Quartz, page 10
“I thought the Stonies had executed him. Did he escape?”
Rafe grimaced. Just what he didn’t want to have happen—to be turned into a hero.
Heroes didn’t make good field agents. If he didn’t dampen his popularity, he’d be stuck in a desk job forever.
The Brenwoods’ ball room, withdrawing rooms, parlors, and supper rooms were all on an upper floor, reached by a lazily magnificent staircase. Strains of music, of flute and harp and violin, wafted to Rafe’s ears and he followed the sounds to an open doorway, painted double doors folded back like the wings of exotic birds in the Zooarium.
Rafe paused just inside the doorway, suddenly lightheaded. The yellow glare from the great chandeliers above, the wink of mirror and glass and jewel, the waterfall rush of a hundred voices, the closeness and heat and smell of sweat and stale perfume, all washed over him in a great golden noise. He shut his eyes, remembering the reek of rotted cabbage and potatoes, the warm dark of underground tunnels. He wanted to run, wanted to be out breathing in shards of cold thin air. He turned.
“Why, Rafe! Rafe Grenfeld!” Lady Brenwood’s strident tones cut through the oceanic murmur of voices. His hostess bore down upon him like a royal barge, swathed in a costume of rose tints that bled into each other. Pink drops of quartz swayed from her headdress.
“Ma’am.” Rafe kissed the matron’s imperiously outstretched hand. “I hope you’ll forgive me for showing up at your party, even after having the most abominable manners to not reply to your kind invitation. I was detained out of the city, you see.”
“Silly boy.” Lady Brenwood tapped his shoulder with her fan. Her green eyes glittered in triumph in her bronzed face. She was known to tan herself under quartz lights every day, at great expense to her husband. “As if you need to stand on ceremony with me, who has known you since you were knee high.” Her Ladyship was in good humor and Rafe knew why. Rafe Grenfeld, believed to have been executed by the evil Blackstonians, had made his first public appearance since his return at her party.
“Oh come now, ma’am,” he protested. “Surely you don’t expect me to swallow such large bait. I know you can’t be more than five-and-twenty.”
Lady Brenwood tossed back her head and laughed, well-pleased, but her painted nails were still hooked into the sleeve of Rafe’s jacket and the gleam in her eyes was avid. “So,” she said, lowering her voice to a dramatic whisper, “how terrible was it?”
“Awful!” said Rafe cheerfully. “The only hot water was to be had before Seed, the food was mush, and we were forced to endure an entire stage of patriotic songs. And that was only on the first day we were there!”
A manservant whispered in Lady Brenwood’s ear. She frowned, but her duties as hostess took precedence. “I must leave you Rafe, but here is Lady Petronella Verice. She’d like to talk to you about her beloved home.” Her smile held a touch of malice as she flounced off, leaving Rafe to be confronted by a tiny old woman with an enormous wig of curls, a splendid hat with a ship and a clock on it, and hooped skirts wide enough to hide an army or two. “How is my fair city, my beloved Goldmoon, given over to savages for too long? No, do not tell me, all at once… only a little at a time. I cannot bear to know too much, too soon.” Lady Petronella closed her eyes and fanned herself with languid sweeps of her delicate wrist.
“I would not wish to distress you at all, ma’am. Perhaps, a glass of sherry…?”
The steely blue eyes snapped open and a claw-like hand grasped his wrist. “Tell me, does the theater still stand? And the Great Park? The statues in Queen’s Square—are they entirely defaced? The gardens? Tell me, young man!” Her bosom heaved as her voice grew higher and higher.
“You are overwrought, ma’am.” Rafe steered her to a chair and sat her down. “I will fetch something for you to drink.” More Goldmoon refugees made their way from all parts of the ballroom, gathering together as if by some bizarre pack instinct. He looked hopefully for Amanthea, but she wasn’t in the ballroom. Instead, Rafe found a manservant, grabbed a glass of lemonade from his tray and returned to find Lady Petronella being petted and soothed by other Goldmoon ladies. One of them half-turned to him with a disapproving look. Rafe put the glass into her hand. “For the lady, with all solicitude.” He retreated smoothly and hastily.
As he disappeared into the crush, he thought he heard a high thin voice wail, “Young man, wait!” but he had just caught sight of Bryony. “Excuse me… my sister… beg your pardon,” he said aloud as he tapped a gentleman on the shoulder here, slid past a lady, smiled at a pair of gossiping girls.
The crowd fell away like a cape sliding off his shoulders and he could see and breathe without difficulty again. Bryony stood in a plant-shaded alcove not ten paces away, talking quietly with a man. Her forehead was marked by slight furrows as she listened. Rafe smiled. When Bryony listened to someone it was with her full attention, as if they were the most important thing in the world.
She had not seen him yet. The usual lurking humor in her dark blue eyes had been banished by a dark wariness. Looking at her eyes, at her smooth dark brown hair pulled into simple chignon, the elegant straightness of her posture, Rafe was reminded of Isabella.
Except Bryony was more lovely, more expressive, thought Rafe loyally. Her glance swept over him, sharpened and locked. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled.
“Hello, Bryony.” Rafe couldn’t stop grinning, which rather spoiled the nonchalant air he was aiming for.
“Rafe!” A mixture of emotions flitted across Bryony’s face before finally settling on exasperation. Her hands fluttered as if she couldn’t figure out whether to hug him or admonish him. She stepped away from her conversational partner. “When did you get back? How did you get back? Why didn’t you tell me, you wretch?”
“Ah, the prodigal brother returns.” The man Bryony had been talking to turned, and Rafe recognized him. Blisbain, Blackstone’s ambassador to Oakhaven
Blisbain’s expression was both quizzical and pleasant. “Society has mourned the loss of your conversation, females have sighed over the absence of such a congenial dancing partner. Yet here you are, and our spirits are uplifted.” He bestowed an urbane smile upon Rafe, as if his government hadn’t arrested the Oakhaven embassy and hunted Rafe through streets and tunnels.
Rafe shrugged with good humor. “I’m delighted to have lifted your spirits at least, Ambassador Blisbain. You overestimate my popularity, though. Do convey my compliments to your government for an exciting stay.”
“Certainly.” Unruffled, Blisbain smoothed his jacket, plain, yet made of such fine cloth and so well cut that a Blackstone drone family could’ve lived a month on the price of it. “I will leave you to your reunion with your sister. I must be quite unwelcome.”
“You are indeed,” said Rafe under his breath as the ambassador departed. Then, “Ow,” as Bryony tapped him unnecessarily hard with her fan. “Why were you talking to that muck-crawler?”
“Trying to find out any news of you,” she shot back. “If you’d had the decency to send me a message that you were back, I would’ve been spared his odious company. The Ministry would tell me nothing!” She pressed her lips together. “Rafe, I’ve been so worried.”
“Well, I’m back now, and I grovel pathetically at your feet.” Rafe made her a flourishing bow. “But look, I have…” He stopped, taking in her attire for the first time. Her lips were rouged too red, her yellow dress far more expensive than she could’ve afforded, the glittering diamond-and-gold necklace at her throat far too ostentatious for an unmarried woman. He realized why she was in the far corner of the room, talking to undesirables like Blisbain, why this area was given a wide berth by the rest.
“Yes, Rafe?” Bryony must have sensed some part of his thoughts, for she raised her chin a fraction in cool challenge.
Rafe glanced around the room, noted the avid stares. Much as he wanted to shake Bryony, this wasn’t the place for an argument. “Not here.”
“The conservatory, then.” She turned in a rustle of expensive skirts and led him through an archway, a short tunnel, and into a dark space full of the scent of damp earth and mold. Light slanted in from the ballroom behind them. Rafe moved to one side so that he wouldn’t cast a shadow on Bryony, who sat down on a plain stone bench, pulling her skirts close to her, all prim convent-educated debutante, hands folded in lap, ankles crossed, back straight.
Rafe folded his arms. “Why, Bryony?” He addressed Lord Brenwood’s prized crawler, a purplish-green fungus, over her head. He couldn’t trust himself to look directly at her. “I told you I’d take care of you. That I’d fix it so that…”
“I didn’t think you’d come back. When we heard what happened to the embassy…” Bryony touched the diamond drops in her ears, the necklace at her throat. “These are just baubles. I’m not doing this for fine clothes and jewelry, Rafe. I have to eat, you know, and keep warm.”
“I left you money.”
“I sent it back, Rafe. The day you left.”
Rafe threw her an incredulous look. “You’d rather live off some protector, than accept a gift from your brother? Bryony, it is my duty—freely and gladly given—to provide for you!”
Bryony looked away. “I know how little you have. The Ministry pays you a paltry sum for the work you do, and Lord Grenfeld is not able to make you much of an allowance with the troubles in the agri-caves. I will not be beholden to you.”
Rafe nearly ground his teeth. “You are my sister—my full sister—and I consider you to have as much right to respect and inheritance as I do.”
“Pity our father did not see it that way.”
“You know why, Bryony.”
“Yes, I do. He preferred to have two sons instead of one and a daughter, so he passed me over for you.”
“Bryony…” He could not disinherit himself or reinstate her, or he would’ve gladly done it. Only their father had had that power, and he was dead. Rafe’s fists clenched at the injustice that was built into the law. He could not fathom what life was like, knowing that you were full-blooded noble, but unable to use the name of your family, unable to inherit, unacknowledged, orphaned, given over to cold stern women to raise, as had happened to Bryony. As happened to far too many, though most could only suspect their parentage. Rafe had counted himself fortunate when he had met his sister and dear friend as a boy. Now he considered that their knowing each other had only brought his sister pain, constant salt in the wound of her abandonment. “I…”
“Oh, Rafe.” Bryony leaned forward and touched his hand. “It is not your doing. Things are the way they are and we must both make the best of our lots. For me, it is this.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Rafe knelt, heedless of the damp that seeped through his trousers. “I have not been entirely idle about your situation. Look, here are the papers. A position in the Queen's household is being held for you.”
Bryony made no move to take the proffered missive. Her eyebrows lifted. “Me, in the Queen's household?” He had never heard such honest astonishment in her voice. He was glad to surprise her so.
“Yes,” he said, eagerly, “as one of the Ladies of the Wardrobe.”
Only then did Bryony take the paper, holding it between two fingers as warily as if she handled a spider. Slivers of green wax fell onto her golden skirt, where they lay, smooth and unblemished, like fake leaves. Rafe watched her face as she scanned the letter, then dropped it into her lap.
Bryony looked up, her eyes wide and dark with emotion. “But my interview with Lady Glenrun was such a disaster! She spoke to me so brusquely, and I made such a ninny of myself under her withering stare, I was sure I had botched it.” Bryony fidgeted with the lace on her sleeves. “They’ll never take me now.”
“Uncle Leo—”
“No Rafe, he won’t. They won’t even let a divorced woman serve the Queen. They dismissed Amelia Silvermine over that rumor regarding the Oldmill son. The Queen’s ladies must be above reproach. No, this road is closed to me.” She brushed her skirt, and wax and papers all fell to the ground. “Besides, I will no longer live as an indentured servant. I will not fetch and carry for anyone, not even the Queen.”
“And the alternative you have chosen is so much better?” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice.
"Dear one, I am not selling myself. The real me, the heart and soul of me, is untouched in all this." Bryony laid a hand over her heart.
Rafe stared at her from across a vast gulf that had opened up between them, a bottomless gulf that there was no bridge across. Something small inside him—the boy child he had been, looking up to the self-possessed girl, the older sister he had never known, reading aloud in his sickroom—wanted to throw away his sharp disappointment, fling his arms around Bryony, and tell her it didn’t matter, nothing she did would make her less shining in his eyes, but he couldn't. For the first time he saw Bryony as someone other than his cool sensible older sister.
Bryony opened her mouth, no doubt to argue her brother into some kind of grudging capitulation. She had a way of making you agree with her, in spite of your will, but before she could say anything the conservatory was cast into shadow as a large fat man oozed into it.
Rafe stiffened.
“There you are, my dear,” said Lord Verney, swarthy in complexion, marks of sickness pocking his face. "I have been searching high and low for you." An insolent reproach was in his voice, an insolence he would never have dared to use on a lady. “I want a dance.”
“My brother just returned home, Lord Verney, after a trying time,” said Bryony with a meekness Rafe had never heard from her. “Please give us another few moments.”
Verney cast Rafe a gloating look. “Certainly, my dear.” He bent down and kissed Bryony on the cheek, a gesture she accepted with resignation rather than pleasure. Her gaze pleaded with Rafe to not make a scene. He tightened his lips.
Verney straightened, flicked Bryony’s cheek with a fat finger. “Not too long, though! I don’t deck you out in those clothes and jewels so that you can hide your beauty in the conservatory.” He raked Bryony with a look as physical as a grope. Rafe went rigid with loathing.
Verney left and Rafe muttered an expletive. Bryony stood and rested her hand on his tense arm.
“Of all people, Bryony, why Verney? He hates the Grenfelds, and he’s sitting in Rocquespur’s pocket!”
“He was the only one who would have me, to spit in the Grenfelds’ eye. But I have my own plans and they don’t include being at his call for a moment longer than I have to. I’m saving up for my own shop, and”—Bryony lowered her voice—“I can pass information to you. I know you’ve been investigating him. There’s been some kind of special delivery at the warehouse Verney’s renting from Rocquespur. I heard them talking about it. Go there. Find out what they’re up to.”
Rafe gripped her shoulder. “I don’t want you getting involved in this, Bryony. They’re dangerous men, especially Rocquespur.”
“I’ll be careful. But I want to help. You’ve done so much for me already, Rafe.”
“Before you go.” Rafe spoke quickly, not wanting to detain her too long and subject her to Verney’s ire. “About when you were at the convent.”
“Yes?” Bryony’s lips thinned at the mention of the place.
“Did you know a girl with dark eyes and silver hair? Tall, quiet, rather frightening?”
“Isabella!” exclaimed Bryony. “How do you know her? We thought Rocquespur had had her vanished.” Bryony made a knife-slash motion against her throat.
“Rocquespur?”
“She was the daughter of the previous Marquis. She disappeared soon after the new one succeeded to the title. Rumor had it that the current one did away with her or that she ran off to the Trans-Point states.”
This new piece of information certainly colored things differently. “Did you know her well?”
“No. She wasn’t a cast-off like the rest of us. Her father even visited her on occasion. She had her own separate room instead of living in the dormitories, and studied privately with some of the Sisters. I barely spoke to her.” Bryony kissed his cheek. “I must go. Verney wants to show me off.”
Paper rustled underfoot as she left. Rafe picked up the discarded appointment letter, crumpled it, and thrust it into his pocket.
Bryony as Verney’s mistress! It left a bad taste in his mouth. The sooner he could get Verney and Rocquespur packed off to prison, the sooner she’d be free.
He had no desire to indulge in dancing or light-hearted chatter. Time to get back to work.
Rafe emerged from the conservatory into the froth-and-giggles world of the ballroom. Light bludgeoned his eyes and laughter grated on his ears. Many of Lady Brenwood’s guests were crowded around a mage-made novelty, a fountain whose sparkling wine-colored liquid misted into droplets that turned into translucent gold and green and red butterflies. The tiny illusions ghosted across the crowd, and dissolved into spray against cheeks and hair. Lady Brenwood was too busy basking in the admiration of her guests to notice Rafe.
He studiously avoided noting a yellow dress among the dancers.
A woman in red standing on the far side of the room caught his eye and raised a glass in acknowledgement. Rafe had never been formally introduced to Sable Monarique, but the actress was hard to miss with her statuesque figure and warm chestnut skin. An exotic transplant from across the Divide, Sable was also the mistress and, rumors suggested, a prime influence and manager, of the Marquis of Rocquespur. Rafe returned the salute with a half-bow—he couldn’t help admiring the woman who’d played the role of a tragic embattled queen in last year’s best drama.
She answered with a slow smile, then returned to the eager young men around her.
Sable was Rocquespur’s public face; if she were here, then the Marquis probably wasn’t. Pity. He could’ve tried needling the famously-composed older man into revealing chinks in his armor.
Being a persistent pest was something he’d refined since his childhood years.
Rafe started to cross the room, easing through the margins of the dance floor. He’d have to find Amanthea, and hope she’d be satisfied with the promise of a house call instead of a dance. He had no heart for dancing right now.
