[Closed] I Should Care

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

T
here was rather something about being looked at so in the midst of Niccolette Ibutatu’s field. Perhaps it was Diana’s memory of the duel on Clock’s Eve, and of the glimpses she had gotten – stolen, she was beginning to realize now, for sidelong looks at such loveliness had even then felt like theft – of the way Niccolette had looked at the duelists.

There had been something ruthless about her eye even then, even from such a long distance. Like a duelist, she had thought then, of course; like a surgeon, she thought now, and there was something uite a bit more frightening about that. She had heard a little now, asking around, about the way Niccolette dueled, at least Uptown: about her careful, clever eye, and the way she chose her targets.

She thought that hearsay could not do justice to the woman’s dueling, but this – this could, perhaps. She was beginning to grasp what it might feel like to be opposite her with the timer set and a great hush fallen over the audience, in the space between the arbiter’s call and the first breath of monite.

Only now, the seconds seemed to stretch.

She knew, of course, there was no danger. A useful occupation “politician’s wife” might have been, but it was no threat to her, whoever and whatever she was. Whatever a politician’s wife of her standing knew, whatever she suspected, meant very little. There was no warning look in Niccolette’s eyes, she thought, no reprimand.

Examination instead, at least at first. The firelight glinted in Niccolette’s eyes, catching them more green again than hazel. They traveled down her neck, swept over her dress. Diana thought that she could feel them like touch, like fingers working their way around elaborate eyelets, into folds of silk, over lace inset just shy of skin – so that it was almost a surprise when they found her hands and she felt nothing.

What did she see? Diana wondered, as Niccolette’s eyes lingered and wandered down her dress. No, not wandered: this was more focused, more precise, than wandering; this was nothing like wandering. A surgeon knew rather well the shape of a woman underneath the cut of her dress and her corsetry. She shivered, shifting the cross of her ankles.

Niccolette was close enough to touch, if Diana reached for her. She had been for some time, but something about the way her posture had shifted inward seemed to invite it rather more.

There was something in particular about a lock of hair just brushing Niccolette’s cheek that called to her. The younger woman was immaculately arranged; it would’ve been terribly impolite, but she wanted to reach out and tuck it behind the other woman’s ear, if only for how close it would bring her hand to Niccolette’s cheekbone.

Then ask me, the other woman said simply.

When it came to it, Diana was not exactly sure what to ask. She knew very little about these sorts of things. Are you a criminal? seemed ridiculous; Niccolette Ibutatu was hardly a common thug, and by a broader standard, most of Uptown Vienda was guilty of some sort of crime. Are you a – pirate seemed even more ridiculous, frankly. Was your husband a pirate? seemed most ridiculous of all, for all Mr. Ibutatu had been the aeroship pilot.

She did not want to ask any of those, not really, not at this particular moment. And so what was it she did want to ask, at this very moment, as if the other woman had handed her the reins?

“What would you cast?” she asked instead quietly, shifting to sit a little closer herself, looking into Niccolette’s eyes. “If we were dueling, at this very moment – at the second tier, perhaps, and the first turn was yours.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

Diana held her gaze, the distance between them very little indeed, now.

Niccolette thought – as she had for some weeks now, however idly – that it would be pleasant to close it further, so that no space yet remained. In the same moment, something of it, something in the mingling of their fields, for all neither of them had the faintest hint of sigiling or tension, reminded her of a duel.

She did not look away; she would, not, from a perceptivist.

It had been a challenge, Niccolette knew. She was smiling, still, looking across the distance to Diana – not, any longer, looking down at the elegant lace inset with the barest implication of bare skin beneath, or the sweep of green and gold over the edge of the chair, but looking only at Diana.

Niccolette wondered what the other woman would ask.

She hoped – she hoped very much indeed – that it would not be about her husband. She supposed it might; they had met, after all, at Anatole’s introduction. For all the statue of Naulas rested on the mantleplace, the shadowed glow from his horns stretched out over the room, there had been very little of Anatole here, and Niccolette rather thought she would like it to remain so.

The question, when it came, caught her by surprise; her smile widened in the wake of it, and something sparked through her field – more like excitement than tension, the faintest little flicker of it deliberately let through. She thought she could almost feel Diana shiver with it.

“At this very moment,” Niccolette repeated, carefully, turning the words over. She smiled. She did not lean close, though they were close enough that she could have reached out, now, effortlessly, to set her hand on Diana’s, to brush Diana’s cheek with her fingertips, or even further.

“I would not hurt you,” Niccolette said, looking at Diana. She smiled. “Pain is an ineffective tool, at best, particularly at the beginning of a duel. There are those who seek to rattle their opponents with it; I have faced some for which such tactics had their place. You, I think, would not be one such.”

There was no rain, still; the ray of sunlight streaming through the clouds seemed to have dissipated into a broader light, glistening on the dewdrops on the edges of the plants, gleaming through the glass. The fire still crackled, through it was just beginning to burn down; it would be wise, Niccolette thought, for one of them to stir it, or else to call someone.

Niccolette did not look away; she did not think of rising to cross to the fire.

“I would try a control spell, I think,” Niccolette said. “There are those which would hold you in place, completely still, for as long as I had the will to upkeep,” her gaze still held Diana’s, and her smile widened, just the slightest fraction at the edge of her dark-painted lips. Yes, she thought; a control spell, most likely. Ironically for all the students who had ever failed to cover their opponent’s mouth with their hand, it was easier to freeze the body entirely than to make a detailed motion of any of its limbs. She knew from experience she could hold such a spell well, perhaps even a few minutes, likely through Diana’s turn, if the mona allowed it, without draining herself too much for the duel to come.

“What do you think of it?” Niccolette asked, curiously, leaning in just a little herself.

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

S
he might have thought the younger woman would find her question frivolous – if not the silly fancy of a politician’s wife, then an evasion, when there were so many other things she could have asked. She had indeed expected herself to ask them. If she hadn’t the courage to ask about the Ibutatus’ business, then she might have at least asked about her husband. That, she thought, should have been on her mind. It should have been.

Her mind rather emptied at the feeling that whispered out through the living mona around them. It was too controlled to be fully bastly; it was instead a wonderful little hint, every bit purposeful, like the edge of a smile or the glint of an eye. Diana’s own field, which had been smoothly indectal, shivered in it.

At this very moment, Niccolette started, then paused.

Diana had guesses, based on Clock’s Eve; she could have put them into the pause, searching Niccolette’s eyes. No, well and truly, there was no thought of Anatole here. It was easier now to think of paralysis, of adrenaline, of numbing, of what little she knew of the living conversation and of Niccolette.

You would not look away from me, she thought, with a curl of a smile at the edge of her lips. It was true: Niccolette’s attention had been on her rather from the moment she’d stepped into the parlor, but now, since she’d asked her question, it was fixed. For a moment, in a wild fancy, Diana imagined she had initiated a sort of duel. Niccolette’s lips parted again, those eyes still fixed on her, both of them sitting straight and very still; and she imagined them shaping the first syllables of monite, sharper even than her Estuan. Gooseflesh crawled over her skin, though the fold of her hands was relaxed still in her lap, her face smooth, her field indectal.

I would not hurt you, Niccolette said, and one of Diana’s brows raised – sharply. There was the smallest tug of disappointment down through her, as if to say: I should have known this would…

But then she went on, and Diana found herself uite as rapt as she had been at Clock’s Eve.

Niccolette leaned in, ever so slightly. “I think –” She paused. “I imagine you could hold the upkeep even through my turn,” she went on, smile widening, knowing Niccolette must have thought so herself, though she hadn’t said it. “Barring accident, I can see very few ways the first turn would not be yours. A strong start.”

If there was any self-consciousness in her, talking about such things in the midst of a much stronger, more practiced field – and one that had cast recently – it was very hard to find. It was just a matter of practicality; she knew herself and her capabilities, and it was strangely exciting to think of the other woman’s.

“For my own part…” Her smile thinned out, a little furrow of concentration in her brow. She studied Niccolette. Anatole, she might have said, always said…

“Someone very dear to me, then a fellow enthusiast of the lawn, once said that shame is a perceptivist’s greatest ally. He used to say that all duels are waged on – shame, embarrassment, pride. Clock’s Eve was an excellent example; my old friend would have loved it.” A hint of a smile again. “But I have always found that aspect of dueling terribly dull. Surprising, I know, for a perceptivist, but I find that it – obfuscates the natural skill and creativity of the duelists, does it not?”

The fire was burning low; there was a chill in the air. She should have rung for Mrs. Wheelwright to tend the fire; it would hardly have changed anything. And yet.

“No, that would hardly be a useful tool at all in your case, and thank the Circle for it. And I know little enough of you to know what you fear,” she added. “I would not seek to prevent you from casting, not right away; I would, I think, try to read you. Acquire a sense of how your mind works, of what might – distract you.”

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

Niccolette made a faint motion of her head, a wordless yes: yes, she did not say aloud, I could hold it through your turn. What I did in the next, she did not say, would depend on what I saw in your eyes, on whether across the dueling grounds I saw you calm or afraid, and on how strong I felt.

Casting a spell while upkeeping another was a delicate operation, but one in which she was well-practiced. It was worthwhile only if there was some benefit of stacking the two together: a spell to overwhelm an opponent’s hearing while they could not cover their ears, a quick bristle while the body was held still, a spell to sharpen the eyes for light in the midst of day when they could not close them.

There were other ways forward, of course. A numbing of the tongue, perhaps; it was a move she liked, and for good reason, though Niccolette thought it often best saved towards the end of the duel, when both duelists were tired. For all its risks, she thought, the rewards, too, were greater then.

Niccolette thought of such things in the pause between Diana’s words. The other woman’s face was lightly furrowed in concentration, utterly lovely. Their indectal fields were twined together, for all they were far still from envelopment; Niccolette was in every inch aware of the contact, of the touch of bastliness shivering through the perceptive mona, and through her own.

Her smile widened when Diana went on.

Particularly, she might have said, on the lawn. She thought of childish tricks - of ripping an opponent’s blouse to reveal their undergarments, of making an opponent wet themselves on a cold day, of flipping them upside down or making them puke or all the other things which should elicit laughter from the audience.

Control, Niccolette might have said, in place of shame, embarrassment, pride. All such spells aimed to evoke a loss of control, a particular - if narrow - means of distracting one’s opponent, of turning their focus from the duel, of tarring what they took to the mona, when they spoke.

The duel they had watched, Niccolette thought, had evinced such tactics, and more besides. She wondered still, though not in a way to occupy her attention just now, about that last deliberate spell, and the careful web it had finished.

“Yes,” Niccolette said, softly, looking at Diana. “I can imagine it.” She smiled, somewhere between coy and wicked.

“Almost like a race, then,” Niccolette said, her face smoothing back into something like concentration, “I expect.” There wasn’t much space between her hand and Diana’s any longer. It was nothing to close the distance, to set her hand on the other woman’s, both of them now just a little cold.

She looked down herself to see it, her own fingers just a little apart, her thumb settled on the back of the other woman’s. She did not draw it over her skin, but only held, a little bolder and bolder still.

“You should build towards a distraction,” Niccolette said, softly. “And I...” she smiled, just a little, “not knowing quite what you intend,” her thumb, now, moved the faintest bit, careful and curious, “should try to keep you from it, nonetheless.”

If this were a duel, Niccolette thought, amused with herself, she was the one building towards; she supposed she had been ever since her hand had brushed Diana’s a few weeks ago.

“What do you suppose,” Niccolette asked, looking back up to meet Diana’s gaze once more, and holding still, “might distract me?”

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

D
iana could imagine it, too, and rather well. That was the problem; she was, in fact, imagining it. Niccolette smiled that smile, which was as sharp and bright as her field – if a little more intimate, now, in a way Diana could not place, or might have been frightened to – and then Diana felt the other woman’s hand settle on hers. Her skin was cold to the touch, at first; she shivered slightly underneath the layers of her dress.

“Like a race,” she repeated, watching Niccolette’s face fall back into concentration. “Exactly.” She smiled; it wasn’t that she hadn’t expected her to understand, but to hear it from her lips was strangely satisfying. To think that they were of the same mind, and that she was being taken seriously.

Niccolette looked away, down, at their hands. Diana was very still; she neither looked nor moved. She thought that if the other woman’s thumb so much as moved, she might –

She suppressed a shiver anyway, though her field was still smoothly indectal.

There were rules against certain types of distractions in a duel. Unspoken rules, for the most part, which separated duels in society from duels on the Brunnhold lawn, among children who knew no better. Mr. Delacroix had veered close on Clock’s Eve, though it had been entertainment enough for the crowd – which had almost wholly taken his side – that it had passed uncommented-on. In other cases, it was less so. A gentleman or a lady in mourning, she thought now, complicated things somewhat. Much could be excused in the name of conquest, but it was churlish at best to take advantage of grief, and disrespectful enough at worst for the arbiter to stop the duel in the name of honor.

Not knowing what you intend, Niccolette said, and her thumb began to trace a line, light as a feather, across her hand. Gooseflesh crawled over her skin; she held her breath for a moment, then breathed in deeply, unable to hide it.

Somehow, Diana did not think grief would distract Niccolette Ibutatu. Not even as a perceptivist and not a duelist – or at the first tier – would she have tried; somehow, she thought that reminding the other woman of her late husband would have the opposite effect from distraction.

What would distract her? It wasn’t only that her field was strong. It was focused; it was held perfectly indectal, even when her eyes, her voice, her body, were not.

Niccolette was uite close indeed, now. Close enough that the light from the fire cast Diana’s own shadow across her face, but the sun that came in through the atrium doors, gleaming in the droplets of water on the glass, limned her hair. Her skin was warming at the touch, though her cheek still looked smooth and cool as marble.

“I do not know,” Diana said mildly, honestly, raising both of her eyebrows. She had shifted a little closer herself, on the edge of her seat. “I think there is not a great deal which would. There are many things I might use to distract an opponent during a duel, but it seems to me that they should only add to your focus. You seem to me to be a woman who is well-versed in the art of – channeling distraction into focus, perhaps.”

Her eyes hadn’t gone down to their hands; nor had they moved from Niccolette’s face. What do I intend, she thought to herself, with this? If she had to come to the mona with it, what would she say? Hesitation did not bode well.

Perhaps this was why she leaned forward, resting her hand on one of Niccolette’s cheeks. It was warmer than she had thought it would be. She leaned very close indeed, coming off the edge of her seat; she leaned close enough to be an offer, until she thought Niccolette might feel the brush of her breath, and tilted her head, and began to close her eyes.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

Diana’s breath had caught, faintly, not at the moment that Niccolette took her hand, but a breath later, when her thumb had traced a careful path over the other woman’s skin. When, Niccolette supposed, she had come a little closer to declaring herself, a careful closing in on the place she was increasingly sure both of them wished to go. Diana had come a little closer, now; the edges of their skirts were almost brushing, Niccolette’s pale lavender fabric just shy of the other woman’s green, a fold resting just above a flash of gold in the midst of an eyelet.

Channeling distraction into focus, Diana said, and Niccolette smiled, not a broad grin, but something sharper, and a little wicked. Yes, she thought to say, yes. Not, here and now, you have no idea, but rather: would you like to find out?

It was the question, she supposed, she had asked several weeks ago; it was the question she supposed she had asked since, word by word: when she greeted Diana with her field, when she sat beside the other woman, when she took her hand.

It was the question Diana answered, this time in full. If Niccolette couldn’t put the answer into words, she understood all the same; Diana at the edge of her seat, leaning forward, her hand soft against Niccolette’s cheek, her eyes fluttering closed and darkened lashes settling against her cheek.

Niccolette had never been one to hesitate.

She kissed Diana, and Diana kissed back. They both of them tasted just a little of dzhkar; the room was cool enough that she felt it on Diana’s lips, but it didn’t last, not between them. Her field shuddered a little deeper through the other woman’s, spreading out in the air around them, creeping closer and closer to envelopment, though still shy of it. There was, again, a tinge of bastliness to the air around them, the sort that was hard to differentiate because it was shared between the two fields, just enough to heighten the excitement of it.

Niccolette came away, a little, in time; her thumb was stroking over the back of Diana’s hand, the other woman’s skin warm beneath her now. She smiled, looking at Diana.

“I have wanted to do that for some time,” Niccolette murmured, her voice low and more than a little warm.

Perhaps she had thought of it even on Clock’s Eve, Niccolette thought, ruefully. She knew enough of herself to know what she was capable of, now, and what she was not. She was not, she knew, the girl she had been before Uzoji, and never should be – nor would she, in any way, have wanted to be. He had changed her; their marriage had changed her, and she was changed, still.

There was no, she thought, coming through grief and on to the other side. Widow, she thought, then, not as sorry as she had been, once; there was a reason, she supposed, it clung so strongly to every inch of her.

All the same, or else regardless; she had thought, even on Clock’s Eve, in front of the other woman’s husband, of what it would be like to kiss Diana. As they had looked down at the duel on the ground below, and discussed it between the two of them in the shivering cold, with distant bursts of fireworks overhead, she had thought about it. Since – perhaps, at least, since Diana’s invitation had reached her – she had thought about it.

She could acknowledge, Niccolette thought wryly, that she had thought about more than simply kissing the other woman.

Niccolette studied Diana, just a little curiously, not yet reaching for another kiss. She was uncertain as to what to expect, her lips still tingling with the warmth of their kiss, just a little bitter with the other woman’s lip color, mingled with her own.

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

S
he tasted of dzhkar and something else Diana could not place; the whole world might have tasted of her for those few moments, with their fields mingling like the steam from the tea. The touch of her hand had not banished all the cold in the air, and even underneath the layers of her dress, she had the strangest – perhaps less strange, now that she knew it for what it was – desire to lean closer into Niccolette, to take her fully into an embrace.

The kiss lasted only a moment, but it might have stretched into infinity. It might have occupied an Ever. It tasted, too, of that dark lip color she wore so well, faintly bitter. Diana might have disapproved; it was not a respectable woman, she might have said, who painted her face so, least of all Uptown Vienda, and least of all for tea with…

But they had long left respectability behind and entered newer and stranger territory. It was Diana, after all, who had chosen to receive her in this tea gown, cut close enough to the old fashions to be verging on scandalous in strange company, in spite of the corset she wore underneath it. It was Diana who had accepted the depth of her caprise, and deepened it further. It was Diana who had brought up this whole subject, and it was Diana, at last, who had leaned in to kiss her, who might as well have been touched by Benea at this point.

Touched by Benea – she was certainly being touched, though she felt perhaps as far from mad as it was possible to be. Or if this was madness, it was an organized, focused sort of madness. Gods, but there was focus here, and there had been for some time; there had been focus in the choice to don this gown, focus in the choice to arrange the flowers, focus in her instructions to Mrs. Wheelwright to prepare the dzhkar. There had been focus even in their talk of dueling.

She thought of her husband not at all. Perhaps it was the memories of Tiv. Perhaps it was the dark stag stretching its shadow out from the mantle, a reminder of how different things were now. Perhaps it was that thoughts of her husband were the least strange part of this.

Niccolette came away. Not fully, not enough that Diana could not feel the soft warmth of her breath as she spoke. A strand of the other woman’s hair brushed her cheek; that, too, was terribly improper, and – she smiled a little and a little more.

“I have as well,” she murmured, knowing the words to be honest the moment they left her lips. “I do not often remember my dreams,” she added, tilting her head slightly, “but I have the vaguest impression that I have dreamt of precisely this.”

Niccolette’s field nearly enveloped her; it would take nothing to complete the merge, if the other woman permitted. She felt the living and perceptive mona could merge for years and she would grasp only a little more of what they meant.

She could hear warmth now in that sharp Bastian accent, regardless; she could feel warmth in that bright field which she had felt was like a winter morning’s sky, or like the first touch of cold silverware. She could feel warmth, and still she wanted more.

“Was I terribly obvious?” Her smile was coy. What on Vita, she asked herself, was she doing? And still her hand was on Niccolette’s cheek, and she traced the curve of it down to her small, proud chin; she leaned in to kiss her again.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

Diana leaned in again; her fingers slipped down Niccolette’s cheek, lingering on her chin at the line of her jaw. She did not wait, this time, head tilted and eyes closed, but kissed Niccolette.

As close as they were, on the two chairs, there was more than a little space between them – and little chance, Niccolette thought idly, of growing closer, not with the width of the skirts they wore. All the same, Niccolette’s hand traced up Diana’s arm, and settled on the other woman’s side; she half-imagined she could feel Diana’s warmth through the layers of fabric and the other woman’s corset.

They came apart.

“Not in the least,” Niccolette said, smiling. “Even when you wrote to me,” she said, her gaze searching Diana’s face just a little, “I was not sure.”

They kissed again; it grew easier, and a little deeper. Like the caprise, Niccolette thought, a slow but steady intertwining of the two of them. She was warmer than she’d been, Niccolette knew; she felt it flooding through her, pooled somewhere inside her, housed, she supposed, not in an organ with a name, or at least not a name one generally repeated in polite company.

Her hand curled a little more around Diana’s side. They came apart again; something warm fluttered through her field, another infinitesimal deepening of the connection between them.

It was not, Niccolette knew well, every galdor who expressed themselves so through their field. For all she and Uzoji had used them to communicate – for all she had known his nearly as well as her own, and could read even the slightest of shifts in it – he had not had the delicacy of connection she possessed. She had never begrudged it to him; she had had no complaints of that sort, not in the connection between them, which had burned as bright after seven years as it had the first time they had kissed.

Perhaps it should have hurt to think of such things. Sometimes it did; others – just now – it was only a fact, and could not harm her, as facts did not.

Niccolette, or else the other woman, leaned in again, both of their eyes fluttering shut.

Other lovers, of course, had seemed not to engage with their fields at all; one felt, of course, enormous surges of emotion in all but the most tightly controlled fields, and it was a rare person who held on to such control in the midst of passion. But there was a difference, in Niccolette’s estimation, between spilling forth into one’s field and grabbing – Niccolette could have smiled – the reins of it, in deliberate use.

Diana, though – Niccolette had the sense that the other woman felt her field quite keenly indeed. She pulsed out through hers, and she felt, however faintly, the other woman shudder beneath her hand; she thought, quite pleasantly, of what it should be like to feel that all through her, holding not a foot apart perched on the edge of two chairs, but somewhere rather more intimate.

There was a creak from the hallway outside; Niccolette’s eyes fluttered open, and she eased back, just a little – not glancing at the firmly shut door, but conscious of it all the same. She had no wish to harm the other woman, nor to make in her life any difficulties. She smiled, studying her, and lifted her other hand to Diana’s lips, finger gently tracing the line of them. “It is a good color on you,” she grinned, just a little.

[Diana Vauquelin]

Afternoon, 19 Loshis, 2720
The Vauquelin Parlor

S
he found herself rather missing Tiv.

Something in her was pleased that Niccolette had not known; she felt herself a very silly woman, now, looking back, thinking of what eagernesses must have shown on her face, what strange things working inside her she had wished to pretend herself long finished with. Something in her, too, was disappointed.

In those days, she had been – she could almost picture herself, almost but not quite. Blonde hair cut as high as her shoulders, worn loose like a girl – or like a man, perhaps – a painted face, kohl darker than she ever would have dared to wear now in the capital, like an actress – though she could not picture the face underneath. It seemed like another woman’s life, though Anatole had been there with her; and now, that Anatole seemed like a different man. She had brought the color up out of his grief, then. She remembered his kisses on her neck, his whispers in her ear as she lifted the brush to the canvas, the smell of oil paints and him and the breeze in through the open window.

She had known women there, she had known men; it was that woman he had come to meet in Florne, full of color, a mystery, she now thought, to his Anaxi lawyer’s eyes. Had she lost her mystery? No, no, something stranger had happened. Something stranger had happened to him, yes, and to her, too, she thought now, like an Everspell had finally run its course.

Strange.

For a few moments she could have devoted herself to drinking in the other woman’s scent. Niccolette’s hand had wandered up her arm, settled on her side. It was little more than pressure through the thick embroidery, even where the lace was inset, but she imagined she could feel her warmth. Her own hand had wandered down, curious, to Niccolette’s hip just under the edge of her jacket.

She found herself wondering what the other woman’s shape was, underneath the layers; she knew something of the lovely surprises that one found underneath corset or padding, the ways in which another woman never looked quite the way one imagined her disrobed, looking at her from afar.

They broke away at a shuffle through the parlor door. Her eyes were open; Niccolette did not look, and nor did she, and she felt at once sharply conscious of her surroundings.

It is a good color on you, the woman – the pirate, she thought, with a mixture of wryness and distrust – said, with just the edge of a sharp grin. Even here, she had lifted one slender finger to trace the line of her lips. The boldness of it made Diana shiver, as all of it had. The thought of Mrs. Wheelwright walking through the parlor door made her shiver again, and not unpleasantly.

It was almost too much to bear. She broke away; she turned abruptly, rising to her feet. The fire, she thought. She wondered if she should ring for Mrs. Wheelwright, but something again stopped her. Instead, she reached for the poker herself, bending gracefully to the grate.

“Gold has always suited me,” she agreed, slightly breathless. She wondered what on earth she said, then; it would have been more appropriate to play at humility. But it was true, after all.

Their fields were no less entwined. Turning her back had not diminished this feeling in the least. If anything, it made her feel more vulnerable, kneeling to stir the coals with the bright wash of that field at her back, somehow colder and warmer at once than the hearth.

“So,” she murmured as she rose, still more breathless than she should have been. “I know your intentions, and you know mine. A strange but refreshing place to stand, I think, in a place like this.” She looked only once up at the mantle – not, now, at Naulas, but at the plate.

I cannot dismiss the servants so early, she did not need to say. Nor could she speak of it so openly – in so many words – with ears at the door, though she doubted, after all, that it would matter much if this particular rumor were scattered to the winds. She supposed there were already assumptions made, given Anatole's behavior.

Her smile was warmer and easier as she put the poker away and turned, looking at Niccolette finally. “How long will you be in Vienda, Niccolette Ibutatu?”