The Queen's Bastard

BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE

14 November 1587 Lutetia “Eliza can’t be gone.” Javier’s petulance astounded Belinda, his hurt that of a child whose world had been so badly shaken he could only stand and rail against it. “Where would she go? Why would she go?”

“Lord Asselin tells me she is, my lord,” Belinda said unhappily. “And I haven’t seen her since Tuesday morning.” Javier hadn’t noticed, or had not, at least, commented on, the bruise that marked Belinda’s jaw. That was as well: she discovered that she genuinely preferred not to lay its blame at Eliza’s feet-or fist-and she doubted Javier would accept clumsiness as an excuse. “Are there any childhood hideaways she might be able to make her way to?”

“Not without me.” Casual arrogance filled the reply, making impossible the suggestion that Eliza had somewhere to go outside of Javier’s personal haunts. Belinda held her tongue, waiting for a chance to propose the idea without insulting the prince. “Beatrice, she can’t leave. I need her.”

“Did you ever tell her that, my lord?” The part of the devil’s advocate was an unfamiliar one, and Belinda took no relish in playing it. Javier alone was no doubt easier to manipulate than Javier surrounded by his lifetime friends, but the raw misery pulsing off him made Belinda want to throw her characteristic behavior away and gather him close in sympathy.

Javier made a noise of exasperation. “Why would I? We’ve been together all our lives.” Again, the emotion that poured off him showed no indication that he could be in the wrong. It was a powerful thing, Belinda thought, supreme confidence in oneself. Powerful and dangerous, perhaps most especially to those who never had it challenged. Belinda believed in her own growing magic and in her skills, but not with Javier’s royal conviction. Understanding how people might react was a survival trait for her; for the prince, it was something to be advised on by councilors and generals.

“You’ve been together all your lives, but still you’ve become engaged without warning her,” Belinda pointed out. “You’ve been together all your lives, Javier, and she loves you. She’s in love with you. Did it not strike you that such news might come most kindly from your own lips?”

“I told Marius!”

“Oh, God help me.” Belinda let herself fall into Aulunian for the one phrase, endowing it with a Lanyarchan burr and all the impatience she could muster. “Yes, and that was well done, but those three are your friends, Javier. Marius isn’t the only one who deserved to hear it from you. They all did, maybe Eliza most of all.” Pride was as dangerous as Javier’s boundless confidence, and even Javier had grasped the idea that the poor might be even more terribly proud than the wealthy.

“Well, then, I’ve got to get her back.” Javier threw off his sulk in a fit of action, stalking across his chambers to fling open the wardrobe and root through it. Belinda watched, bemused.

“Shall you humiliate me by announcing an engagement and then riding after another woman, stopping to ask all the passersby if they’ve seen a beauty filled with rage come this way, my lord?”

Javier went still, so sudden and profound Belinda imagined for a moment that he had learned her trick of letting nothing touch him. She sighed and crossed to him, putting her fingers at the small of her back, where she herself wore a tiny dagger. “I want her gone no more than you do, Javier. If we’re to find her, let’s put a practical plan into place, rather than chasing hares across Echon. She’s a woman alone, without money. She can’t have gone terribly far in four days.”

“She does have money,” Javier said thickly. “I can’t count how much she’s stolen off me over the years. She…” He drew his hands from the wardrobe, rippling his knuckles as though a coin danced over them. “Practised,” he murmured. “On me, I suppose, so she could steal from others without being caught. Oh, Liza, you fool.”

It was not, Belinda thought, Eliza who was the fool. “Send men, my lord. Send them to wherever you can think she might be. Make it known that you’re doing so, if you want. I can stand the embarrassment.” She smiled faintly. “And Eliza will like that you’ve put up the fuss. It may bring her home.”

Javier turned to look down at her, hope burning bright in his gaze. “Would it bring you home?”

“Yes,” Belinda said gently, and smiled to seal the lie. Eliza would be found only if she wanted to be; Javier, Belinda suspected, simply had no understanding of where to seek the gutter-born woman. But relief turned the prince’s eyes to slate and he nodded, drawing her close. Against her will she put her arms around him, feeling his sigh and brief tremble before he spoke against her hair.

“And what of Sacha? Is he as angry as all that, too?”

“Sacha has strictly forbidden me to marry you.” Belinda made her voice light and tipped her chin up to give Javier another smile, this one intending to mask nothing but the truth. “I expect he’ll denounce me as a harlot eager to spread my legs for anyone willing to move toward freeing Lanyarch from Reformation rule if I don’t break it off with all due haste.”

“Really?” A hint of welcome laughter warmed Javier’s question. “And is that true, Beatrice?”

Belinda widened her eyes in a too-broad semblance of innocence. “Of course not, my lord. I’ll only spread my legs for the prince’s friends, and complain bitterly when they’re coarse and inattentive lovers.”

Javier’s laughter turned full, a bark of sound over Belinda’s head. She lowered her gaze, taking momentary satisfaction in the truth turned against Asselin, then looked back up to smile at Javier’s teasing remark: “Splendid. I’ll tell Sacha he’s dreadful in bed when he comes to me with imprecations about your reputation.” His humour faded. “And Marius?”

“Believes you’ll put me aside, my lord.” Belinda sighed, more genuine regret in the sound than she was comfortable owning to. “The same story you told your mother. A mother might eventually forgive, but a friendship like Marius’s is a precious thing to waste.”

“He’ll forgive me, in time.” Javier’s unflaggable confidence rang false. “It would help if I had a sister to marry him off to. Marius is inconsistent in love. You were-” Discomfort wrote itself over his face. “You were the first he bothered introducing to us.”

“If I’d known about the witchbreed power,” Belinda murmured, “I might have come straight to you, and we might have spared Marius’s heart.” Again, there was more truth in her words than she liked, and Javier drew her closer, sensing her melancholy.

“We two are alone,” he said into her hair. “You couldn’t know. Nor, I think, would you dare introduce yourself to a prince. You fail to watch your tongue often enough, Beatrice, but that boldness might have been beyond your ken.” He chuckled without humour and moved away from her, tension in the lines of his body. “Or did you choose Marius so you might meet me?”

“What a horrible burden to always walk beneath,” Belinda said after a moment, letting raw sorrow touch her voice. “It is lonely to be a prince, isn’t it, my lord? Rumour said that Marius Poulin was your friend,” she admitted cautiously. “I did not imagine he would bring me to meet you so readily.” Truth lay in fine shards beneath her words, Javier seeming too delicate, in the moment, to ease with soothing falsehoods. “I could not have imagined what has happened.” That, at least, was truth unvarnished, so much so that Belinda uttered an unnaturally rough laugh. “Who could?” she added, unable to help the question. To her relief Javier turned back with a wry smile.

“Not I. And I think that even if you had deliberately sought Marius out and used him to reach me, that I might forgive you for it, Beatrice. I have been alone with God and my power all my life, and whatever means brought you to me are means that I am thankful for.”

“Then be thankful for a strong Lanyarchan oak, and the clever hands of shipwrights,” Belinda quipped, and Javier smiled again. “Come, my lord,” she said more quietly, and then amusement slid into her voice despite herself. “We have other things to think about, do we not? A wedding to plan, a throne to topple, and Lanyarch to frame for it.”