damage my careless words had done to our burgeoning relationship.” His eyes lit with hope and humour, making Belinda smile. Perhaps Lutetia was good for her; smiling seemed to come almost as easily here as it did in Aria Magli. The silence and stillness within her retreated a little. Not far enough to leave her in danger of exposing herself, but enough that it took less conscious effort to act as the women around her did.

“Relationship,” she echoed, letting amusement warm her voice. She could see appreciation in his eyes, in the way his pupils dilated, black swallowing brown. A touch of red came to his cheeks and she almost laughed; he was an innocent. The laughter faded in an instant. Innocence made him easily used, and easily damaged. Marius Poulin would not forget the woman he escorted on his arm, not until the day he died. If his Heaven were a kind place, he would leave her memory behind when he entered through its gates. Belinda knew too well that first love found with her was a dredge that never lost its bitter flavour.

“Do we have a relationship, Marius Poulin?” Belinda asked, trusting her own instincts, long and well trained, to have not let the silence between them grow too deep or distressing. “And dare I ask—” She hesitated, wondering how far decency would let her play before she actually shocked the boy. Far enough, she decided: her part was that of a widow, after all, not a virgin with no teeth. “—what sort of relationship you have with women whose names you do not know?”

Color scarred his cheekbones again, but he smiled, making Belinda’s smile return. Innocent enough to be embarrassed, but not undone by her flirting. He would do very nicely, if his friendships reached as high as rumour said they did. “Not the sort I would discuss with a lady,” he confessed. “Perhaps you might tell me your name, that I might pursue a relationship of a more delicate nature with you.”

Curiosity stung Belinda, making her tilt her chin up to consider the line of his jaw. He was only a little taller than she was; tall enough, but not imposing. He would follow men larger both in stature and in spirit, never doubting his own place as second or third in command. He would be well loved among the lower ranks for generosity of heart and for his faith in following those with authority over him. She had known men like him, essentially gentle of nature and true of soul, always followers, lacking the certain spark that made them bold and fearless in the eyes of others. Men like Marius were too predictable to be dangerous, but without them it seemed to Belinda that the world might cease to function. She had judged him correctly in his inability to resist the temptation she provided; she knew him well enough, already, to guide him where she needed him to be. There was strength in his jaw, pink still lightly touching his cheekbones. Belinda smiled once more, pleased with the young man at her side. He would do admirably.

“Tell me,” she asked, a note of teasing command in her voice, “do you truly not know my name?”

He glanced at her, eyes widening with startlement before his smile broadened. “A gentleman wouldn’t confess to knowing it if he did, Lady Beatrice.”

Belinda had not heard the name spoken aloud before, not by someone of comparative rank to her assumed persona. In Marius’s light tenor it settled around her like a cloak. Hairs rose on her arms very briefly, as if cool silk slid over soft skin. She felt the chill settle into her bones, airy and temporary, reshaping her from the inside out again. Belinda Primrose was left behind in the naming, a new woman born in her place. She breathed in, and found laughter would come more easily to Beatrice than to Belinda; she must take care to ward against it becoming dangerously easy. Beatrice must marry well, to guard her small fortune and have children that would support her in her later years; she had terribly little to do with the woman she had been made from.

Wearing the garb of Beatrice’s life like a new skin that caressed her body, Belinda smiled up at Marius, letting delight, so easily mistaken for adoration, widen her eyes. “And if you know it, as you do, what, then, are you, if not a gentleman?” She felt the laughter bubbling up inside her and for a disconcerting few seconds found herself unable to release it, her own nature quelling it with more ferocity than the newly worn Beatrice had strength to support it. Marius, beaming at her, didn’t see the internal struggle that Belinda fought with herself, denying a decade of stillness to let a noblewoman’s laughter rise to the surface and froth over.

“Desperately curious,” he answered. “Beatrice Irvine, a widow—” His smile faltered, eyes lowered for a few seconds. “I am sorry to hear of your loss, lady.”

“He was old when we were wed.” The note she strove for was a narrow one, simple fact mingled with small regret and a degree of both strength and relief. Marius lifted his eyes to meet hers, and in them she saw that all the things she had meant her voice to say in place of her words had been heard as clearly as she hoped. Her husband had been old, but she was young and vital; an old man could not have hoped to satisfy her, and she was a woman who wanted satisfaction. Colour warmed Marius’s cheeks again. Belinda allowed herself another smile, mild and edging on regret that neither she nor her persona truly felt for the death of an imaginary husband. Society dictated that she must put on a show. Marius knew as well as she that she put on as little as possible, laying truth between them in the silence after her words.

“Widowed without children,” Marius went on, his voice lower and huskier. “A crueler fate than a gentle woman deserves.”

Whatever, then, Belinda wondered, did
she
deserve? But she lowered her own gaze briefly, acknowledgment before she looked up again. “But God has granted me health, and I am still young enough,” she murmured. “Perhaps there is meant to be more to my life than a widow’s lonely years.”

Triumph and hope blended together in Marius’s voice to lighten it again. “Perhaps, Lady Irvine, you would be so good as to join me for supper tomorrow evening? I would be delighted to introduce you to a few of my friends, so you might not be so alone in a strange new city. Lutetia must be very different from Lanyarch.” Through hope came strain, his words so careful as to be forced. Such shyness was beyond her expectations of him, and Belinda dimpled, tightening her fingers around his arm.

“I would be delighted. One of the only kindnesses of widowhood, sir, is that as a widow a woman is thought respectable, and permitted to attend to her own duties and pleasures without a chaperone. I would enjoy dining with you very much.”

“At seven, then?” Marius asked, voice still tight with strain, newly tempered with pleasure. “I should be glad to send my carriage for you, if you would tell me your address.”

Teasing sprang into Belinda’s words. “Are you telling me that you don’t already know it?”

To her utter delight, deeper red than before rushed to Marius’s cheekbones. He cleared his throat and pushed his lips out, staring firmly at a child across the street. The girl caught his gaze and darted toward him, holding her box of summer flowers out. “Buy a peony for the lady, sir!” she caroled. “A lady likes nothin’ better than a pansy! Won’t you buy a flower for a penny, sir?”

Marius released Belinda’s hand to dig in a belt pouch for a coin, handing it to the waif as he plucked a bouquet of bright pink and yellow flowers from her box. Belinda stood back, her own concentration caught up in a struggle between letting a pure, full smile come through and the reticence she had long since built into herself wanting to forbid it. Instead of the forceful smile, she felt tremendous amusement twitching her lips as Marius turned to her, offering the bouquet. “Forgive me,” he said, grinning openly. The flower girl’s interruption had given him time to regain equilibrium, and he was able to laugh at himself now. “I do know your address, and if you will be so good as to take these beautiful—”

“Weeds,” Belinda interrupted, unwilling to push down her own laughter any longer. Marius looked at his handful of flowers in dismay. “Weeds,” Belinda repeated. “Dandelions, these,” she fingered the yellow flowers, “and red clover.”

“I had thought to do you better than a handful of common weeds,” Marius said dolefully. Belinda laughed aloud, half startled at the sound of it, and stepped forward to take the flowers from his hand.

“The right sort of woman might take them as a compliment, M’sieur Poulin. They have their own beauty, if perhaps a little coarse, and they are pernicious. A weed need not be nurtured and coaxed along. Instead it springs up when and where it will, to show its colors brilliantly and without fear. Even the most stubborn gardener of all,” and she lifted her eyes, looking up at him through her lashes, “must root and dig and force himself upon them, to have a chance at the upper hand.”

Marius blanched, then reddened again. He cleared his throat, glancing at Belinda’s handful of flowers, then made himself meet her eyes. “I shall endeavor to be the sort of gardener who encourages weeds, then,” he said, voice gone rough and soft again. “A woman who appreciates the beauty in such things must be worth cultivating for.”

Belinda pressed her fingertips against her throat, smiling. “You honour me.” She stepped forward again, close enough to sway her hips and brush them against Marius’s. “I am sure,” she murmured, “that being cultivated will be an experience all of its own.” She swallowed back laughter—this Beatrice she wore laughed far too easily and Belinda was not at all certain she approved of her chosen persona’s gaiety—as Marius swallowed and tried not to let his gaze rest too obviously on her bosom.