Chapter 48 #2
The sight of undyed leathers caught my gaze.
No garish bright dyes or eye smarting hues, simply a rich deep brown polished to a shine.
Boots, belts and brooches abounded. Audrey slowed, then moved across toward the store.
From beside her, I surveyed the wears. Richly embossed leathers with metallic trim, stitching so small to be invisible.
She spotted the war belt before I did, or rather, what passed for a war belt so far from the Steppes.
The wide thick leather was braced by multiple straps more decorative than purposeful.
A true warbelt would brace the wearer’s spine and belly. That one was primarily for looks.
But the look of it was magnificent. Geometric patterns, inlaid with subtle glints and stitching to give depth to the designs.
She was looking for a grey belt. I’d forgotten that, and I wished it could’ve stayed forgotten.
The missing piece to some sort of outfit.
The warbelt she’d spotted wasn’t grey. We’d looked at hundreds of brown belts already, and all had been not good enough.
Yasmine made a noise of interest and lingered, her hand outstretched. I held back a sigh and settled in to wait.
In short order, the stall holder arrived to talk to her about the boots and the brooches.
Her fingers lingered too long on the belt, though, and he was forced to say, “This would be too heavy for you, miss—I mean my lady.” His ruddy cheeks went pinker than they’d been before.
“Mayhap something more like this one would work?” The one he offered up was a beautiful, ornamental narrow item.
It wasn’t grey, either. I really didn’t want to chase the perfect belt here, but the stallholder did have some excellent offerings.
Much to my delight, Audrey, uninterested in being told what style was acceptable, moved on.
It wasn't long before we were pulled aside by somebody in the La’Angi tabard.
The afternoon spun away in a flurry of small crises, each as minor as the last and yet somehow all of them requiring her attention until it was Yasmine who suggested they visit the nearest quiet tent.
Audrey settled with her friend, but she didn’t relax. Yasmine must’ve seen it, too, because they were preparing to leave as Luca arrived.
I hated the way he paused when he saw her expression.
I hated the way he looked around as if he was confused as to whether that disgust was directed at him.
I'd never been the best archer or the best tracker.
Never been the fastest or the smartest. Certainly, wasn't the toughest by any measure. Mayhap I needed none of that, though, because even at my most average I could see this man’s ploy from measures away.
He fumbled his words as he tried to deliver the apology.
“I'm sorry—did I do something wrong?” he asked. As if he hadn’t just embarrassed her in front of a group of their peers—importantly, many of whom were a similar age.
As if she hadn’t crossed half the faire to get away from him, and hadn’t been chasing jobs she truly could’ve passed on to someone else just to have something she could control?
The rage inside of me burned like a furnace.
“If I say I don't want you to buy me perfume, I mean I don't want you to buy me perfume,” she told him, the words as precise as her archery.
What he should’ve done was to bow and apologize.
She outranked him significantly, and while she acted in the Duke’s stead, that held a certain weight.
Those customs of treating women with respect were simply a veneer, the velvet glove to protect skin from the chain.
I didn’t expect she’d get even the veneer, though; instead, I waited for the wide-eyed shock and fumbling apology.
He did neither.
His brow furrowed, not with confusion but with intensity, the way Audrey might look at a book or a column of figures.
Unease crept up my spine.
With one foot, he hooked the leg of a stool, pulling it over beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said, without the bowing or the kissing of fingers that would’ve made those words simply customary.
He said it like he meant it.
“For what?” she asked, leaning her weight back a little to create space between them. “Specifically?”
I resisted the urge to applaud. From her position beside Audrey, Yasmine looked at me quickly with wide, shocked eyes, the same expression I’d expected Luca to wear—but there was joy there, too, hesitant and fragile.
Had Luca, in that moment, pulled back, he would’ve lost her. The tell wasn’t in her expression or posture. I knew it from watching her negotiate. She had the same cool demeanor she wore when she was ready to walk out of a bad deal.
Unfortunately for all of us, he leant in.
“I think I misread the situation,” he said, the words coming out slowly. “I thought I was offering you a treat you weren’t comfortable to take for yourself. But you aren’t acting like a woman offered a treat. So I’m apologizing for not paying closer attention to what you needed.”
I hated him. There were no two ways about it.
Outside of the tent I saw a big shape in a black tabard shifting. The chime of Chay’s frog on his belt left me with no doubt who else hated Luca.
For all his wisdom, the young knight had been a fool. Unlike Luca, he hadn’t apologized for it, either. He could just stand in the sun and hate. I got to glare from her side.
“Do you understand why I’m unhappy?” she asked him.
“No. Can you tell me?”
“I didn’t want the perfume you chose.”
Luca stayed silent, as if those words were a complex puzzle he needed time to consider. He didn’t look away from her. Outside the tent, a wave of laughter came. If he heard, he gave no sign. “You said you liked it.”
“I like a lot of things. I don’t purchase them all. I don’t want to wear them all.”
“It was the most expensive one there,” he said, as if he, too, was sitting at the negotiating table. “You’d looked at both the scent and the bath oil. I didn’t expect offering to purchase it would be an insult.”
I held my tongue at the way that was delivered, as if her response was unreasonable.
“It wouldn’t have been, the first time,” she said curtly. “After the fourth time, when you shooed me away, it became insulting. And I looked at the items because they were pushed on me, Luca, much as things are at every stall. If they’d been smart—”
“You weren’t being coy?” he asked, frowning in earnest as he cut her off. “Pretending you didn’t want it?”
“When have I ever pretended I didn’t want something I did?” she asked.
Beside her, Yasmine kicked back her feet, arching her brows. I enjoyed the way her gaze travelled from the tips of his boots slowly up his body. Finally, a topic Yasmine and I would agree on: how utterly lacking Luca was.
“It’s something a lot of women do,” Luca explained. “It’s uncomfortable for some women to directly ask for what they like.”
Audrey let out a mirthless laugh, lent forward, and put her hand on his knee. He stiffened. I felt a tingle of battle-energy ripple through my body and breathed deeply into the strength. I knew this pose, too.
“I promise, Luca, I will tell you what I want,” she said firmly. “And what I want is for you to listen to the words I say and believe them.”
She stood, but he caught her hand. She could’ve avoided it. She didn’t. I waited, knowing she didn’t need my help, but more than happy to offer it all the same.
“I’ll change the order,” he said.
“You actually, truly bought it?” she asked, her lips barely moving with the words, her hand still relaxed in his grasp.
“As a gift,” he said with raised brows. “I know you don’t love surprises, but it was an item I believed you wanted.”
“It was status for you,” she said, disgust in her words.
“You were seen purchasing that. Gossip will follow me, Luca, closer even than you, and I refuse to allow it. If those items are delivered to my door, by the Wife, I’ll give them away as publicly and as patronizingly as I can and leave no doubt as to what our situation is. ”
His expression went utterly blank as he stared up at her, his grey eyes locked on her face.
“You,” she said, the word razor sharp, “are chasing me. And I am being polite.” She dropped her gaze to his hand on her wrist. “I’ve little manners left, Luca.”
Instead of releasing her, he lifted his other hand. “Wait. I’ve deeply misunderstood something, and I’m sorry.”
She finally twisted out of his grip in a move made less graceful by her anger. In one of the outfits that exposed her arms, it would’ve made her forearms and biceps flex in a way I suspected Luca would’ve been uncomfortable with.
I saw him moving to follow her and stepped between them, forcing myself into his space, making him fall back onto his stool in shock. Yasmine held aside the tent flap and shot Luca a glare as she accompanied Audrey out into the afternoon sunlight.
He opened his mouth to say something to Audrey’s back, then hesitated.
“Go on,” I murmured, disappointed. “Push her just a little more, lordling. See how far she goes.”
His eyes cut to me. His concerned expression sat on his face as if it’d been hastily pinned in place. There was no light in his eyes. Unease clawed up my spine. “That isn’t the girl I rescued all those years ago.”
“As if you’d even know,” I scoffed, and left to find Audrey, letting him remain in peace with the last few shreds of his ego.
It was a kindness I doubted Audrey would offer him again.