Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [39]
I exhaled a breath I'd not known I held, leaning on Fortun's arm. It was a greater spectacle than the one at Cereus House, which is famed throughout the City, although I daresay they lay no odds on the players in Night's Doorstep. These were professionals, performing at the Queen's behest, with scores of artisans to assist them.
"Shall we dance, my lady?" Fortun inquired.
"And it please you, Comtesse de Montrève," a man's silken voice insinuated, "I would beg that honor."
Turning, I espied my latest suitor clad as Hesperus, the evening star. His doublet and hose were of a deep twilight blue, and over them he wore a surcoat of a deeper blue silk, the shade of encroaching night. For a rarity, the cut was elegant and simple, flattering his well-made form. His coat was adorned with intricate brocade, and in it were set myriad bits of mirror, so that he glimmered with the subtle light of the evening sky, and a silver star mask obscured his features. I knew him by his voice, his grace and his black hair, that fell in a river of fine-linked braids down his back.
"My lord Shahrizai," I said, keeping my voice cool. "Let us do so.”
With an immaculate bow, Marmion Shahrizai escorted me onto the dancing floor.
If I had had a dozen or more partners that night, and I had, not a one approached his skill. One trains as hard to be the perfect courtier as courtesan, I think, and the Shahrizai are without peer. Marmion swept me over the floor, one hand holding mine, one placed with surety low on my back, and I needed no more think to follow his lead than I need think to breathe. Indeed, I heard murmurs of admiration as we passed, for it is in the D'Angeline nature to admire beauty in all its forms. We were well-matched, he and I.
In the scant inches that separated us, it was another matter.
"So tell me," he said, smiling pleasantly, "have you heard from my cousin?"
I smiled back at him, my movements flowing effortlessly with his. "It is strange you should ask, my lord; I was wondering the same about you."
Marmion Shahrizai bent his head tenderly beside mine. "If I heard from Melisande," he murmured in my ear, "the message would likely be delivered at knife-point. But I have been thinking, little Comtesse." He held me at arm's length as we executed a complex series of steps, then drew me in close again as the music slowed. "Someone reached the postern gate unchallenged at Troyes-le-Mont, yes? And who was better trusted and less feared than the Queen's pet anguissette." His expression never changed, smiling down at me. Only I would have caught the cruelty in it. "You have been in league with my cousin from the first, Comtesse; do not think I am blind to it. I assure you," he whispered, his grip tightening on my hand, "I am watching."
It brought me hard against him, my loins pressed firm against his, my breasts brushing his chest, I craned my neck back to gaze at his implacable, smiling star-masked face. "Do you pretend loyalty to the Queen, my lord Shahrizai?" I asked him breathlessly, struggling to match his composure. "I hear you set the fire that killed your sister, lest she revealthe complicity with which you betrayed her."
Marmion's smile hardened and his hand splayed on my back, pressing me harder against him. I could feel his fingertips digging into my flesh, and beneath his breeches, his phallus rising, rigid and pressing against me. His other hand clenched hard on mine, grinding the small bones together. "Do you?" he asked. "I hear a great many things about you, too, Comtesse. I trust not all are slanderous lies, as is this thing you have heard."
Kushiel's Dart strikes where it will; my body betrayed me, yearning toward his. He danced with consummate grace, and no one but I knew that his hips moved with the subtlety of a skilled tribadist, moving against me as his iron grip held me in place. I fought unsuccessfully against the flutter in my loins, the surging warmth. "Lord Shahrizai," I said, my