The Smaller Ladies Retiring Room, the Richelieu Residence, Uptown
Some day, Niccolette thought, she would take Uzoji there. Once he had seen Florne - and properly - he would concede that it rivaled even Thul Ka for greatness. Vienda could not hold a candle to either, naturally. She doubted, too, that the city’s propensity for distraction has lessened in the least; she had every confidence that Lilliana’s time could be well-occupied, if such occupation was what she sought.
It was time that they returned; Niccolette matched Lilliana with the draining of her glass. She set it down with a quiet clink, gathering herself, and glancing regretfully at the bottle of champagne, and the glasses left inside.
Niccolette raised her eyebrows at the sound from the hallway. One of the Richelieu’s daughter, she thought. Was it the one who had quite not yet shed her baby fat, or the one who seemed able to talk only in a high pitched breathless voice? From Lilliana’s reaction, it was the other she wished to avoid.
Niccolette studied the Anaxi. She glanced around the small room; she rose delicately from the chair where she had perched as she straightened her toilette. Niccolette walked across the room, undid the window latch, and opened it wide.
”As you like,” Niccolette said. It was a crisp, cool night, as were so many in the rainy season, but not unpleasant. She breathed in deep the air, grateful for the freshness of it, and sorry, just a little, to banish the last lingering memories of other scents.
It was easily big enough for either of them - low enough, Niccolette thought casually, that she could have sat on the sill and swung her legs over, even in such a dress. The patio that ran along the back of the house was level with the floor; it would be almost simple.
It was not, naturally, simple in the least. Likely as not they had been gone too long already for polite excuses to suffice. Niccolette wondered, floating on the champagne and other delights, if being caught climbing from a retiring room window would be sufficient to get her banned from polite society; she almost hoped it was, though she had her reasons for wanting otherwise. She did not think so, not really, not for either of them. It would be awkward, naturally, but not ruinous.
Niccolette did not have the excuse of a soon-to-be-scorned lover; all the same, she thought she would rather escape into the patio with Lilliana than endure one more moment of dull repetitive polite conversation, of endless social niceties, and the polite dampening of her field.
Niccolette turned back to Lilliana then, and raised both brows, smiling. She stepped to the side, leaving the other woman space enough to go through - if she wished. Niccolette found herself rather hoping Lilliana did wish.