The Queen's Necklace (46 page)

While they had been speaking, the king had temporarily lost interest in the map. He had wandered off to another part of the room, where he was studying a seashell under a magnifying glass.

Finding himself in this rare private moment with the object of so many confused emotions, so many tortured speculations, Luke suddenly blurted out: “Is Lord Flinx your father?”

Her face turned pink, she caught her breath. For a moment it seemed the pleasant illusion must shatter, that the temptress of the street ballads and the scurrilous stories was about to become a palpable presence in the room.

But then the girl at Luke's side went back to her map, began sketching in wolves and shaggy white boars at the foot of a range of active volcanoes. “Do you know, General Zabulon, I really can't say. He has certainly told me so, again and again, but he is such an unconscionable liar, it is difficult for me to trust anything he says.”

The scarlet woman retreated even further, and Lucius was more than happy to see her go. “On the whole,” said the Grand Exalted Hereditary Duchess, with a shake of her pretty dark curls, “I think I would rather be the Princess from the Moon than anyone's daughter at all!”

I
t was a strange and changeable spring in Hawkesbridge. One never knew, when one left the house, what the weather would be like, so cloaks, top-boots, and oiled-linen umbrellas continued to be seen on the city streets
.

Yet there were signs of the season, too. Ravens built nests in the eaves of old houses and in broken-down chimneys; light pleasure boats with awnings of red, blue, and green began to appear on the slow-moving waters of the Zule. As in other years, mountebanks, vagabonds, and readers of “fortune's urns” started drifting in from the surrounding countryside. They strung up their rope-walks in Tooley Square, they danced on their hands and sang ballads on practically every street corner. Some even had the temerity to set up their peep-shows within the precincts of the university
.

If the wandering folk looked dustier, more ragged and foot-sore than before, they compensated by bringing with them more fantastic stories. They spoke of a world in turmoil: pirates on the coast, whole cities aflame in the north, bloody rebellion on the isle of Finghyll
.

Some who listened to these tales were vastly disturbed, many more dismissed them as mere inventions. “Travellers,” they said, “will always exaggerate.”

So, for the most part, life went on as usual. Attics and lumber-rooms were turned out in a flurry of spring cleaning; peddlars hawked nosegays, nightingales, and maple-sugar sweetmeats outside the Volary; children were dosed with mineral salts, brimstone, and treacle
.

Only the Goblins appeared to be truly uneasy. They went about the city on their usual business, more silent, more unobtrusive than ever before. As the days passed, they were seen less and less. When they
were
seen, they hurried on past with their eyes on the ground, and no longer answered when anyone spoke to them
.

Hawkesbridge, Mountfalcon

—5 Floréal, 6538

I
t was a changeable spring for Lili and Will as well. Since that day at the Volary, when he had walked in on her and Rodaric in what he apparently considered suspicious circumstances, Will had only paid her a single afternoon visit, only two times in ten days had he spent the night. With her task at the palace complete, Lili was beginning to consider a return to Brakeburn Hall.

She was dressing to go to the opera one evening, when Will lounged in. He had an odd, unsettled look about him that she did not trust. “Another evening with Blaise Trefallon?” Sitting down at her dressing table, he watched her put on a pair of long silk gloves. “It would seem the two of you have become inseparable.”

Lili silently fastened the pearl buttons at her wrists. She had not seen Blaise in almost a week; she did not think, however, that Will was entitled to an explanation, and she held her peace.

Wilrowan sighed. “Lili,” he said, with an appealing look, “have I truly offended past all redemption?”

For a moment, she hesitated. It was wearisome playing the rôle of the injured wife. “I hardly know what you mean. If you would like to join us, it is not a large party, and naturally Blaise has rented a box.”

“I would be happy to join you. But I have only an hour's leave from the palace. Dionee is—nervous and fretful today. But I think she intends to make it an early night; perhaps I will meet you later.”

As Lili moved around the room, Will began idly examining the bottles and jars on her dressing table. “What is this, please?” he asked very suddenly.

Lili stopped in the act of picking up her velvet cloak. When she saw what he was holding, she gave an embarrassed laugh. “It's ceruse, Wilrowan. Don't you approve?”

“Approve? Why should I approve you dabbling your face with purest poison? It's not like you, Lili, to be so vain.”

She put down her cloak. “Almost everyone wears it,” she answered defensively. “I know what white lead does to the skin, but I thought if I only used a very lit—” Lili broke off, shaking her head. “You are right. I can't think why I bought it,” she said in a mortified voice. “But, as you can see, I'm not wearing it now.”

“Yes, I
can
see. Believe me when I say you are better without it. Rouge if you must—though why you should want to, I really don't know, when you already have such a ‘charming color' as someone once said—but don't, I beg you, take up ceruse. You will only be spoiling what nature has already done exceedingly well.”

Lili felt her heart begin to pound. This was a very different Will than she had seen in weeks. As she moved past him, he caught up her hand, and lifted it quickly to his lips. Even through her gloves, she felt the heat of that kiss.

He left the chair, made her sit down in his place, turning her by the shoulders until she faced the mirror. “This new way of dressing your hair is lovely, but never use anything more than the lightest coating of powder, as you have it now. And if you use patches, remember they are only there to call attention to your very best feature.”

“Which is?” said Lili, hardly daring to breathe.

Wilrowan laughed. “Fishing for compliments?” he asked, with a teasing smile.

“I suppose one might have a
best
feature without actually having any
good
features.”

“Very true. But—happily—not true here.” He pretended to examine her reflection in the glass. “The best feature is undoubtedly the eyes, for their shape and color.” He opened one of the little patch-boxes, took out a tiny piece of black silk, showed her how to affix the glue, and placed it on one cheek, just under her eye.

Lili smiled tremulously. This was all very charming—and however oddly he had looked at her before, she knew very well this amorous gleam in his eyes. As Will leaned closer to examine his handiwork they were almost kissing. Lili closed her eyes, waited for the kiss to become real—

Just then, one of the servants knocked on the door. Will jumped back. Folding his arms, he gave her another enigmatic glance. “I suppose that Mr. Trefallon has arrived to escort you.”

Lili bit her lip, thinking how close she had come to making a fool of herself, merely because Will had suddenly decided to play at love-making. She picked up her fan and rose to her feet in a rustle of petticoats. “It would be rude of me to keep Blaise waiting.”

Will unfolded his arms and preceded her across the room. “As you say,” he agreed, as he obligingly opened the door, “it is always rude to keep a gentleman waiting.”

At the grand, gilded twelve-tiered Opera House down by the river, the singing that night was particularly superb. But as the evening progressed, as the music soared and the drama of the story gradually unfolded, Lili became increasingly abstracted.

Perhaps it was the violent, romantic, improbable plot. There were features about it that were oddly familiar—at least to anyone who had the misfortune to follow Wilrowan's career. One had to
admit, there was a certain Grand Opera quality to all his affairs—or to the ones that Lili knew about, anyway.
It is all just playacting. Men always say their casual affairs mean very little; with Will, I suppose, it is actually true
.

In the interval between acts, Lili grew pensive.

“You are bored,” said Trefallon, hitching his chair a little closer, leaning over to speak in her ear. “Would you like to go home?”

“No, of course not,” she said, still hoping that Will would arrive to join them. She searched her mind for a suitable topic of conversation, and her eyes chanced to fall on a frivolous something that Trefallon held in his hand. “What a droll little fan! I have never seen anything quite like it before.”

“It is a puzzle fan.” Blaise spread out the sticks to give her a better look. “The pictures, you see, are meant to form a rebus and spell out riddles or other conceits.” He leaned closer still and spoke softly behind the painted leaf. “Sometimes the answers are a little naughty.”

“My goodness,” she said, pretending to an interest she did not feel. “Must I work it all out for myself, or will you tell me what these pictures mean?”

“With the greatest of pleasure.” As Blaise launched into a detailed explanation, Lili was not really listening; she was thinking instead about another fan, the one that Will sent her all those weeks ago. Had that fan—Lili caught her breath at the thought—had that fan contained some secret message, something sentimental, which she had simply been too ignorant to decipher at the time?

But the pleasant fancy forming in her head was almost instantly dashed. Looking across the house to the seventh tier, she chanced to spot Wilrowan amidst the gilded extravagance of the Royal Box—with that creature Letitia Steerpike hanging right over his shoulder. Playacting or not, it made her blood boil.

As Lili spotted Will, he saw her. For a moment, he actually looked pleased; then his body went rigid and his face deadly pale, at
the sight of his wife and Blaise Trefallon, conversing with their heads so close together.

Wilrowan arrived in the box a few minutes later: very stiff, very military, very correct, in his green uniform. He bowed to the company, said a few polite words to Trefallon's friends who were sharing the box.

Without sparing a glance for Lili, he fastened his outraged gaze on her escort. “If it is all the same to you, Trefallon, I will relieve you of my wife's company. There are one or two matters that I wish to discuss with her.”

Far from taking offense at Will's insolent tone, Blaise only laughed. He rose to his feet and made a flourishing bow. “You need not go if you would rather not,” he said to Lili, over his shoulder. “Even Wilrowan has more sense of propriety than to carry you off by force from the Opera House.

In a daze of anger and humiliation, Lili rose slowly to her feet. Her brain felt congested with a sudden flow of blood, and it was difficult to think. “Thank you, Blaise,” she heard herself saying. “But it happens there are a number of things that
I
wish to say to Captain Blackheart, and I hardly think this is the place for me to say them.”

Will stepped aside. He held open the velvet curtain at the back of the box, and Lili went through, with her head held high. She kept right on going across the mezzanine, and was halfway down the second flight of red-carpeted stairs leading to the ground floor, when Wilrowan finally came even with her. Reaching out, he took her—more roughly than he might have intended—by her upper arm.

“I thought,” said Will, “that you were going to see the tragedy at Sadler's Theater.”

“Did you?” answered Lili, feigning a puzzled frown. “I know that
I never said so. I expect you merely jumped to that conclusion—wishing, no doubt, to have the Opera House all to yourself!”

“Very well, madam, I
assumed
as much, since you had already been to the ballet, and Trefallon has never been one to haunt the opera.”

“But
I
like the opera. Or at least—I thought I would like to see it, and Blaise very kindly offered to escort me. I admit to being under a misapprehension myself. You did say that you and the queen were planning an evening at the Volary?”

Wilrowan shrugged. “Dionee is a creature of impulse. She decided on the opera at the last minute.”

As they continued on down the stairs, his grip on her arm tightened painfully. “If I had known you were here, I would have—I would have sought you out earlier.”

But Lili had noted that slight hesitation. “What I suppose you were really going to say,” she retorted, “was if you had known I was going to be here, you would not have been comporting yourself so disgracefully with Letitia Steerpike!”

Will spoke through his teeth. “As you—had you known that
I
was going to be present—might have restrained yourself from such—intimate conversation with Blaise Trefallon?”

Lili felt a swell of indignation. By now, they had reached the ground floor. They swept on past the golden pillars and the immense pier glasses leading to the door, still arguing. “I think it's absolutely incredible,” she hissed, “that
you
should be lecturing
me
on decent behavior!”

“Do you?” said Will with a sneer. “As I think it equally incredible that
you
should pretend to care what I do, after all these years of supreme indifference!”

It was not a pleasant ride home. Lili sat very stiff on her seat in the hackney coach, and Wilrowan glared at her the whole way. These past weeks, he had been prey to one stormy emotion after the
other—anger, jealousy, guilt, despair—and he was feeling a mixture of all of them now.

His heart swelled at the very sight of her, sitting there trying to look so prim and injured, when he knew very well he had
finally
shaken her out of that sweet, everlasting, infuriating complacency. The pulse pounded in his temples as he eyed her narrowly across the coach. Say what you might about the court beauties, there was not another woman in Hawkesbridge who had such skin, such eyes, such a damnably kissable mouth. And when he thought of the times when it had seemed she was about to catch fire, when it had almost, almost seemed she was about to respond—there was passion slumbering somewhere inside of Lili, and he would be
damned
if he allowed any other man to be the one to awaken it.