Page 22 of The Consort's Curse
All of them wore some kind of scent: rose and gardenia, amber and cedar, all mingled with the fumes of the wine and liquor they were drinking. My head swam.
“Didn’t take you for the marrying kind, Lord Stefan!” said the next man, and I shook his hand too, still clinging to my husband with my left. A few minutes ago, he’d moved as if to detach from me, and I’d dug my fingers into his arm with all the strength of years of manual labor in a garden. He hadn’t stood a chance unless he wanted to wrestle me in the middle of the ball. I might despise him, but I’d be damned if I’d let go of the only person in the room whose name I could be certain of.
I bowed to the next comer, who smirked at me from behind a cravat even more lush with lace than anything I’d seen my fop of a husband wear.
“Well, well, you sly dog, where’d you find this lovely little thing?” he asked, the words obviously for Lord Stefan, but the leer very clearly directed below my neck. He lifted his eyes after a long and awkward moment, bending down and taking my hand in his. “I beg you shall permit me to call upon you later this week, and if I find that Lord Stefan isn’t keeping you sufficiently entertained, sweeting, I shall do my—”
“Damn me, Lord Griset, ifIdon’t keep him sufficiently entertained,you’llrisk putting him into a stupor,” Lord Stefan said, cutting across Lord Griset’s over-cultured simper with hisown drawl. Somehow, he didn’t need to raise his voice. He simply made himself heard. “We haven’t set a day yet for callers, in any case.” His voice dropped to a lower, harder register. “And I see no immediately compelling reason why we would, what?”
I watched in fascination as Lord Griset’s face went brick-red around the edges, leaving lighter mauve spots on his cheeks where he’d applied his rouge in a thick, opaque layer. “You offend me,” he choked. “As if this—this little carrot could possibly tempt me. You offend me, sir!”
If I’d had a glass of wine in my hand that I could’ve drained, I might have been able to keep quiet. Although I might have been as likely to fling it at Lord Griset’s head, because “this little carrot” pushed my already quivering nerves into a screaming vibration. Ironically, given the stimulus, a flash of crimson red washed through my vision.
Everyone around us had sucked in an anticipatory breath, leaving a bubble of quiet into which I snarled, “His offensiveness requires effort, my lord. I congratulate you on how naturally you manage a feat he must work hard to achieve.”
Beside me, Lord Stefan went unnaturally still. Staring down Lord Griset as his mouth dropped open and he drew himself up to his full height—much less than Lord Stefan’s, but greater, as almost anyone could boast, than mine—was far easier than turning my head to see my husband’s expression, which probably translated to something like “I’m locking you in an attic for the rest of your life.”
He jerked his elbow out from under my hand despite my hold on him; so much for my strength. And then his arm slipped under my jacket and wrapped tightly around my corseted waist, his hand on my hip.
Lord Stefan tugged me close, his grip like iron.
“As you can see, my darling consort’s temper matches his hair,” he said, with a laugh that sounded as pleasant as ifhe’d been making a gentle jest with a friend. Everyone around us, except for Lord Griset, tittered nervously. Lord Griset was chewing his lower lip purple. “There’s a reason I’ve wanted to keep him home and all to myself,” he went on, in a tone so suggestive that the words might as well have been explicit. “If you’ll excuse us, my little spitfire needs to be cooled with a glass of wine.”
To my shock, Lord Griset simply stood there as my husband walked away, dragging me with him, his arm clamped so tightly around me that I’d have been bruised if not for the protection of my armor-like boned corset. The others who’d gathered around us broke out into excited chatter, fans flipping open as they ducked behind them to whisper dramatically. A few other ladies and gentlemen nearby craned their heads, trying to see what had caused the fuss, but Lord Stefan led me past them without even seeming to notice.
What I’d said replayed in my mind, and fear bloomed in the churning pit of my stomach and in the hot tension in the back of my neck—along with righteous indignation, because what did he expect, that I’d simply swallow being dismissed as an undesirable carrot? A carrot! Of all the childish insults! And of course I’d bloody well tempted him, the damn liar—hadn’t he been proposing “entertaining” me in my husband’s absence a moment before?
Lord Stefan reached out and snagged a glass of sparkling wine from a passing servant’s tray of drinks, handed it to me, and paused long enough to nod and say a word to a gentleman nearby. That gave me the chance to tip the glass up, recklessly draining every drop in one draught that went straight to my head.
I managed to set it down on the broad rim of a pot holding a large flowering tree as Lord Stefan led me out of the crush of the people watching the dancers and into the alcove partlyshielded by the foliage. I tried to pull away from him; he tugged me closer, spinning us so that we were face to face. I stumbled, my heels getting the better of me, and he moved with me until I had my back flat against the wall, with him looming over me, surrounding me, his free hand leaning beside my head. A small window up above let in a shaft of moonlight, limning his features in harsh lines.
Any attempt to escape would be futile. It reminded me horribly of being in my father-in-law’s study, with the whole court on the other side of a door and no hope of help from any one of them. I was completely at his mercy.
And then Lord Stefan bit his lip, hung down his head, and started to…could he be growling? Having a fit? Good gracious gods, he truly was mad, and…he shook his head and let out a distinct guffaw.
Laughing! The bastard had dragged me in here, terrified me and pinned me to a wall, so that he couldlaugh!
“Oh, fucking Ennolu,” he said at last, lifting his head. He spoke low enough that no one could possibly have heard him even if they’d been trying to eavesdrop outside the deceptive privacy of our little corner of the ballroom, but I could still hear the quiver of amusement in his deep voice. “Look at me, Remigius.”
I stared fixedly at the spill of ivory lace between the high silk collar points of his jacket. I wouldnotlook at him, damn him! Had he been laughing at my pathetic attempt to put Lord Griset in his place?
I would ignore his mockery, just as I would ignore the hard wall of his body pressing into me, warmer than the stone behind me but just as solid, and I would not breathe in the faint spicy tartness of whatever scent permeated his clothing—or simply emanated from his skin. Trying to arch away from the arm around my waist only pressed me against his…oh, gods. Oh,sweet fuckinggods. He didn’t seem to be erect, but the outline still felt like he’d stuffed one of the giant zucchinis we used to grow in the abbey garden into the front of his breeches. A startled little whimper ripped out of my throat.
“Remigius,” he repeated, and this time it held a note of warning, the amusement gone.
“Stop calling me that, for the love of Ennolu,” I snapped, breathless and prickling with sweat and vividly recollecting the way his lips had crushed mine and his tongue had penetrated my mouth, and all the more angry because of it. But damn it, I couldn’t hiss my vitriol at his cravat without feeling like a complete idiot, and so I looked up and met his dark gaze even though he’d told me to. “I hate my name! I hate it even more now that it’s joined to yours!”
“Remi Ettori has a light, sweet sort of a sound to it,” Lord Stefan said. “And you’re anything but sweet, as I’m coming to learn. Remigius suits you better. You shouldn’t give free rein to that sharp tongue of yours unless you’re prepared to fight your own battles. Didn’t I tell you specifically not to get me into a duel?”
“He’s very obviously not the dueling kind, and anyway, he called me a carrot! Lord Stefan, if you—”
“Lord Stefan?LordStefan? We’re married! You’re quarrelling with my use of your full name and you can’t even use mine, which is the most absurd—”
“—had the slightest interest in behaving like a husband—wait, you’re saying Remigius suits me better, which is incredibly offensive, and also taking issue with my use of your title? You’re a hypocrite!”
He shut his mouth and then said, “All right,” after a moment’s consideration. “Fine. Remi. Remi?” I nodded, unable to do more than that. Damn this corset anyway, for making it so hard to be furious without struggling for breath. “If youwant me to stop calling you Remigius, then you call me Stefan. You’re the damn hypocrite. And that asshole Griset’s not going to forget this. You made an enemy tonight. And appearances can be deceptive.” The corner of his mouth quirked, as if he knew damn well that applied to him, too. “Griset handles a rapier very well, but he knows I’m better. I almost wish he bloody well had challenged me. Then I could’ve skewered him and been done with it.”
He and Griset might be fops, but I could believe his assertion that they both had skill with a sword; all men of our station, and many of the women, learned to fence. I’d had weekly lessons myself until my banishment to the abbey, though I’d never gotten good at it.
