Chapter Fifteen #2
A light laugh met her ears. Someone had moved closer to the other side of the column, a welcome distraction from watching the leering courtiers. She heard a low murmur, but the column blocked the words. Eleanor shifted forward slightly to better hear the muted conversation.
“—this is to be the centre of the world, then,” a sultry voice purred.
“Was this not before?” a low, deep voice replied.
“Centre of his world, perhaps. Not so for many of us,” a high voice said.
Whoever he was, Eleanor couldn’t be sure, but the speaker’s slight emphasis on the word made her think they were speaking of the king.
“Lord Forgen is getting nervous,” the sultry voice said next.
“Six hundred crowns in three days. Almost a third of our annual income,” the deep voice replied.
“Gambling away his fortune. Foolish man,” said the high voice.
Eleanor couldn’t make out much more between the murmurs and giggles rising in the room, until the owner of the high voice asked, “Do you think he would go for it?”
The deep voice replied, “We can only wait and see. Deric will find a way to make him go for it.”
“Of that, we can be sure,” the sultry voice said.
Hearing the three voices, Eleanor deduced it was two women and one man, although she couldn’t discern who the voices belonged to. She didn’t know enough people at court. Before she could decipher the meaning of their conversation, the pause in the trio’s conversation ended.
“How much longer must this charade go on for?” asked the sultry voice in a slightly agitated voice.
“You know as well as the rest of us. It will last as long as it needs to,” replied the other woman.
“Patience and caution, it’ll happen soon,” the man added.
Eleanor barely heard the woman’s soft reply amid the room’s din. “I cannot go many more years. I can barely stomach this.”
“Would you wish us to disappear as well?” the man replied hotly.
“Of course not,” the woman snapped back.
“Then patience. If it takes another year, then so be it, as long as we survive it,” the man said.
An almost imperceptible shift in the atmosphere ceased their conversation, and Eleanor could tell without seeing that the subtle shift in the air changed everything.
The room became more , somehow, she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was, but she felt it in the very marrow of her bones.
The courtier’s heavy mutterings filled the space, while all eyes were transfixed on the doorway, as if they too sensed a greater presence approaching.
Eleanor didn’t need to know that he’d arrived before she saw him. She knew.
The courtiers moved out of his way as he leisurely strolled through the room.
The Dark Star’s long black hair matched his jewelled long-coat and he held a cane in his hand, although he didn’t once lean on it.
Instead, it was a prop for his own announcement that gave a soft click in time with the steps of his black boots.
Occasionally, he gave a slight nod to certain courtiers who in turn bowed, but he didn’t once stop, nor did he bow to anyone.
This stranger, with his captivating eyes and hair as dark as the night sky beyond the windows, was the power in the room, of that there was no doubt.
Whether he was of high enough noble rank, she didn’t know, but it was clear from his unhurried steps and look of pure self-assurance that he knew his place in this world.
It was beneath no one. He was in control of the room.
Knowing this should have made her scared of him, and run in the complete opposite direction, but that was the very last thing her body wanted to do.
As if he knew of her body’s betrayal where he was concerned, he looked her way, and she silently cursed herself for how weak her knees felt when his dark eyes caught hers.
Eleanor swallowed roughly when she realised his trajectory was towards her. She took a few steps back to conceal herself. The sound of his rhythmic saunter ceased. He halted by the group beyond the column.
An overtly annoying laugh nearby made her miss the group addressing him. However, she noticed that everyone in the room was looking in her direction or, more precisely, at the other side of the column.
A tinkling of the piano keys carried through the mutterings in the room, and snagged the room’s attention on the young courtiers gathered around the white piano.
They seemed younger than even Riccie and his companions.
On the piano stool, a young woman in pink smiled freely at a young man with curling blond hair.
Her playing was slow and broken, but the woman laughed at herself when she played the wrong keys, at which the young man leaned closer and smiled indulgently at her.
Despite not being perfect, Eleanor admired how the woman performed confidently in front of a room full of courtiers, unfazed by any mistakes in rhythm or timing.
“Oh really?” the sultry voice on the other side of the column remarked. “Anyone would think she actually had any talent.”
Eleanor stepped back, momentarily forgetting who was on the opposite side of the column. She realised too late that she’d taken two steps too many, exposing herself to his eye line.
“Verena, why don’t you show us how it’s done?” the blonde woman in the lavender gown—and the person with the high voice—said.
Verena, the other woman, smiled at their little group, as though this was the moment she had been waiting for. “It would be my pleasure,” she purred in her sultry voice, and strode off, her silk, bronze gown swishing around her ankles as she went.
If Eleanor didn’t know any better, she’d have sworn Verena had orchestrated this solely to have her moment.
The room gave a loud round of applause as Verena approached the piano. The young woman who’d been playing backed away from the instrument with a gritted smile and flushed cheeks.
Naturally, the courtiers silenced themselves.
Eleanor didn’t know what this woman’s title was, but it was enough to garner attention.
Verena sat perfectly poised at the pure white piano, the picture of titled refinement.
Her gown draped delicately over the stool and Eleanor could have mistaken her braided black hair as a crown for the way she held the Court’s attention.
Verena played a long movement, and unfortunately for the younger woman, Verena played well, and it showed.
But Eleanor couldn’t help but feel like Verena’s playing felt…
forced. It was mechanical and methodical, as if someone had shown her what was required, and she was copying, a mere artifice of what she should have looked like.
She was playing through the motions with no heart.
Music had a way to expose oneself to its audience, and Verena exposed nothing.
The last note’s resonance ended the piece, prompting an immediate round of appreciative applause. Verena flashed a smile as she sauntered back to her group of courtiers.
The Dark Star’s deep, sleek voice carried throughout the room and made Eleanor’s insides warm. “I wager no one in this room can play half as well as you, Verena, dear.”
The courtiers laughed haughtily at his comment, while the courtesans and Favours gave a mix of small laughs and tight smiles. Eleanor clenched her glass to rein in her anger.
“I’ll take that bet,” a low voice called from across the room.
Favours were once courtesans and had a background to match.
Unless a lord paid an expensive tutor for their Favour, they had no way of learning how to play the piano, nor for that matter any of the so-called ladylike pursuits like riding sidesaddle, embroidery, flower arranging, or watercolour painting. A fact that everyone in this room knew.
Anyone who wasn’t noble born hadn’t had the entitled and privileged upbringing of the aristocrats. Instead, they were raised to earn money as soon as they could, and that came in any shape or form.
“Of course, none can play half as well,” the Dark Star drawled. “Consider this courtesan in red, for instance.”
An icy feeling dripped into her veins. Eleanor darted her eyes around the room for another courtesan wearing red, but no…she was the only one.
Fuck.
Eleanor had worn the dress to feel bold, but now, she was silently cursing herself for such a foolish mistake to single herself out. Under the collective scrutiny of the courtiers, she felt a profound sense of being observed and judged.
“You think she could play as well as our dear Verena here?” the Dark Star continued. He had captivated the entire room, and they were hanging on every word.
Eleanor was annoyed by the way her body heated up around him.
It felt like an unwelcome betrayal. She kept her eyes on the Dark Star but couldn’t fail to notice the intense gaze of the blue-eyed man, dressed in his luxurious amber coat, making her feel as if he were assessing her.
With a determined lift of her chin, she shoved aside the insidious feeling that her value was being weighed and found wanting, the air thick with unspoken criticism.
The Dark Star seemed to sense the determination in her expression, as his eyes sparked with a challenge.
Eleanor didn’t care what his reason was for this display.
It would help to serve her purpose for now and she’d take it, use it as he was surely using her for some unseen gain of his.
She didn’t care. Fury and righteous anger now warmed her veins.
How dare they sneer at the courtesans, assuming they provide nothing beyond sex, lacking education, and falling short in their world?
That was the divide between the rich and titled and everyone else.
The men in the upper class disparaged the courtesans and Favours, allowing the noble women invisible permission to look down at them.
For in this affluent little world of theirs, they couldn’t direct their dismissal at men, only towards seemingly lesser women.