Which didn’t help at all because she watched me with that same predatory amusement, daring me to find words.
I cleared my throat. “Is this … for wearing to bed?” Though I tried to ask the question neutrally, a hopeful note crept in. She’d been waiting for it, because she pounced.
“No, Con,” she purred. “This is My ball gown. Do you like it?”
Mentally I recited a tirade of blistering curses at Ambrose. He couldn’t have wanted me to marry some meek and mild princess. No. That would have been too easy.
I should lie and say I did like it. Though that wouldn’t be a lie because I did like it. I more than liked it. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a woman look so distractingly beautiful. Still, even granting that my memories of the court at Oriel had gone dim and tattered with time and heartache, I didn’t remember any woman dressing so … naked.
I’d hesitated too long, because Lia pouted. “You don’t like it.”
I opened my mouth, hoping the words would come, then caught the glint of malicious humor in her eyes, and belatedly remembered she was not a woman to pout. Baiting me then. “I like it,” I admitted, my voice gruff, the honest lust obvious. “You’re a beautiful woman and even smarter than you are beautiful. I trust you know what you’re doing.”
She considered me, the fake sulk disappearing, a hint of surprised pleasure in the curve of her red lips. “Thank you for that, Con. Yes, I do. This gown will be shocking, but only because I wear it. You’ll likely be scandalized by far worse tonight.”
Sondra had tried to warn me about the Flower Court. “I’d rather be shocked by naked bodies than other horrors I’ve seen,” I pointed out, and she sobered.
“I imagine so,” she replied. Then transferred her gaze to the wall. “Thank you for having that fixed. What were you doing to it?”
Grateful to have something else to look at that wouldn’t involve me fighting not to stare at her lushly bare breasts, I stepped aside so she could examine the repair work. “The stones aren’t fitted right, see?”
“So you were fixing it?” She sounded entirely bemused.
“Yeah,” I admitted, realizing belatedly that it likely wasn’t royal behavior. I glanced at her—and had to drag my gaze up to her eyes. “I know something about rocks.”
“I’ll have it properly repaired tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I appreciate you taking steps to fix something that bothered Me.”
“Teamwork, yes?”
She smiled, a wry, subtle curve of her painted lips. “Yes.”
“What now?”
She glanced at a fancy piece on the wall, made of wheels and a swinging pendulum. “We have nearly an hour until we need to make an entrance. I hurried my ladies along and let them go early so they could dress up for the occasion, too. Right now you and I are superfluous and would only be in the way. Would you like a tour of the palace?”
“It’s that or stay and consummate the marriage now.”
She actually considered it, looking me up and down, gaze lingering at my crotch, where she could undoubtedly make out how ready I was. Impossible though it seemed, I hardened more at that salacious attention. Without blushing, she met my gaze. “We could. I have nothing on beneath this gown, but you’d have to be careful not to muss Me.”
My throat went tight and dry. I manfully swallowed, wishing I could as easily push down the raging desire that washed over me at her bald suggestion. And at the thought that I could slip a hand into one of those high slits that revealed her slender thighs and find her womanhood beneath. I might as well be that ten-year-old boy who went to the mines for all I knew what to do then.
I cleared my throat. “That seems…” Too cold. Too like animals rutting. Too disrespectful. Not something I trusted myself to do in my current state. Nothing I could articulate without sounding like a fool. “Too rushed,” I settled on.
She raised an eyebrow painted the same ebony as her hair. Did that mean this hair still wasn’t her natural color? “I think neither of us entertains sentimentality about this liaison, Conrí. The point is to get it done with.”
Was that the point? Despite her cool and dismissive demeanor, I suspected she felt more strongly about bedding me than that. “Later,” I decided. “A tour sounds good.”
“You’re never quite what I expect,” she mused. “Shall we then?” She extended her hand with the orchid ring. After the slightest beat, I caught on and offered her my arm and she looped hers through the crook of my elbow, resting her hand on my forearm. “People will stare, but will pretend not to. Let them. Ignore any impolite enough to catch your attention. They are beneath your notice unless I introduce you. Otherwise pay attention only to Me.”
“That won’t be difficult,” I muttered, and she laughed, quietly, but warm and real.
“This is new to Me, too,” she murmured as I opened the door. “I shall be practicing ignoring reactions, too.”
We stepped into the hall and her guards snapped to attention. New faces now, as her previous guards had been drawn away by the pitched battle in the hall. I’d have to speak to their commander. A serious lapse of discipline that they’d left Lia’s chambers unguarded, even as well as it had worked out for me. Possibly Ambrose had something to do with it, but nevertheless.
People raced about as we strolled through the halls, the palace clearly in a frenzy of preparation. As she’d indicated, Lia ignored them all with regal indifference, pointing out various artworks and interesting bits about the architecture. As we approached, the people with no other exit scooted to the sides of the halls, bowing and averting their gazes.
“I have something to show you,” Lia said, turning down another wing of the sprawling palace, this one away from the main activity.
I refrained from commenting that she’d shown me—and everyone else—pretty much everything already. A provincial attitude no doubt. What would my mother and sister have thought of Lia and the licentiousness of her ways? Oddly, I thought they both might’ve appreciated it. My mother had been a fiercely intelligent queen, not unlike Lia, stern and regal when in court. And my sister … She would’ve been the same. She should never have died the way she did.
It hit me then that I already knew I’d die before I let Anure have Lia. I would have to find a way to destroy him while keeping her safe.
“Through here,” Lia said, and led me into a long and shadowy arcade, lit only by glassed-in narrow windows high on the walls. “We keep it dim in here,” she explained, “to preserve the art.” She kept walking past extraordinary paintings and portraits. So many that they hung with their frames practically touching. Something stirred in my memory, a feeling about them that seemed familiar from long ago. Could these be from before Anure?
Then I halted, feeling even more gutstruck than when I’d turned to see Lia in all her nearly naked glory. An entire wall of paintings I remembered from Oriel. And there—the portrait of my mother and father, formal in their royal gear, my sister standing beside them in the gown commissioned for the painting, her slender hand on my father’s knee.
And me, beside my mother, a little boy with chubby cheeks and a bright smile, my puppy playing at my feet.