A Rational Arrangement, page 64
Justin stared at him. Six years? Has he known all this time? He fought to master his anger (how dare this upstart commoner threaten me and my lovers) and form a cautious reply. “Are you implying that both Mrs. Striker and Lord Nikola are carrying on an affair with me? Have you any idea, Fel Fireholt, how serious an accusation you are making?”
“Uhhh. No.” Fel Fireholt canted his dark ears to the side. “Not really. Whaddaya mean?”
“What in Paradise makes you believe such a preposterous tale?”
The greatcat sighed. “It’s your scent. It’s on both of them. And theirs on you. I mean, Lord Nik always smelled too clean after visiting you but I probably wouldn’t ever have realized why except that he didn’t wash his hair before he went home. And human hair catches and holds scents too. Sorry.”
Justin turned a slow circle, verifying that they were alone on the trail as he gathered his thoughts. You can’t duel a greatcat, he reminded himself. “Are you aware, fel, that accusing Mrs. Striker of infidelity with me would force Lord Nikola to duel me for her honor? Or that your reprehensible accusation of sexual congress between Lord Nikola and myself could result in us being stripped of title and property, and sent into exile?”
Fel Fireholt sat back on his haunches. “Seriously? That’s messed up.”
“This is an insult of the highest order, fel. I must demand that you retract your words.”
“No it’s not. I mean, you don’t really believe that, do you? I’m not insulting you. Er. I didn’t mean to insult you, anyway. I guess implying that you’d do it behind their backs is kind of…bad. So you aren’t, then?” The greatcat pricked his ears, hopeful.
Justin took a deep breath. “I don’t think you understand your part in this script.”
Fel Fireholt shook his head vehemently.
“You are supposed to apologize for having made such a vile statement and withdraw it before I am forced to take action.”
One feline ear dropped. “How d’you withdraw words? I don’t see what’s so vile about it anyway. And what sort of action?”
“Action to ensure you will not spread such an abhorrent rumor.”
“I…uhhh…what?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet. I’d duel you if you were a man, but I’ve never had this problem with a greatcat before. Look, just say you withdraw the remark and that you’re not going to repeat it to anyone. It’s much simpler that way.”
“‘I withdraw the remark and am not going to repeat it to anyone’,” Anthser parrotted, bemusement evident even on feline features.
“Very well.” Justin turned and started away.
The greatcat climbed to his feet and followed hastily. “But I still don’t understand what’s going on.”
Justin chose his next words with care. “I am not engaged in any activities with either Lord Nikola or Mrs. Striker of which the other is unaware.”
Fel Fireholt brightened immediately. “Great! That is such a relief.”
As they walked in silence, Justin glanced sidelong at the greatcat. The feline had visibly relaxed, strides easy now. Shadows from the leaves and branches of the trees around them played over black fur, interspersed with dappled sunlight. After a brief struggle with discretion, Justin asked, “You’ve known for six years?”
“’Bout that, yeah.”
“Who have you told?”
“No one.” The greatcat’s ears flattened. “It’s no one else’s business. And I know you humans are…really weird about it.”
“Do all the greatcats just…know, then?” Unsettling thought.
“Naw. You’d have to almost shove your face in Lord Nik’s hair after…er…the things I’m not repeating again…to notice. Callie might’ve noticed it with Wisteria when we were out riding, but she hasn’t realized that humans barely touch each other or why it’d be unusual. Jill knows about you two, ’cause she and Lord Nik have always been close. I’d be surprised if anyone else does.” The greatcat swished his tail once. “You know we’d never do anything that could hurt Lord Nik, right?”
Six years. I do now. Justin nodded, mind struggling to encompass all the ramifications. “It truly is of no consequence to you, is it?”
“Nah. Never understood why it was so important to all of you. It’s only natural.”
Justin gave a dry bark of laughter. “Believe me, there is nothing natural about it.”
“Yes it is. I mean, yeah, reproduction is kind of the point, but the function is pleasure and there’s nothing abnormal about doing things that feel good. You three obviously love each other, why wouldn’t you do things together that make you happy? And if it were crazy, Lord Nik would cure it.”
“Even a Blessed cannot treat all dysfunctions.”
“Still. One of the other mind-healers would’ve noticed. The Savior doesn’t cure it because it’s not a disease,” Fel Fireholt said with conviction.
The viscount fell silent, uncomfortable with the line of discussion and regretting that he’d resurrected the topic. One could not expect a greatcat to understand the subtleties and refinements of a human culture many centuries in the making. The greatcat race was still in its infancy by comparison. It wasn’t in their blood the way it was with him. His rank rendered Justin immune to the consequences of his behavior so long as he remained discreet and kept it deniable. That wasn’t the same as making it right.
And yet Nikola and Wisteria and even Fel Fireholt believe otherwise, don’t they? It was a pleasant daydream, to imagine for a moment an entire world who accepted him as he was, without any need for habitual lies and everyday deceptions.
A dangerous daydream, that could tempt a man into carelessness and ruin. Better not to get in the habit of thinking in such a way. “Why did you come to me instead of asking Lord Nikola?”
The black greatcat ducked his head. “Couldn’t give anything away to you. I mean, I can’t ask Lord Nik ‘Hey, did you know that your wife and your friend are—’” he stopped at Justin’s look “—well, you know, without telling him if he didn’t know.”
Justin raised an eyebrow. “And you would not tell him if he didn’t know?”
“…I dunno. If you’d said they didn’t know, I was going to try to talk you into telling them.”
“Were you.”
Fel Fireholt winced, flattening an ear. “Yeah, none of my business, I know, but there’s a point where you can’t just do nothing.”
“And as things stand, can you do nothing?”
“Sure. You all know what’s going on. Fine, it might still be a disaster later on, but it’s not like there’s an obvious disaster that’s easy to avoid.”
Everything about this is an obvious disaster. “You greatcats have a peculiar way of viewing the world.”
“Hah. Take a step back sometime and consider how you humans think about it.”
Later, when he was alone with them in the Fireholt library, Justin told his lovers about the conversation. Justin would have preferred not to, but at a minimum they needed to know that they had all been overlooking a way they could be detected.
Nikola was flabbergasted. “Anthser knows? He’s known for years?” He sank into one of the library’s cozy reading chairs. “I can’t believe he never said anything to me.”
“It wasn’t his place.” Still isn’t.
“Yes, but I didn’t think he’d know that.”
Wisteria wanted to experiment to determine the exact limits of greatcat senses. “I suppose a double-blind test would be difficult to arrange, but we could check to see if he can distinguish between a person who has been with another recently and one who has not. How long does the scent persist as detectable – is it a matter of minutes? Hours? Days? We’ve been assuming that an ordinary bath eliminates the odor, but does it? We ought to find out.”
“You cannot run tests to see under what conditions greatcats can tell with whom you – or anyone else! – last had intercourse.” Justin was appalled. “There are no circumstances under which that is an acceptable line of questioning.”
“Truly? But it’s for science. How else would one find out?”
“One is not supposed to find out. That’s the entire point.”
Nikola chuckled. “Perhaps you could frame it differently, Wisteria. Test it with less indiscreet scents.”
“Oh, and on different materials, like a handkerchief or a ceramic tile or a letter or a lock of hair. And whether or not perfumes or other artificial scents would be sufficient to mask it from a greatcat.” Wisteria produced a little notebook from her reticule and jotted it down. “I wager there’s far more variance to it than we imagine. Perhaps I could commission an inventor to make a study of the topic.”
Justin covered his eyes with one hand. “Wisteria, please do not make it look as if you’re trying to figure out how to hide your dalliances, all right?”
Still grinning, Nikola said, “I’ll help her come up with some innocuous excuse, my lord. Fear not.”
After two and a half weeks at Fireholt, Justin took his leave. Wisteria and Nikola tried to persuade him to stay longer still, but he’d already extended his stay by ten days. Assembly would resume in a few days and he had business in Gracehaven he needed to attend to. And he’d be headed back to Fireholt again soon enough, for the house party.
Which would not be nearly the pleasure that being their sole houseguest had been. There would be fewer opportunities for unsettling conversations as well. Justin was not sure if that was good or bad. He felt as if he were growing far too comfortable with his lovers, their company dangerously addictive. However it might feel in the moment, everything about this situation was precarious by nature. Nikola or Wisteria might lose interest in him, or grow jealous, or break it off for any number of reasons. He had to remain on guard against that day. It will come, sooner or later. I need to handle it better than I did Nikola leaving me the last time. They are wedded to one another and that commitment is inviolate, but I can never be more than an optional addition to their happiness. I am no true part of it, no matter how much they may welcome me now.
Gracehaven was relatively empty during the summer, but by the fall it was back to being the center of life in Newlant. Still, returning home to it felt like going into exile. He was glad to get back to his various business dealings, and he had bills in Assembly he needed to champion – such as one to increase the legal protections the Blessed had against men like Brogan, and to make the punishments for such crimes harsher in the hopes of deterring them. But he missed Nikola and Wisteria more than ever.
He was delighted to go back to Fireholt for the house party, and quite amazed to find Wisteria had put a connecting door between the suite they gave him and Nikola’s room. The pretext for it had been that when her first (and still unconceived) child was born, it would be the baby’s room because she did not like the situation of the nursery. But since the house was full for the party, of course they had to put some guest in there…
It was wonderfully convenient.
By that time, Wisteria had preliminary results from her commissioned experiments on greatcat scent perception. Her official motive for the study was to quantify greatcat tracking abilities in the event of another abduction. Some of her findings were alarming, such as that a greatcat could detect and even discern between different levels of stress in a man’s scent. The researcher had tested for such moods as calm, angry, anxious, and afraid, but Anthser had privately confirmed that ‘aroused’ was also discernible. Both research and Anthser indicated that a greatcat’s ability to distinguish subtleties in a scent diminished quickly at range. “You’d want to keep a few feet away and avoiding riding a greatcat if you did not want one to note where you’d been,” Wisteria phrased it. “But riding in a greatcat-drawn carriage or passing one on a street would be unlikely to betray anything.”
Perhaps most constructively from Justin’s perspective, the study had determined several different perfumes and colognes that were strong enough to overpower any human scent to the point that not even a greatcat could detect it. If he couldn’t smell it himself, at least he could cover it up so no greatcat could either.
Justin enjoyed the house party a great deal: it kept them busy enough that they didn’t have time for long unconventional conversations, but not so busy that they could not indulge in late-night carnal activity. Still, it too had to come to an end. His hosts persuaded Justin to stay a week after the last guest had left, but after that he went back to Gracehaven.
Well, it will be Ascension in two months; I’ll see them then. However much I get to, with all the other family commitments involved in the season.
“Would you like to stay at Comfrey Manor when we go to Gracehaven for the season?” Wisteria asked Nikola one morning in mid-autumn. She was at her desk in her office, attending to her correspondence, while he had stopped in to see her after finishing early with the day’s petitioners. Nikola had eschewed the room’s other seats to perch on the edge of her desk instead, where he was near enough to touch her.
Nikola gave her a lopsided smile as he ran his stockinged foot along her calf. “I wish we could. But I’ve never been able to manage it, with my parents having a mansion in town, and now we’ve your parents’ hospitality to consider as well.”
“I thought that could be our reason, actually.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to offend my parents by showing a preference for yours, or yours by showing a preference for mine, correct? If we stay with Justin, that’s neutral ground. And it’s relatively convenient to both Vasilver Manor and Anverlee’s Gracehaven residence.”
Nikola considered this. “It is, isn’t it? Do you suppose our relations might accept that?”
“I’m sure my parents will.”
“I don’t know…I always get mobbed with petitioners when I’m in Gracehaven. Last year was particularly bad, and if your reasoning about my reputation holds true, this year will be worse.” Nikola drummed his fingers against the side of her desk. “I hate to put that kind of strain on Comfrey’s household.”
“I cannot imagine he will be less gracious about it than your father is,” Wisteria said, prompting a chuckle from her husband. “Truly, I can brief Justin on the requirements. His house is not so large as your parents’, but it does have a petitioner’s hall. Your staff is more than twice what you had last year and I intend to hire more just for the season, given your caseload last year. I am not saying it isn’t an imposition, but it will be no matter whom we stay with, and you said you did not wish to take lodgings for the season. Justin invited us already, so he does not think the imposition unreasonable.”
Nikola smiled then. “Did he? When?”
“In today’s letter.” She smoothed the pages. “Though he doesn’t expect us to accept: ‘I am sure you will be staying with relations who have a greater claim upon you than a mere friend such as myself may ever have, but I will extend the invitation anyway: the two of you (and any stray madgirls Striker may stumble across along the way) are welcome to stay the season with me. I should not wish to deprive Striker of the annual privilege of declining merely because he is wed now.’” She passed the letter to her husband.
“That sounds like him.” Nikola’s smile grew as he read the letter himself.
“Does it ever bother you when he says things like that?” Wisteria asked. “The ‘greater claim than I may ever have’ part.”
“Oh, he doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just his sense of humor.”
“Is it? It feels more as if he means it, but is saying it in a humorous way to take the sting from it. As if being the first to laugh over it will rob it of its power to wound.”
Nikola let the hand holding the letter fall. “…perhaps it is.”
“And I don’t think it works because it still hurts me. I suppose it would not be discreet to write that he has a claim far greater than blood. Unless I attributed it to his heroism, and I very much doubt that would give him any pleasure.”
Her husband smiled again. “No, I do not think so. Besides, he has a point. That is – I wish it were not true, Wisteria, but we are not kin to him. And cannot become so. If humor helps to cope with that unfortunate truth…well, perhaps we all might need it.”
Wisteria gazed at the books filling one glass-windowed case. “Not all countries have the same marriage laws Newlant does.”
Nikola gave a startled laugh. “What, do they let a woman have two husbands in Southern Vandu?”
“No…not in Southern Vandu. But in some countries – Bijoli for one – I know a man may have more than one wife. Perhaps there’s one where a woman may wed twice. Or a man marry a man.”
The corners of Nikola’s blue eyes wrinkled with his smile. “Wisteria, even I think that a man marrying a man is absurd.”
She turned to face him directly. “Do you, my lord?”
“Of course it…is.” Nikola dropped his eyes after a moment.
“And you would not marry Justin if it were permissible?”
“Justin would never agree to something so ridiculous.”
“But would you?”
“Why are you asking me this, Wisteria? It’s not legal, and no, I do not want to give up Fireholt and Anverlee and my family and yours in search of some remote barbarian tribe that might approve such a thing. My sense of familial duty may be weak but it is not nonexistent!” Nikola stood, mouth set in a thin line, hands clenched at his sides.
Wisteria rose as well, touching his hands. “I did not mean to upset you, my lord. But you know I always wished I could marry you both. Life is compromise, but I cannot help wondering if this is truly the most satisfactory one we can manage. If you disapprove of such notions, however, of course I will not pursue any other possibilities.”
The tall man uncurled his fingers to take Wisteria’s. A few moments passed in silence, then he bent to embrace her, exhaling as he kissed her forehead. “My love,” he whispered. “I should like nothing better than to unite my life with Justin as I have with you. My mind tells me ‘but this can never be’, yet my mind has said that about too many things that you have proven possible for me to trust it. If there is a way, lead and I will follow.”
