Courting the Witch

by M. J. Scott

  "I'll stay," she said. "I'll wait for you."

  "And then?" he asked, voice half a growl.

  "And then, Major, we will...dance."

  Chapter 13

  She was growing convinced that someone was manipulating with time in the ballroom. Jean-Paul had said he would try to get the Andalyssians to leave as soon as possible, but two hours had passed since she and Chloe had returned to the ballroom, and the Andalyssians showed no sign of leaving yet. She'd tried to stay inconspicuous, lingering near the edges of the room farthest from the emperor's party, but she'd had to accept several invitations to dance. Her nerves had eased somewhat after the first time she'd been whirled past the end of the room where the emperor and most of the Andalyssians were seated. None of them had so much as blinked at her, reducing her fear that one of them would recognize her and demand that she be removed from the palace. But she still didn't want to chance a close encounter.

  On the third or fourth dance, she'd briefly caught Jean-Paul's eye from where he stood talking with the emperor, and he'd offered a quick smile and a small shrug of apology before she'd whirled on. The Andalyssians had started to join in some of the dances, and she thought someone had been giving them lessons, as they seemed adept at the fast-paced waltzes and gigues, which were different to the slow elaborate patterns of the set dances she'd seen in their country.

  Still, their participation in the dances had made her think it wiser to decline the next offer she'd had from a dance partner and to go instead to find Chloe.

  She made her way down the far side of the ballroom where there were thoughtfully placed niches curtained in gold-worked satin to allow the courtiers to retire in small groups or twosomes for more private discussions or entertainments. Probably the latter. Anyone who wanted to discuss anything truly private would be taking a risk. They could, of course, use a ward, but using magic in the emperor's presence was not encouraged.

  Of course, they risked being overheard if they chose to undertake a liaison of a more intimate nature in one of the niches as well, but that didn't seem to be of as much concern judging by the sounds coming from the first two she passed.

  The third was empty, as was the fourth. She paused there, taking a moment to enjoy the spectacle of the dancers swirling past. But her attention was dragged back when an oddly familiar voice caught her ear.

  Not speaking Illvyan. No, the words were Andalyssian. The sounds of it were unmistakable. She'd studied the language before her mission there. She'd not reached any great degree of fluency, but she knew its rhythms. The peculiar combination of sharp consonants and hissing sibilants that made it stand out from the more liquid rhythm of Illvyan.

  And the voices were coming from the fifth niche. Its curtains were closed, a signal that those within were not to be disturbed. But what were Andalyssians doing in a secret conversation in the middle of the ball?

  It seemed an odd choice. One that sent a prickle of alarm down her spine.

  Unable to stop herself, she ducked back into the alcove next to the Andalyssians, pulling the curtains fast behind her.

  The voices next door paused as though those within had maybe heard her. She froze, hoping she hadn't scared them off. Apparently she hadn't. The quiet conversation started up again. Definitely Andalyssian. But it seemed after months of not using the language, much of the vocabulary she'd known had faded from her memory. She couldn't understand much. Whoever it was—she wasn't sure if there were three or four separate voices—they were speaking in low tones. One, who spoke least but with the most assured cadence, was, she thought, the voice that had caught her attention. Familiar, but she couldn't quite put a face to the voice when it wasn't clear.

  She'd only recognized two of the Andalyssians she'd seen so far, both men she remembered being as junior as she had been at the time she'd met them. It wasn't either one of them speaking. But Andalyssians tended to run to tall and blond, the men wore their hair in very similar braided lengths, and they were all wearing the orange and green of the royal house's robes rather than those that might indicate any personal rank so it was difficult to distinguish them at a distance. She hadn't yet seen all their faces, so she didn't know if there were others amongst the party who she had met.

  And strain her ears as she might, the muffled words were hard to distinguish. She heard the name Deephilm, the Andalyssian capital, and several references to time and what she thought might be “waiting,” or maybe that was “patience.” It was one of those tricky tongues where sometimes only a slight twist of emphasis altered the meaning of words that otherwise sounded the same.

  She pressed as close to the wall between the alcoves as she dared, but nothing else in the soft phrases came clear in her mind, making her wish once more for a sanctii. Or that she'd been offered the option of learning Andalyssian with the assistance of a sanctii's magic via a reveilé. But the army preferred its junior officers to learn languages the old-fashioned way, except in times of extreme need. The theory being that then, when they were more senior and perhaps in need of the level of fluency a reveilé could grant, they would have the basic understanding and vocabulary that made a reveilé more effective. Besides, her language tutors in the army had insisted you could learn much about a people and a country from the way their languages worked and that linguistics were another tool in a diplomat's arsenal. Language lessons came with history and politics and geography to underpin the words.

  She remembered more of that than she did of the language itself, it seemed. Which left her only frustrated as the voices went silent. A swish of fabric, a low laugh, and the sound of footsteps were all she heard as the men left the niche. It was an effort not to follow immediately, but it would be difficult to explain what she had been doing lurking in a niche by herself. Unfortunately, by the time she deemed it safe to exit, there were no Andalyssians nearby at all, leaving her with nothing more than a vague sense that she'd missed something important for her pains.

  Chapter 14

  “Bored with me already?” Jean-Paul murmured as he dipped Imogene into the next move of the dance. She was following him seamlessly, but her expression was distracted. Hardly the emotion he was trying to evoke.

  Her gaze came back to him, and she made an apologetic face and then smiled. "Not bored, no."

  They were moving closer to where the emperor still stood talking to the empress, who had made a late and somewhat unusual appearance at the ball. Liane was pregnant with their fifth child, and if the rumors he had heard over the years were true, her pregnancies had been difficult and there had been losses in between. Aristides’s expression as he talked with his wife was tender. The Andalyssians had departed for bed twenty minutes or so ago, and Jean-Paul had excused himself from Aristides and gone in search of Imogene. Who now seemed more fascinated by the emperor than the dance.

  "Perhaps if you tell me what is so distracting, we can solve the issue?" he said gently.

  Her eyes whipped back to him again. "It's nothing."

  "It's not nothing. Something is bothering you. If it's something I've done, I would prefer to know. If it's something larger—which I am hoping it is given your attention returning to the emperor every time we get near him—then I would say it's my duty to know."

  "No, I was just wondering how the Andalyssians enjoyed the ball."

  "Ever the diplomat?" he said, one side of his mouth quirking. "You can be at ease, Lieutenant. No blood was shed. They appeared to enjoy themselves. Even the Ashmeiser Elannon, and he seems to have been born with no fraction of a sense of humor."

  Imogene nearly stumbled, the movement the slightest pause before he steadied her.

  She was flushed from the dance, but beneath the pink, he fancied her cheeks were paler than they had been before he had mentioned the Ashmeiser.

  He tightened his grasp on her waist a fraction, wanting to let her know she was safe. "You know him, the Ashmeiser?"

  "He was one of the king's advisors when we were in Andalyssia," she said. "I never liked him. An
d he definitely didn't seem to like Illvyans. I always wondered if..."

  "If?" Jean-Paul prompted, steering them around a wayward couple who had careened somewhat out of the path of the dance. This particular waltz was complicated and fast, which was good because it would mean that everybody was too busy concentrating on the steps to pay attention to anyone else's conversation.

  "If there was more to our mission going wrong than just Captain Berain being an idiot. I mean, it started well enough, but then things seemed to fall apart far too quickly and for reasons that never entirely made sense. I thought perhaps the Andalyssians—or some of them, at least, as the king himself was cordial in the beginning—were undermining us. If I were to choose the Andalyssian most likely to be doing so, the Ashmeiser would be high on the list."

  Jean-Paul still wasn't certain what the Ashmeiser did. Andalyssians didn't have a noble class that operated in the same way as Illvya's. They had more elaborate family obligations and ties that balanced with rank. The Ashmeiser was head of one of those families. And some sort of senior counselor to the king. A man of power. Important enough to be sent to repair relations. But if Imogene's instincts were right—and he saw no reason she would dissemble about the mission when she had been honest with him so far—he was an interesting choice of man for the job.

  "Did you tell anyone of your suspicions?" he asked.

  "By the time I realized, things were already bad. I included my thoughts in my report when we returned, but I had no evidence of any wrongdoing. And Captain Berain had so thoroughly made a mess of it all that no one seemed to want to go digging for any other problems."

  "The Ashmeiser has been polite enough, so far," Jean-Paul said. "Reminds me somewhat of a human icicle, but he hasn’t done anything untoward."

  "That's good." She chewed at her lip. "I think I heard him talking earlier. There was a group of Andalyssians talking in one of the niches." She nodded to the side of the ballroom. "I couldn't see who they were, but I knew one of the voices sounded familiar. I couldn't quite place the voice then, but I'm sure it was him."

  "Did you catch anything of what they said?" Jean-Paul asked.

  She shook her head, light sparking from the jewels in her ears. "My Andalyssian is very rusty. I've had no need to use it in months. Plus, they were speaking softly. There was something about time and perhaps patience, but that was it. They mentioned the capital, Deephilm, several times. They sounded..." She hesitated. "Cautious," she said at last. "Or wary, perhaps." She frowned.

  "Perhaps that's not unreasonable when they're in a strange country. Face-to-face with the emperor rather than dealing with diplomats in their own territory." Still, the Ashmeiser had not struck him as a man who was easily cowed. Was he bold enough to try something foolish?

  "An emperor who perhaps some of them are not reconciled to?"

  "Andalyssia has been part of the empire for nearly fifty years," Jean-Paul said. "It seems a little late to be staging a rebellion."

  "Perhaps," Imogene said. "But men seem to have a strange fascination with land and power."

  "And women don't?"

  Her mouth quirked. "I'm sure some of them are obsessed, too. But I didn't notice any women in the Andalyssian party."

  She was right about that. The Andalyssians had brought no women. Which was a point against them in his book. Either they were foolish in the attitudes to women and failed to understand the information women could access that men could not in a court or they were not willing to risk their women on what was supposed to be in a peaceful mission. But that was a worry for another time. He was tired of thinking about the Andalyssians. He wanted to focus on Imogene. "What about you?"

  She shrugged, which was something of a feat given the position of her hands and arms. "I have no need for vast lands or vast wealth. Do I have dreams of a successful career? Yes. But that is not the same as conquest."

  Jean-Paul wasn't so sure. He was beginning to feel somewhat as though she was conquering him. He took a deep breath, turning her again, and caught her scent. She wore a perfume that was unlike the heavy florals currently in fashion at court. Hers was greener, with a hint of spice and sweetness and a tang that reminded him of lemons. Had she bought it somewhere far away on her travels? Not that it mattered. He was near certain that she could wear no perfume at all and he’d still be fighting his every instinct that told him to pull her closer. To claim her.

  He would take her to bed tonight. And tomorrow, well, as skittish as she seemed, he was hoping there might be something more to explore between them.

  Her gaze had strayed again to the emperor.

  "If it would ease your mind, I could mention to Aristides that the Andalyssians are whispering in corners."

  Her eyes narrowed. "Are you making fun of me?"

  "No, Lieutenant. You're the diplomat. I trust your instincts."

  "Perhaps you should tell Major Perrine. He could set a watch."

  "You mean set a sanctii?" he said. Sanctii could move invisible through a room. Part of what made them so valuable to the mages who had them. "You know that's not allowed when it comes to diplomats." Aristides had signed an agreement with the Andalyssians that set the terms of their visit. That included the provision of bags of salt to guard their rooms. He didn't know a lot about sanctii-he'd never shown any talent for water magic, so he had only received the basic knowledge of it that most Anglions did during his schooling, supplemented by somewhat more on the tactical use of the creatures during his service in the army—but he knew salt was their weakness. Too much of it hurt them and, more importantly, could snap the bond of magic between a sanctii and the mage controlling him. At best that meant the loss of a sanctii. At worst, it meant a dead mage if the sanctii had been displeased with his treatment while bonded. "But I can tell both the emperor and the major if that would set your mind at rest."

  Chapter 15

  The smile that flashed over her face was lightning bright. He felt the weight of her delight in him like a physical blow that ignited a heat low in his belly. The musicians had reached the end passages of the dance. He didn't want to wait and linger through another.

  "I will tell them now, after the dance. And then?" If he hadn't been dancing, he would have held his breath, waiting for her answer. He couldn't remember the last time a woman had him so hungry for her. Perhaps never.

  The color had returned to her face, her cheeks flushed a shade that was a paler echo of the satin of her dress. Her lips were somewhere between the two colors, and imagining them darker and swollen from kisses did steal his breath.

  "Then I believe you should call for your carriage, my lord. And take me somewhere we can be alone."

  "As my lady wishes," he said and had never been so glad to hear the music come to an end. He escorted Imogene off the dance floor, told her sternly not to vanish anywhere, and headed for Aristides.

  Unfortunately, he found his father first. The duq was standing with some of his friends—talking politics, no doubt—but he broke away and beckoned to Jean-Paul when he spotted his son.

  Jean-Paul gritted his teeth but obeyed the summons. His father would only bellow at him across the room if he pretended not to have seen. He bowed impatiently as his father studied him.

  "In a hurry, Jean-Paul?" the duq asked.

  "I want to speak to the emperor before I leave."

  "It's early to be leaving." His father's eyes—the same gray as his own—were cool.

  "I've been with the Andalyssians all day. And I will be again tomorrow. I think I've done my duty for the day."

  "If you'd done your duty, you would have been dancing with Celadin or one of her friends."

  Jean-Paul had caught sight of Celadin during one of his waltzes with Imogene. She'd nodded approvingly in his direction, then turned rapt attention back to her partner, the Marq de Illsien.

  "I believe Celadin has plenty of partners to fill her dance card."

  "If you're not careful, she'll marry someone else."

  "And I'll be delig
hted to toast her at her wedding," Jean-Paul retorted. "Trust me, Father, Celadin and I will never make a match."

  "Then choose some other suitable girl. There are plenty of them here tonight. You should be dancing with them, not wasting your time on a mere lieutenant with no name to speak of."

  Goddess damn it. The duq had noticed. Worse, he knew who Imogene was. A smart man would dissemble. But when it came to Imogene, he clearly wasn't that smart. But he was smart enough not to let his father think he would succeed in choosing Jean-Paul's wife for him.

  Aristides had married at eighteen, when his father had fallen ill. He'd become a father for the first time when he was still only eighteen, the need to do his duty to secure an heir for the empire more pressing than any personal preference. Jean-Paul had been ten when Aristides had wed, but he'd watched the emperor grow serious and stern near overnight, the hints of the younger man who'd seemed, despite their age difference, to be lighthearted and as eager to take part in whatever nonsense the boys of the court were getting up to buried under the weight of a crown and a family. Jean-Paul would do his duty, and he wanted sons and daughters of his own, yes, but he had promised himself that he would not be rushed or forced to the decision.

  He had rarely been tempted to contemplate marriage before he had met Imogene. But he wanted to explore that temptation now. And he wouldn't let his father dissuade him.

  "She's young. Who knows what she might become."

  "I'm surprised Perrine let her in. She was part of the mission that is the reason we are here wining and dining those dull Andalyssians tonight."

  He didn’t take the bait and argue. That would only prolong the time away from Imogene. "Did you have something else you wanted from me, Father? Rather than telling me facts I already know and trying to arrange my life?"