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The Fyren—our Fyren, I mean—didn’t even realise he’d been stabbed.”
“He’s more important to me than I would wish him to be,” said Aurienne.
There was no excuse for brushing a gentle hand along his cheek.
Grette placed the pudding on a tray, upon which she arranged some deformed glassware in lieu of cups. Her husband was the Haelan Order’s glassmaker; pieces that were flawed or otherwise didn’t reach the quality standards set by Swanstone’s laboratories were put to use in the pub.
Cath, looking suspiciously at Aurienne over the edge of her beaker, drank. Aurienne watched the liquid descend from two hundred fifty millilitres to ninety millilitres.
The cluster of stirring rods at the pub’s door jingled, heralding the entrance of Élodie.
Osric swallowed the pills along with his dignity.
He knew what he wanted to do. He didn’t know if he was filthy enough to do it. Fairhrim was right there. It would be wrong. It would be profane. He was filthy enough to do it.
Not that he had any wish to be a desirable husband; it was simply good to know where one stood.
Thank you, and I would like to die suffocated by your thighs did not seem an appropriate response at this time.
“Look at those things, scooping up the very air. Could he leave some decibels for the rest of us?”
“Very well. I will dance as nature intended.” “Barefoot, tipsy, and with flowers in your hair.” “You paint a lovely picture.” “You are a lovely picture.” “I thought I was an uptight little fusspot?” Aurienne was rewarded by one of Mordaunt’s brilliant smiles. “Do you know,” he said, “sometimes I don’t mind being wrong?”
And when’s the last time you urinated?” Mordaunt, who looked increasingly discontented as her evaluation progressed, said, “Really?” “What?” “We’re dancing and you’re interrogating me about urine?” “It’s important,” said Aurienne. “You really can wring the romance out of anything,” said Mordaunt. “What romance?” asked Aurienne. “This is a sham.” “Well, I was enjoying the sham—and the garden, and the lights, and the music; it all pleases my sense of Aesthetics.” Aurienne dismissed the Aesthetics with a flick of her fingers. “Answer me about the urine.” “Yes, I had a piss,” said Mordaunt, with
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“I fish for compliments, and instead of taking the bait, you slap into the stratosphere.”
But they weren’t sensible. They were tipsy. They danced in the rain. Besides, they were indoors, sort of—as well as outside: a bit of both, all at once. Aurienne’s bare feet danced from the balcony’s cold stone to the bedroom’s warm floorboards and back again. The wet splashed indoors; the lamplight glowed outdoors; the rain washed the distinctions away. Water dripped against Mordaunt’s neck, and Aurienne’s bodice, and his temples, and her lips, and wrote things there in calligraphies long forgotten. Their shadows also spoke things in their twine and untwine against balcony railing and white
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What was between them? An ebb and a flow, curiosity and guilt, today’s fatal daydream and tomorrow’s scars.
When he had asked her to put the poor bastard out of his misery, he hadn’t been referring to Perfect Aedan. He had been talking about himself.
He wished he could unknow what she had tasted like. What it had felt like to hold her quivering stillness in his arms as he made his way down her neck.
He wished he could unkiss her.
“I have tugged a few mystery knobs in my lifetime,” said Tristane.
He and she sat in the moonlight as lover and beloved. He hadn’t paid attention. He had been stupid—gods, so stupid. He no longer owned his heart. The thief was unconscious of her crime.
