Chapter Twelve
Smiling and bearing it proved to be much more difficult than I’d feared. Difficult enough that my cheeks ached with the effort of holding my expression steady, and I had to keep consciously unclenching my hand so that I didn’t snap my wine glass in half.
I’d arrived breathless, in a hurry, and with my hair all wild around my face instead of neatly arranged, since I’d run out of time after doing up all the million little buttons on my silk waistcoat. I really needed to replace Fabian.
The herald had announced the ambassador and his lady a mere moment later, right as I took up my position at the far end of the ballroom, where a marble step led to a not-quite-a-throne set beneath a huge silver-embroidered tapestry showing my house’s arms. I gave a gracious half-bow and said all the right things, the ambassador and his wife bowed and curtsied and complimented the palace, Calatrian scenery, and the musicians currently playing softly in the gallery, and I led the lady out onto the floor to open the ball.
After one dance, a sedate pavane that didn’t require me to do more than step and smile and nod, a young lord in my diplomatic service appeared and whisked the lady and her husband away to be introduced to the other guests while I returned to my ducal dais.
And then I’d had all of five seconds to snatch a glass of sparkling wine from a footman and slug half of it before the first of an endless parade of courtiers approached me. Benedict would be furious if he saw me drinking without his by-your-leave, but first of all, he hadn’t troubled to show his stupid face, and second, the same wine was being passed around the room to everyone. No one had dropped dead yet. I liked my odds.
In any case, each of the lords and ladies descending upon me was more ravenously eager than the last for any scrap of gossip they could glean, and dying instantly had its appeal when contrasted with facing them sober.
“You are now eight-and-twenty, are you not, Your Grace? Duke Treviso married at twenty-nine, as I recall,” said the sharp-eyed dowager currently before me. Her two terrifying cronies nodded and tutted along, the tall feathers in their elaborately jeweled headdresses bobbing, not quite close enough to tickle my nose. All three of them had been friends of my grandparents. Given what I knew of my father’s parents, they’d all bloody well deserved each other. “A suitable marriage. Which produced you, Your Grace.” Her tone suggested that they had all, upon that occasion, been obliged to make the best of it. “And your lady mother, whatever her other eccentricities, was not known to frequent houses of ill repute in the lower town.”
A low, frantic buzzing had begun between my temples.
Marriage.
Houses of ill repute.
Marrying Benedict. She thought I meant to marry Benedict .
At least she appeared to be the only person in Calatria besides me who didn’t blindly adore him.
The buzzing grew to more of a hum, my skull seeming to expand too large to fit inside my head.
I forced my already forced smile to ratchet up another painful notch. Would my face actually crack and fall off? Probably not. Even at the advanced, unmarried age of twenty- eight, I hadn’t yet started resorting to cosmetics.
My voice hitched, but I managed, “And if I were contemplating matrimony, Lady Violetta, I would certainly take the reputation of the ducal family into account, but—”
“Hah!” She snorted another kind of scoffing sound on top of that, rearing back as if I’d tried to bite her. “Do you perhaps feel you’re doing so by confining your…activities to within the ducal family? Because I wouldn’t have thought that would assist in any efforts to bolster its reputation. Hah!”
Oh, buggering unmerciful gods. A group of young lords standing nearby all stared, eyes wide, and then tittered behind their hands, leaning in to whisper to one another. Could I fake falling down in some kind of fainting fit, and then let my guards carry me out to safety?
Would it be fake?
“Come, Violetta,” said one of her friends, taking her by the arm and glaring daggers at me. “Let us rest and compose ourselves a moment. You!” This to a passing footman. “A chair and a glass of wine, if you please…”
He led them away, bowing and scraping and being berated by all three of them.
Wine. Yes. My staff had brought out a good vintage for this occasion, a lovely dry sparkling rose that effervesced on my tongue and went down far faster than was probably wise. I raised a hand, and another glass appeared in it instantly, the page hovering at my elbow having anticipated me.
I knocked it back. It tasted even better seasoned with the knowledge of how annoyed Benedict would be if he could see me. My brain took on a bit of a sparkle too. Oh, thank Ennolu.
The group of lordlings approached and made their legs, rising with matching smirks on their faces. “Lord Griset, Your Grace, and I am honored to pay my respects,” said the handsomest one, who’d put himself in the front of the quartet. “My mother presented me to you last year.”
“I remember you,” I lied, and nodded.
“Oh, how flattering. But Your Grace, I’m surprised to be able to approach you! Lord Benedict is so very intimidating, and I’d thought to find him fending off those of us who’d be so bold as to admire you.” His smirk grew into more of a leer. “Is it possible you might wish to honor some other gentleman with a dance tonight, Duke Lucian?”
In other words, was it possible that Benedict had already tired of me, thrown me over, and abandoned me to the court wolves?
Gods preserve me, I’d set myself up for this when I begged Benedict for his help and protection, and even more so when I’d put on that performance for the footmen eleven days ago, and triply so when I’d allowed myself to live in a fool’s paradise in which the opinions of sappy girls and clerks who thought Benedict’s earring made him dashing were the ones that mattered. I had no one to blame but myself for an embarrassment so hot and violent my flushed cheeks actually ached.
But before I could try to answer, and as if Benedict had somehow heard my internal screaming, a pause, a gasp, and then a wave of murmurs swept the assembly.
My skin prickled with heat, with awareness.
And I knew before I even looked up whom I’d see standing at the top of the stairs across the room.
“Lord General Benedict Rathenas,” said the herald, his voice carrying to every corner of the suddenly much quieter ballroom.
I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of staring at him along with the rest of the gaping throng. But I turned to him and stared all the same, as if he’d had me on a string. He hadn’t dressed appropriately for the occasion, of course— because I couldn’t imagine a world in which society’s dictates would matter more to Benedict than his sturdy boots and his sword hanging from its worn belt. But he had made the effort to change into a black taffeta and velvet doublet, the sleeves all embroidered in silver and gold. It was more than enough to catch the glow of the chandeliers, with their cascades of soft alchemical lights reflected by dangling crystals.
But even as he smiled at everyone and sauntered down the stairs, fondling the hilt of his sword and playing to his admirers, his eyes found mine—and held.
For a long moment everything else fell away, the music and chatter of the ballroom fading to a faint drone. Benedict’s eyes seemed to shine more brightly than the lights, and a shudder went through me, from the top of my head all the way down.
“Oh, there he is, isn’t he!” said Lord Griset, too loudly, too shrilly, and I jumped as everything in the room came rushing back in again. “Strong, powerful men have their disagreements, of course,” he continued, fluttering his eyelashes at me. Ugh. He had the wrong object for that sort of display. Perhaps he ought to try it on Benedict. Perhaps I might revive my father’s practice of sending insolent courtiers to the dungeon under the palace when I had a whim. “But I, oh, I did understand your reconciliation had been…complete. What a—a delight to see him attending on Your Grace after all!”
The ballroom had almost filled, and the current fashion for headdresses made from an aviary’s worth of feathers and for wide, ornate skirts stuffed with petticoats made it seem even fuller, especially as their wearers stepped and turned through the figures of the dance. Benedict had made it down the stairs, but his progress across the crowded room was slow. The lights shimmered off of gold earrings and jeweled necklaces, enameled fans and rich silk brocades—and a hundred pairs of avid eyes, as they all turned to follow Benedict’s approach.
In a sudden panic, I shoved my empty wine glass at the page beside me, hoping Benedict wouldn’t see it, and then awaited him with what I had left of my dignity.
“Surely nothing could give Lord Benedict more gratification than attending His Grace,” one of Griset’s friends said in a tone of unflattering insincerity—right as Benedict came close enough to hear him.
I bit my lips as Benedict’s twitched, the gleam of his eyes the visible overflow of his suppressed laughter.
Damn it. He’d say something mocking, and I’d be a laughingstock forever. I’d stolen a week and a half of not feeling like a fool from the jaws of society’s defeat, but now I could feel them closing around me after all.
Griset and the other three chattering twits, clearly delighted to have a front-row view, withdrew just enough to allow Benedict to stand directly before me. He stopped and bowed precisely low enough to show he knew he had to, the bastard, rising to his full, commanding height again within an instant, tossing his hair back and making his earring bounce and glitter.
He opened his mouth.
Oh, here it came.
Benedict spoke directly to me, but he pitched his voice to carry as only a trained actor or courtier could—though thankfully he didn’t use the full bellow of a battlefield general.
“I can only hope my efforts in that direction have been satisfactory for Duke Lucian.” I blinked at him, lips parting, hardly able to believe my ears. “For my part, nothing in this world could give me more gratification than attending him. As closely as he’ll allow.”
The blood beat in my ears, a steady throb that couldn’t quite drown out the gasps and mutterings that rose up from the assembly like steam off a simmering pot.
“I can’t believe you left me here alone for so long and then made an entrance like that. I’m going to kill you,” I hissed, too quietly for anyone else to hear.
“Only if your guests can’t find a way to murder us both first, such as with that wine you seem to think I didn’t notice you were drinking,” Benedict shot back, and stepped close to me. Damn it. “Get in line.”
Very close. Close enough to fling the last bit of oil on the wildfire of the gossip running around the ballroom—and to convince anyone who’d been skeptical that their duke really had taken up with his notorious stepbrother, defying etiquette, the prevailing morality, and everyone who’d ever wanted Benedict for themselves.
The line to kill me might be a long one by the end of the night.
At least we made a picturesque pair for everyone to stare at, Benedict’s piratical black a striking contrast to my pearl-embroidered sky-blue silk.
He always had to be the center of attention. Arriving late. Dressing to draw everyone’s eyes to his broad shoulders and long legs.
Slipping an arm around me and resting his hand on the small of my back, a heavy warmth that burned through my layers of clothing and made me sway toward him involuntarily, everything below my waist going tense.
“You shouldn’t do that,” I whispered, frozen in place, even as I fought the urge to wrap my arms around his neck and press myself to him, wrap my legs around his hips and climb him. “It’s too much. You’re causing a scene. Show some decorum. If they try to kill us, I’m standing behind you and letting them murder you first.”
Instead of listening to me, he slid his hand down an inch, teasing over the crease of my ass in an arrogant, proprietary way that had me trembling under his touch, the ache between my legs building to a desperate clench.
Gods, they’d all see—they’d all know where he’d put his hand when he reached behind me.
They’d see, and they’d realize Benedict was the one taking what he desired while he reduced me to a weak and wanting thing, that I’d never have been able to lure him, or anyone, into a lascivious trap of my making. They’d know that later tonight Benedict would strip me and spread me and use me, their duke, as nothing but a hole for his cock and his magic. Why had I thought any of these clever, malicious, observant people would really believe I’d been the one to seduce him, to use him for my own pleasure? When they’d been watching us both for years, and they knew Benedict was the one who always got his own way?
He leaned in and down, gazing into my eyes as if no one else in the room existed.
“If they really try to kill us I hope you will,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking into a smile even though his eyes stayed steady and serious. “I’m fairly certain that’s my job, because you’ll be paying me for it later.”
Paying him for it.
Right.
Benedict’s eyes on me, dark and intent, and the solidity of his arm at my back, and the magnetic warmth and strength of his body…they were all temporary, conditional, and ultimately false.
No matter why he’d chosen to play into my charade, to act as if the rumor I’d started had been true, it wasn’t real.
We couldn’t simply stand here with everyone gawking at us. My false smile had melted away, I could feel it, and they’d all know something was terribly wrong. I had to speak. Make some witty remark. Pull away from him. Think about anything other than the strange, hollow ache that had formed under my ribs, or about the way Benedict hadn’t taken his eyes off of me, still meeting mine as if he’d forgotten about everything else on Earth.
Another lie, of course. But he’d had so much practice in making men believe he meant it that I couldn’t be blamed for falling victim too, could I?
In desperation, I said, “Dance with me, Lord Benedict,” pitching my voice to carry to the nearest eavesdroppers and raising a hand to signal the musicians.
“I’d be honored, Your Grace,” Benedict replied—as if he meant it. As if he wanted nothing more than to dance with me, and despite myself, despite damn well knowing better, the warmth and pleasure of it fizzed in my veins more intoxicatingly than the sparkling wine.
The tambour player set a brisk rhythm, the tambourine and recorder adding a counterpoint and a sweet, lilting melody—they were playing one of my favorites.
Gods, I hadn’t danced in so long. Not really danced, something more invigorating than that dull walk across the floor I’d carried out with the Surbini lady. My whole body began to move with it as Benedict led me out, his arm still around my waist even though the dance called for us to be linked only by our outstretched hands for the first figures.
He slid his arm away and took me by the hand at last as we reached the center of the ballroom, and I wished I’d defied propriety and gone without gloves the way he had, so that I could’ve savored his skin against mine.
But even through my glove, I had the heat of him and the sureness of his hold on me, the gentle way he led me through the opening of the dance and then his sudden strength as he swung me close.
He grinned at me as I took the lead, drawing him through the dance in reverse, turning and kicking, feet tapping to the jingle of the tambourine and the low thrum of the viol, spinning as the higher notes rang out.
Everything whirled around me, almost too fast and too exhilarating, but Benedict remained the steady point in the center of it all, anchoring me, and I was smiling for real, now, rather than faking it—until he spun me once more and reeled me in, fetching me up against him suddenly as the music stopped with one final clash of the tambourine.
He held me so close that I hardly had room for my heaving breaths. Our faces were inches apart, my head tipped up and his bent down, his lips so close, one hand on my shoulder, the other wrapped around my waist, the thick length of his cock digging into my abdomen, one thigh pressed between mine, and my breath came faster and faster—
Someone applauded, someone else laughed, and I startled and tried to jerk away. My face burned.
Benedict didn’t let me move a single inch.
“Let them,” he breathed, and tightened his arm until my ribs creaked. “Fucking let them. We’re not staying here to listen to them in any case.”
“We’re not?”
“No.” His silvery eyes had gone molten, burning with intent, his tone deep and rough. “And if you give me the slightest bit of trouble, I’m putting you over my shoulder and carrying you. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”
Putting me over his…
He didn’t give me a chance to argue, simply letting go of me enough to turn us both in the direction of the stairs and half-dragging me away, his hand clamped on my hip.
Open-mouthed faces and wide eyes went by in a blur as he pulled me to the stairs, up, and then out of the ballroom, the startled herald and guards bowing as we went by.
The voices of the assembly rose to a crescendo and then cut off suddenly as a pair of footmen swung the doors shut behind us.
“Benedict,” I gasped, recovering enough at last to try to resist him. “What the hell do you think you’re—”
“What you wanted me to do,” he said, not slowing his stride at all, keeping me moving no matter how I squirmed and stumbled. “What you goaded me into doing by asking me to dance.”
“What I—you’re out of your mind! I didn’t want this! Goaded you—you—”
“Shut up and walk unless you want me to fuck you right here on the floor,” he ground out, and tugged me along at a breakneck pace.
Right there, on the marble floor of the palace’s public corridor, surrounded by oil paintings in gilt frames and elegant vases, reflected in the enormous mirror on the wall, crying out to the ceiling frescoes while Benedict…
Oh, gods.
I shut up and walked.