“You don’t enjoy wine?” she asks him, the first words either of them has spoken to the other since they were pronounced man and wife.
He turns his gaze to her, large hazel eyes blinking like he’d forgotten she was there. Maybe it’s the wine, turning her mind soft and sentimental, but he suddenly reminds her of a puppy she had as a child that followed her everywhere, always staring at her with eyes like that, soft and perplexed, a pathetic whimper constantly in the back of his throat.
She was relieved when Sophronia took responsibility for the creature, though it wasn’t something they ever discussed. It was simply understood between them: Sophronia knows how to take care of helpless things, Beatriz doesn’t.
“Not particularly,” Prince Pasquale says, dropping his eyes from hers to focus on his lap, his hands fidgeting. Now that he’s removed his gloves, she can see he bites his nails—they are so short and ragged that the skin around them has been torn up as well.
She waits for him to continue but realizes that he has no intention of elaborating. She should say something witty now, she knows this, but with the wine buzzing through her, her wits are just out of reach.
“You could smile, you know,” she says, before she can stop herself. “Pretend to be happy about this so people stop wondering if I’m hiding a thicket of thorns between my legs.”
The prince actually blushes at that—his face turning as red as the wine in her glass.
“No one thinks that,” he mutters. “Trust me, they aren’t whispering about you. They’re whispering about me, and I’m quite used to it by now.”
Beatriz rolls her eyes. “You don’t get it, do you, Your Highness? We are married now. They aren’t only whispering about you, they’re whispering about me, too. Me more, maybe, because I’m new and foreign and a woman so it is inherently more fun for them. So please, paste a smile on your face, laugh at my jokes, and pretend that marrying me isn’t absolute torture for you.”
That gives him pause. He frowns, looking at her again with those pitiful puppy eyes.
“It isn’t torture for me,” he says softly. “It’s just—”
Before he can say more, two new courtiers approach, a boy and girl near Beatriz’s age, both with pale blond hair and fine bones that make them look like a matching set of porcelain dolls, the kind that are kept high on a shelf, looked at and never touched. Though he must outrank them, Prince Pasquale gets to his feet when they approach, and their bow and curtsy are afterthoughts.
“Congratulations, cousin,” the girl says, stepping toward Prince Pasquale, the train of her lapis-blue silk gown spilling over the stairs behind her like a splash of clear sky on a summer’s day. She takes hold of his arms, rolling onto the toes of her jeweled slippers to kiss him on each cheek.
“Gigi, Nico,” the prince says to them, nodding toward the girl and boy in turn. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“As if we would miss the wedding of the century,” the girl, Gigi, says with a bright grin.
“And don’t be rude, Pas—introduce us to your beautiful bride,” the boy, Nico, adds.
Prince Pasquale’s cheeks turn bright red and he mutters something, gesturing from Beatriz to the two newcomers, who Beatriz feels certain must be siblings. Though he’s mumbling too much to be sure, she thinks their names are Gisella and Nicolo.
“A pleasure,” Gisella says, taking hold of Beatriz’s hand and dipping into a deep curtsy. “But call me Gigi—we are family now, after all.”
Beatriz smiles. “Then you must call me Beatriz,” she tells her.
Nicolo goes one step further; when he bows and kisses her hand, his eyes linger on hers, his lips pressed to the back of her hand just a touch too long before he straightens up.
“Enchanted,” he says. “You’re a lucky man, Pas.”
Prince Pasquale mutters more at that, too quietly to be intelligible, but at least with his cousins he seems a bit livelier. Nicolo calls for more fruit wine, so Beatriz has another glass. And another. And another.
* * *
—
It is after midnight when Beatriz is ushered into the bedroom she will share with Prince Pasquale. Her mind buzzes pleasantly as she’s moved about by her attendants, arms and legs raised and lowered so that she can be stripped to her skin and dressed again in a soft pink satin nightgown. She wants nothing more than to crawl into the inviting, plush bed and sleep.
But her attendants keep glancing at her with knowing eyes and smug smiles, and she remembers that tonight is her wedding night and she is not meant to get much sleep.
Beatriz knows what will happen. Her mother explained it to her and her sisters when they were quite young, and then in the last couple of years, she’s heard more details from the courtesans who gave them lessons in seduction. The princesses are supposed to be virginal and pure, of course, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t learn the art of undoing a man with a touch on his arm, or making him fall in love with a single look across a room.
Now, though, she isn’t sure. It is one thing in theory, but when Prince Pasquale enters in his nightshirt and the attendants all scatter from the room, tittering like a flock of parrots, she suddenly doesn’t know what to do.
Start with a kiss, a Bessemian courtesan told her once. Go from there.
After their earlier mishap of a kiss, Beatriz should be wary, but her mind is too blurry with wine to linger long on that. All she knows is that she’s supposed to kiss him, so she stumbles toward him, the marble floor cold beneath her bare feet. She has to steady herself with her hands on his shoulders before pressing her mouth to his.
She is too drunk to care that it is a bad kiss, not just because he is thoroughly unresponsive, but because she doesn’t really want to be kissing him, either. He pulls away, placing a hand on her waist to keep her from falling and lets out a long sigh, a thousand words on his lips that he kills with a shake of his head.
“You’re drunk,” he tells her. “I’ll help you to bed.”
Relief and embarrassment course through her in turn as he pulls back the duvet and tosses the many decorative pillows to the floor, helping her into the bed before pulling the duvet back up, tucking her in the way her nanny used to. Her eyes are so heavy that she begins to fall asleep immediately, though she’s still aware of his footsteps, padding around to the other side. She waits for him to join her.
She’s heard warning stories about men who like women like this, helpless and unable to protest. Maybe all of that shyness, all of that awkwardness, is hiding something darker. Distantly, she’s aware that she’s holding her breath until she hears him lie down, though the bed doesn’t give beside her. She forces herself to roll over, but the wine has made her limbs heavy and it takes more effort than it should.
When she opens her eyes, she sees him lying on the velvet sofa beside the bed.