C. Murphy - The Queen_s Bastard

The drapes needed opening; the room needed light and air to clear away that telltale scent. Better for her, if worse for Gregori, if no one noticed the count’s illness in such early days, and besides, the scullery maids ought to have their ears bent for leaving their lord and master’s rooms in the dark. Tray balanced on her hip, Belinda stalked to the windows, yanking a handful of heavy curtain back.

“Leave them.”

Twice in a single morning she’d been taken off-guard. Belinda, facing the curtains, allowed herself to press her eyes closed, nostrils flaring. The cut of discovery ran deeper within herself, a tightening in her stomach and groin. Not panic, but something akin to desire.

“My lord,” she said in a low voice, curtsying even as she turned toward the voice. “I’m sorry, my lord. I didn’t see you.” She kept her eyes lowered, more to hide her irritation with herself than out of deference to the count.

“You’re injured,” he said.

Belinda lifted a hand to her cheek, then twitched it away again as if aware she’d betrayed herself with the gesture. “It’s nothing, my lord.” Now her eyes were downcast to hide the light of success: she’d read him correctly. He noticed what his castellan had not.

“Come here.”

Now she dared glance up through her eyelashes, if only to gauge the distance.

Gregori languished on a divan, startlingly pale against the heavy greens and golds. He was dressed loosely in sleeping gowns under a brocaded robe; his hair, usually swept back and tidy, was in disarray. Belinda was surprised to see how much curl, and how much grey, it had. His eyes were unnaturally bright, reflecting more light than the room had to offer.

Belinda came forward, setting his breakfast tray on a small table, and knotted her hands together below her waist. The stance bespoke fear and respect, and protecting herself; it also drew his gaze to her hips, where it lingered a few moments. “They call you Rosa, do they not?” he asked without lifting his eyes. She tightened her fingers in front of her groin, knowing he saw her knuckles whiten.

“Yes, my lord.” The name was a safe one, part of her own and repeated in one version or another in nearly every Echonian language, and oft-used in Khazar as well. “My lord, are you well?” She whispered the words, hearing a quaver in her own voice, and nearly believed her own performance. A serving girl had no right to ask after her master’s health.

“Well enough.” Gregori put his hand around her wrist, pulling her hands away from her belly. His hand was feverishly warm, thumb and forefinger more than encircling her wrist. Belinda stumbled a half step forward. Gregori bore down on her wrist, and she dropped to the stone floor, hard enough to bruise her knees even through skirts and carpets. Her gaze darted up to meet his, her eyes wide. He kept his grip on her wrist as he lifted his other hand to touch the bruise on her cheek. Belinda hissed, jerking her head away a fraction of an inch, then held as still as she could, eyes intent on his expression.

He wet his lips, pressing his thumb against the masked bruise. Pain stung at the back of Belinda’s throat and in her eyes, dry and without tears. “What happened?”

“N-nothing, my lord. Only my own clumsiness. I opened a door too quickly-” Belinda had heard a dozen women use the same excuse. Gregori believed it no more than she had.

“A door with knuckles, and a round stone ring. Have you a lover, Rosa?”

“No, my lord!” Horror shot Belinda’s voice up, and she clapped her free hand over her mouth. Gregori’s fingers tightened around her other wrist.

“Have you ever?”

Belinda dropped her gaze again, shivering. “Yes, my lord.” Let him think she was too frightened to lie to him. The truth now was better than the outrage of a man later denied virgin blood. To her surprise, Gregori chuckled.

“You’re either very foolish or very wise to admit that, Rosa. Which is it?” He took his hand from her cheek and settled it at her bodice, plucking at the ties with the casual confidence of a man who knew time was in his favour. “Do these stays and ties hide other bruises, I wonder?”

Belinda shook her head mutely, amending the answer privately: not yet.

“You’ve lied to me once and told the truth once, Rosa. Which is it now?” He smiled at her for the first time, and as she took a breath to answer her bodice loosened. He slid his fingers, hotter and softer than Dmitri’s, under her shift, catching the weight of her breast in his smooth hand. Too smooth: there wasn’t enough water in his body, the heat speaking more of fever than desire. Belinda thought of the desire she’d had to force sickness on him, and wet her own lips, semiconsciously copying his behavior of moments earlier.

“The truth, my lord.”

His smile broadened. “But you don’t deny that you lied?”

She shook her head silently a second time.

“I cannot keep on a serving girl who lies, Rosa.” The chastisement was light and mocking. “Do you think it can be trained out of you?”

Belinda swallowed again, letting her eyes drift shut. Gregori’s skin was too hot, his eyes too bright, his colour bad. He had been well yesterday, and his symptoms were not those of the arsenic. Perhaps Dmitri need not have worried: this once it seemed nature and the queen’s bastard had the same agenda.

But fevers could be healed from, if a man had strength, and the hold Gregori still had on her wrist told Belinda that he still had strength to spare. She remembered the strong dose of poison in his cooling tea, and certainty warmed her: the drug wouldn’t hurt as she worked to achieve her ends, but there were other ways available, too. Cutting a man’s hair wasn’t the only way to drain his strength.

“Rosa?” His voice was more pointed, angrier now. Belinda lifted her chin to meet his eyes, letting a tremble come back into her voice.

“Perhaps w-with a strong hand, my lord.” Let him take her hesitation for fear. Let him revel in his stronghold, while she eked the soil from beneath fortress walls.

Gregori’s smile sharpened, and Belinda steeled herself against pain. Viktor’s mouth thinned with anger when she undressed that night. “No,” she said, before he had time to fling the accusation. “It wasn’t you.” She kept her eyes lowered, though she watched him through her eyelashes. “I drew the count’s attention this morning.”

Jealousy struggled with loyalty, thinning Viktor’s mouth to white beneath his dark beard. “I wouldn’t betray you,” she continued, voice low and beguiling. “You must know that.” She didn’t call him by name; she never called them by name. It made it easier for most things, although in moments like this it would be useful to play that card. Men-and women, too-liked little more than the sound of their own names being spoken. If only she were sure it was Viktor, and not Vlad, she might calculate the risk and take it. Instead she let her shift fall a little further around her breasts, clutching it loosely. “I had no choice.”

“If he gets you with child, I’ll marry you.” The man’s words were blunt and hard in the quiet room. Belinda forgot coquettishness in astonishment and let the shift drop, only catching it at the last moment. She drew it up too late; the bruises against her throat Viktor had already seen, but the others, on her arms and breasts, she’d thought to hide until twilight dimmed to darkness. Viktor curled his lip and came forward, using both rough hands to pull the shift down. Belinda folded her arms over her breasts as he scowled and knelt, putting his palm over marks left by Gregori’s hands, without touching them. Her ribs, her hip, her thigh. The last he put his hand on, making her pull away, making her open her legs. The marks there, against the backs of her thighs and curving inward, were welts, not bruises. Viktor’s hands, usually warm, felt cool against the raised marks. “Do you like this?” There was so much anger in his voice that the words scraped from his throat. Belinda answered truthfully, surprising herself.