‘Dear wife,’ he now said in his usual drawl, ‘has the balcony air revived you?’
‘Wine?’ asked Shardan Lim, brows lifting as if serving her was his life’s calling.
Should a husband take umbrage with such barely constrained leering from his so-called friends? Gorlas seemed indifferent.
‘No thank you, Councillor Lim. I have just come to wish you all a good night. Gorlas, will you be much longer here?’
He did not look up from his wine, though his mouth moved as if he was tasting his last sip all over again, finding the remnants faintly sour on his palate. ‘There is no need to wait for me, wife.’
An involuntary glance over at Shardan revealed both amusement and the clear statement that he would not be so dismissive of her.
And, with sudden, dark perverseness, she found herself meeting his eyes and smiling in answer.
If it could be said, without uncertainty, that Gorlas Vidikas did not witness this exchange, Hanut Orr did, although his amusement was of the more savage, contemptuous kind.
Feeling sullied, Challice turned away.
Her handmaid trailed her out and up the broad flight of stairs, the only witness to the stiffness of her back as she made her way to the bedroom.
Once the door was closed she threw off her half-cloak. ‘Lay out my jewellery,’ she said.
‘Mistress?’
She spun to the old woman. ‘I wish to see my jewellery!’
Ducking, the woman hurried off to do her bidding.
‘The old pieces,’ Challice called after her. From the time before all this. When she had been little more than a child, marvelling over the gifts of suitors, all the bribes for her affection still clammy from sweaty hands. Oh, there had been so many possibilities then.
Her eyes narrowed as she stood before her vanity.
Well, perhaps not only then, Did it mean anything? Did it even matter any more?
Her husband had what he wanted now. Three duellists, three hard men with hard voices in the Council. One of the three now, yes, all he wanted.
Well, what about what she wanted?
But. . what is it that I want?
She didn’t know.
‘Mistress.’
Challice turned.
Laid out on the vanity’s worn surface, the treasure of her maidenhood looked. . cheap. Gaudy. The very sight of those baubles made her sick in the pit of her stomach. ‘Put them in a box,’ she said to her servant. ‘Tomorrow we sell them.’
He should never have lingered in the garden. His amorous host, the widow Sepharla, had fallen into a drunken slumber on the marble bench, one hand still holding her goblet as, head tilted back and mouth hanging open, loud snores groaned out into the sultry night air. The failed enterprise had amused Murillio, and he had stood for a time, sipping at his own wine and smelling the fragrant scents of the blossoms, until a sound alerted him to someone’s quiet arrival.
Turning, he found himself looking upon the widow’s daughter.
He should never have done that, either.
Half his age, but that delineation no longer distinguished unseemly from otherwise. She was past her rite of passage by three, perhaps four years, just nearing that age among young women when it was impossible for a man to tell whether she was twenty or thirty. And by that point, all such judgement was born of wilful self-delusion and hardly mattered anyway.
He’d had, perhaps, too much wine. Enough to weaken a certain resolve, the one having to do with recognizing his own maturity, that host of years behind him of which he was constantly reminded by the dwindling number of covetous glances flung his way. True, one might call it experience, settling for those women who knew enough to appreciate such traits. But a man’s mind was quick to flit from how things were to how he wanted them to be, or, even worse, to how they used to be. As the saying went, when it came to the truth, every man was a duellist sheathed in the blood of ten thousand cuts.
None of this passed through Murillio’s mind in the moment his eyes locked gazes with Delish, the unwed daughter of widow Sepharla. The wine, he would later conclude. The heat and steam of the fete, the sweet blossom scents on the moist, warm air. The fact that she was virtually naked, wearing but a shift of thin silk. Her light brown hair was cut incredibly short in the latest fashion among maidens. Face pale as cream, with full lips and the faintest slope to her nose. Liquid brown eyes big as a waif’s, but there was no cracked bowl begging alms in her hands. This urchin’s need belonged elsewhere.
Reassured by the snoring from the marble bench — and horrified by his own relief Murillio bowed low before her. ‘Well timed, my dear,’ he said, straightening. ‘I was considering how best to assist your mother to her bed. Suggestions?’
A shake of that perfectly shaped head. ‘She sleeps there most nights. Just like that.’
The voice was young yet neither nasal nor high-pitched as seemed the style among so many maidens these days, and so it failed in reminding him of that vast chasm of years between them.
Oh, in retrospect, so many regrets this night!
‘She never thought you’d accept her invitation,’ Delish went on, glancing down to where she had kicked off one of her sandals and was now prodding it with a delicate toe. ‘Desirable as you are. In demand, I mean, on this night espe shy;cially.’
Too clever by far, this stroking of his vaguely creped and nearly flaccid ego. ‘But dear, why are you here? Your list of suitors must be legion, and among them-’
‘Among them, not a single one worth calling a man.’
Did a thousand hormone-soaked hearts break with that dismissive utterance? Did beds lurch in the night, feet kicking clear of sweaty sheets? He could almost believe it.
‘And that includes Prelick.’
‘Excuse me, who?’
‘The drunk, useless fool now passed out in the foyer. Tripping over his sword all night. It was execrable.’
Execrable. Yes, now I see.
‘The young are prone to excessive enthusiasm,’ Murillio observed. ‘I have no doubt poor Prelick has been anticipating this night for weeks, if not months. Naturally, he succumbed to nervous agitation, brought on by proximity to your lovely self. Pity such young men, Delish; they deserve that much at least.’
‘I’m not interested in pity, Murillio.’
She should never have said his name in just that way. He should never have listened to her say anything at all.
‘Delish, can you stomach advice on this night, from one such as myself?’
Her expression was one of barely maintained forbearance, but she nodded.
‘Seek out the quiet ones. Not the ones who preen, or display undue arrogance. The quiet ones, Delish, prone to watchfulness.’
‘You describe no one I know.’
‘Oh, they are there. It just takes a second glance to notice them.’
She had both sandals off now, and she dismissed his words with a wave of one pale hand that somehow brought her a step closer. Looking up as if suddenly shy, yet holding his gaze too long for there to be any real temerity. ‘Not quiet ones. Not ones to pity. No. . children! Not tonight, Murillio. Not under this moon.’
And he found her in his arms, a soft body all too eager with naught but filmy silk covering it and seemed to be sliding over him, a sylph, and he thought: Under this moon?
Her last gesture at the poetic, alas, since she was already tearing at his clothes, her mouth with those full lips wet and parted and a tongue flickering as she bit at his own lips. And here he was with one hand on one of her breasts, his other hand slipping round to her behind, hitching her up as she spread her legs and climbed to anchor herself on his hips, and he heard his belt buckle clack on the pavestone between his boots.
She was not a large woman. Not at all heavy, but surprisingly athletic, and she rode him with such violence that he felt his lower spine creak with every frenzied plunge. He sank into his usual detachment at this point, the kind that assured impressive endurance, and took a moment to confirm that the snoring continued behind him. All at once that sonorous sound struck him with a sense of prophetic dissolution, surrender to the years of struggle that was life’s own chorus — and so we shall all end our days — a momentary pang that, had he permitted it to linger, would have unmanned him utterly. Delish, meanwhile, was wearing herself out, her gasps harsher, quicker, as shudders rose through her, and so he surrendered — not a moment too soon — to sensation. And joined her in one final, helpless gasp.