The Midnight Bargain

by C. L. Polk

  “So it must be.” That gaze swept between Beatrice and Ianthe. “I do wonder what you talk about.”

  “Our conversations are great wandering things,” Ianthe said. “Very diverting.”

  “Indeed. Well! I should get to know Miss Clayborn, then, since the two of you have befriended her.” Mrs. Lavan picked up a pair of sturdy shears and turned to Beatrice, smiling. “Are you in a great hurry? I have looked over the flowers my greensman collected for today’s arrangement, but I believe I need more color than this for such a pretty day. If you would come with me and select something bright, I would be grateful.”

  “Mother,” Ysbeta said. “Ianthe needs to get back to Bendleton quickly—”

  “Ianthe can wait for us.”

  Something final rang in her voice, and Ysbeta glanced at Beatrice before bowing her head. “Yes, Mother.”

  “I have time for Beatrice’s selection,” Ianthe said. “Perhaps you will meet later to make arrangements together.”

  “What a lovely idea,” Mrs. Lavan said. “It’s a pity you don’t have time to compose an arrangement now, Miss Clayborn, but I am most curious to see what choices you make.”

  Floral arrangement was an art in Llanandras, and therefore all the fashion here in Chasland. It was part of the womanly skills that made a good wife, based on principles like imbalance, profusion, contrast, harmony, and beauty. For Mrs. Lavan to invite her to give input—Beatrice must make a good impression. Her choice of flowers had to be tasteful, artistic, harmonious. It was an invitation, but it was also a test.

  Mrs. Lavan knew Ianthe was interested in her. She was curious to see what kind of wife Beatrice would make. Her choices would reveal what sort of home she kept for her husband, and Mrs. Lavan would consider that carefully.

  Beatrice ran smoothing hands down her skirts. She surveyed the peonies, white lilies, cream roses, and sprigs of greenery. A profusion arrangement, then. A celebration of all the most beautiful, indulgent and excessive. If there was some pink, some lilac, a bright flash of yellow . . . Oh, she could pass this test easily.

  Beatrice dipped her knees again. “I would be delighted to choose flowers with you, Mrs. Lavan.”

  “Excellent,” Mrs. Lavan said. “Come with me, then.”

  The jewel-box greenhouse on the east side of Lavan House was heady with perfumed flowers, and Beatrice’s gown went heavy under the close-pressing, moist air. The sweet chatter of birds filled the space, and colorful flowers Beatrice had only seen in paintings thrived in raised beds on either side of a purple slate path.

  Was this what Jy was like? Did people dwell in such abundant, lush beauty, breathing in the intoxicating fragrance of pink jasmine and perfume tree? How did people keep from just stopping in their tracks to marvel at it all?

  “Oh, Mrs. Lavan, this is so lovely.”

  “My greensman designed the garden,” Mrs. Lavan said. “It’s a tiny slice of Llanandras, here in Chasland.”

  “I adore it.” Beatrice clasped her hands together and turned in a slow circle, counting the gently swaying perches where jewel-bright birds gathered and preened, singing in clicks and trills. “Thank you for showing it to me. I would love to visit it again when there’s more time to see all your astonishing specimens—”

  “These are the flowers you may choose from,” Mrs. Lavan said.

  These? She was to choose among these blooms, each of them as precious as jewels? She was supposed to cut the life of this flower with sun-yellow petals framing a corona of curly pink fronds? Or this ruffle-petaled teaflower, its waxy, lush lavender color smelling softly of citrus? How could she choose—

  “What are you thinking?” Mrs. Lavan asked.

  “That they’re all so rare. I have never seen these flowers anywhere but in paintings.”

  “Those still lifes that are so popular here?”

  “The same. Some are better than others. They’re an accessible subject for painting.”

  “Your command of Llanandari is very good,” Mrs. Lavan said. “Did your mother teach you?”

  “She did. She went to Coxton’s, and they instructed in Llanandari.”

  “But you did not attend Coxton’s,” Mrs. Lavan said. She moved along the flagstone path, her wide skirts brushing against the retaining walls on either side of the walk. She reached out to stroke a pink-rayed sunshine, tickling its corona with long, lacquered nails. “Your family’s fortunes didn’t allow it.”

  How did she know? Was it Beatrice’s accent? “My parents and the local priest oversaw my education. My father taught me business mathematics, including probability theory.”

  Mrs. Lavan moved past a wide, shallow bird bath before a raised bed in the southeast corner. Beatrice stopped dead on the path, her stomach swooping to the flagstones.

  Orchids. Hundreds of orchids stood and climbed in that corner, in every color and variety Beatrice had ever seen in purchase catalogs. She had pored over those pages, memorizing the names, learning the prices the traders asked and what the most fashionable families had once been willing to pay for a single specimen.

  “The pride of my collection,” Mrs. Lavan said, and moved aside so Beatrice could see them all. “It’s a pity they fell out of fashion, isn’t it? They’re my favorites. Such variety! Which do you like best?”

  “They’re all so marvelous.” Beatrice coughed to clear her throat. “I couldn’t possibly choose.”

  “Allow me to make a few suggestions, then.” Mrs. Lavan pinched the woody stem of a long-petaled pinstripe star orchid and took her shears from the pocket of her canvas apron.

  “This one, I think.”

  Mrs. Lavan squeezed the handles shut. The shears shushed together and cut the blossom free, coming together with a click.

  Beatrice flinched.

  :Beatrice?:

  :It’s all right,: Beatrice soothed.

  Mrs. Lavan handed the white-striped maroon blossom to Beatrice. “I heard your name from my daughter a few days ago, Miss Clayborn. I understand this is your first bargaining season, and you have a younger sister who will follow your success here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Beatrice replied. The orchid wafted its gentle, subtle scent through the air. Beatrice cradled it in one hand. Her stomach trembled as she watched Mrs. Lavan select another.

  “It’s an important time, bargaining season. An occasion unlike any other holiday or festival in the world. Chasland’s custom is filled with pageantry, celebration, gaiety—all of it draped over the sober truth of marriage, dressing it in finery and ignoring everything important.”

  Mrs. Lavan chose a button orchid this time, a charming, vivid pink. One shush of the shears, a snip, and the flower came free. “So much depends on these six weeks while you young people mix and get to know one another. And as an ingenue, you are sought after, are you not?”

  Beatrice’s tongue felt thick. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You are dressed in fine gowns and sent out to be merry, to meet the friends who will be with you for years. What friends have you made, other than my daughter?”

  Harriet would know exactly what to say. Harriet would have made some friends by now, if it had been her. Beatrice thought of Danielle Maisonette laughing at her, and the tremble in her middle doubled. “I haven’t had the opportunity to meet any of the other ladies yet.”

  “And you have no existing invitations from the friends you made at Coxton’s, as you did not attend. What do you believe is the foundation of a good marriage, Miss Clayborn?”

  It was so hot in here, and the damp spread itself all over her skin. Beatrice laid the button orchid in her hand. “Respect,” she said. “Love is a fire set with paper. Respect is the log that holds the heat and the light.”

  Ianthe’s mother glanced over her shoulder. “I prefer to think of love as a flower. Even as beautiful and intoxicating as flowers are, they inevitably wither. What do you think of this one?”

  She held a spiderleg orchid with pale green petals, the top lobe spotted yellow.

  :
I will hex her,: Nadi said.

  :Don’t you dare.:

  :She’s hurting you. Nadi can feel it just under your skin.:

  :She doesn’t know,: Beatrice replied. :She doesn’t know what she’s doing.:

  Her attention centered on the orchid pinched between Mrs. Lavan’s fingers. She cleared her throat. “Isn’t that flower terribly rare?”

  “Oh, I suppose it is.” Mrs. Lavan considered the spiderleg orchid. “I had heard they fetched a handsome price in Chasland last year, had they not?”

  The question poured cold water down Beatrice’s spine. She felt as if her third-best day gown had been torn from her, leaving the truth of her exposed and naked. She had been brought here, away from Ysbeta and Ianthe’s protection, to be chased away like a garden pest.

  “They did.” Beatrice’s voice was small, so small among the birdsong.

  “Crazes are like flowers too. They blossom, they promise so much . . . but they inevitably die.”

  She cut the spider orchid, and what once had been a flower worth hundreds of crowns came free. “Marriage needs respect, it’s true. It needs that more than it needs the quickly exhausted flame of infatuation. But what a marriage needs most of all is to understand that it’s not about love, or even respect.”

  Mrs. Lavan cut another button orchid, and another, laying the blushing pink flowers in Beatrice’s hands. “Hmm? What do you say to that, Miss Clayborn?”

  They were heavy. Her arms were lead. But she would not bend. She raised her head, gathering the strength to answer. “Only a question, ma’am—what quality is of greater importance than respect?”

  “Responsibility. When you are married, you are responsible to your marriage,” Mrs. Lavan said. “You put away selfish joys to be part of a partnership. It’s about pursuing what is best for your family, not yourself—each contributes to make a greater whole, to become better together than you were apart.”

  “Mr. Lavan and I have not spoken of marriage. We are only friends—”

  “I know how my son looks at you, Miss Clayborn. You may have not spoken of marriage, but he can’t help smiling when he sees you. It is better to speak of this now, before it goes any further.”

  Mrs. Lavan moved a little to her right, selecting another vivid pink orchid. “My son is not just in need of a wife. He needs the right wife. He needs someone who would be an asset to his family, through strength of the power, and an asset to his business, through connections and skills. She must bring advantage to Lavan International.”

  “Advantage,” Beatrice said, and accepted the flower. “You mean wealth.”

  “Do not mistake me. If you came from a family newly raised to wealth through well-timed investments—”

  A green and yellow bird landed on Mrs. Lavan’s shoulder. She stroked its head with one finger. “If you had gone to women’s college and made friends there, if you had the acquaintance of the resource owners in the north, if you had so much as organized a single party in your north country village—”

  How did she know all this? How did she have the picture of their existence as lesser gentry in Meryton, only occasionally invited to the larger parties, rarely asked to dinner? How did she know of her family’s disgrace?

  “I could learn those things.” The words tumbled out before she had a chance to wipe the desperation off them.

  “Not quickly enough, for all your potential.” Mrs. Lavan shook her head slowly, her sympathetic smile as cloying as the perfume tree’s fragrance. “I love my son. I know he’s currently imagining how happy he will be with you. But he is making a mistake that will make both of you miserable. Love wilts, Miss Clayborn. What remains is your commitment to your family, and to your business.”

  “And I’m not good enough.”

  “Never say that,” Mrs. Lavan said. “You are every bit as good as you need to be. You are kind. You are intelligent. You are pretty, and your depth of power is impressive. But you are not skilled enough to step into my shoes and succeed me.”

  A vivid orange bird fluttered from its perch and landed on the lip of an iron bath, warbling as it played in the water. A mate joined it, preening the feathers on its neck. Beatrice flicked her gaze away to watch Mrs. Lavan, swallowing the lump in her throat.

  “Ah. Now this . . . this is my favorite among my favorites.”

  Mrs. Lavan gestured with her shears toward an Imperial Lady, a ruffled deep violet specimen that made Beatrice stop breathing. Father had promised Mother an Imperial Lady when the ship came back. One branch supported only a single spectacular blossom. They were the most coveted, the most prized.

  Mrs. Lavan parted the leaves at the base of the plant and cut. She lifted the bloom and breathed in its scent, her eyes slipping shut. “These smell the best. Round, with orchid’s sweetness, but with a hint of smoky spices that makes it the most valuable perfume flower in the world.”

  She handed the cut stalk to Beatrice. “Ianthe needs a particular kind of woman, Miss Clayborn. I must make a careful, thoughtful choice of a proper wife for my son, who does not yet understand that love is not enough.”

  The orchids trembled in Beatrice’s hands. “And will he accept your choice? Will he let you decide who his wife shall be?”

  “Not if I tell him outright,” Mrs. Lavan said. “He’d rebel, like any boy his age. You can understand the gravity of the choice before you. You understand the responsibility. Set your aim lower than the sun itself. Go home, Miss Clayborn, and wait for the invitations from gentlemen. Trust in your charms to attract a suitable husband. Perhaps a man who is not a sorcerer himself? You’re so strong in the power that honestly that’s all you need.”

  Beatrice’s hands clenched around the stems.

  :I’ll hex her. I’ll—:

  :No.: But just one hex. One day of ill luck. Mrs. Lavan stumbling, falling, landing—no, no. Beatrice caught Nadi in webs of power, compressing the spirit inside her. :You must not. Stay still, Nadi:

  :Why?:

  :Because you will make bad luck for me, too.:

  She raised her head and met Mrs. Lavan’s eyes. “Thank you for your advice.”

  Mrs. Lavan nodded to the dying fortune in her arms. “I’ve ordered a carriage to take you home. You may take those orchids with you. Put them in sweetened water with a little vinegar, and they should last for days.”

  Beatrice cradled the dying flowers. Mrs. Lavan had to have ordered the carriage before she had even met Beatrice. She swallowed the lump in her throat. There was no flower arrangement she could have made to impress Mrs. Lavan. She hadn’t stood a chance, and now she wouldn’t even be able to say good-bye. “I will reflect on what you say, Mrs. Lavan.”

  “Wise girl. Good afternoon.”

  Dismissed, Beatrice turned and left the greenhouse, stifling Nadi’s rage.

  The smell of the orchids wouldn’t fade. Beatrice had nearly torn out the underarms of her gown struggling to open the coach’s windows, but it did no good. They lay in a loose heap on the padded bench next to hers, their delicate, expensive perfume impossible to ignore. It stung her eyes. It crawled into her throat. But she swallowed, and blinked, and breathed through her mouth.

  She kept her gaze on the fields and lawns just outside the window, counting cattle through the lump in her throat. She mustn’t cry. It would not do, to exit the gilded carriage whose turquoise color shouted that it was the property of the Lavans with kohl streaking down her carefully rouged and powdered cheeks. Tongues would wag if anyone saw her fleeing into the townhouse with her maquillage in a wreck. It was one thing to be a failure, but to look like one was unthinkable.

  But she wanted to cry. She wanted to curl up in a tight little ball, tucked away in some nook where no one could see her, and weep until her eyes ached. Mrs. Lavan had stripped every fancy, every illusion, every cloud-sugar dream and left her naked, and then held her in front of a mirror and forced her to look at what she was: nothing of any significance. She had no skills. She had no connections. She didn’t even have the solidity
of a family reputation for business.

  All she had to give was her strength in the power. All she was worth was the children she could give a man. A man with riches but no power of his own would be eager for such a bride. Udo Maasten was eager for such a bride. She couldn’t expect to aim any higher.

  But the thought of giving in to the demands of society—of submitting to their expectations and marrying someone who hadn’t a shred of the indulgence Ianthe would have given her— She could not. Not when the solution was so close to her. Not when she could help Ysbeta— How could she help Ysbeta? Mrs. Lavan had not withdrawn Beatrice’s welcome to Lavan house, but she wouldn’t be pleased to find her there, after she had sent her packing. How could she teach Ysbeta and fill her end of the bargain?

  She and Ysbeta had to make a plan. They both needed this knowledge, and Ysbeta couldn’t gain it without her help. Beatrice had to attend the Robicheaux ball and speak to her. Ysbeta would be there, trying to attract suitors . . .

  And Beatrice needed her own string of gentlemen vying for her attention, to keep her family assuming that she was doing her duty until it was time to reveal the truth. She had to go to the ball, and she had to shine.

  She straightened from her curled, despairing posture and leaned against the seat back as a breeze carrying the scent of cherry blossoms overpowered the orchids’ mocking perfume. She watched the gray stone fronts of the homes on Triumph Street, the house numbers counting down to number seventeen. She tucked the orchids into the crook of her arm and let the footman hand her out of the carriage, head held high as she walked inside.

  “Put these in sweetened water with a little vinegar,” she said to a maid, who took the bundle of blooms in an astonished hand. “I’d like them taken to my room and set where I can see them from bed.”

  She would look at them and remember that the only thing she had was strength in the power. But it was also the only thing she needed, if she had the will to use it.

  “Clara!” Beatrice took up a handful of her skirts and climbed the stairs to her room. “I’m sorry I was so delayed. Is the bath ready? We don’t have much time.”