The Queen's Bastard by C. E. Murphy Page B

health.
    “Well enough.” Gregori put his hand around her wrist, pulling her hands away from her belly. His hand was feverishly warm, thumb and forefinger more than encircling her wrist. Belinda stumbled a half step forward. Gregori bore down on her wrist, and she dropped to the stone floor, hard enough to bruise her knees even through skirts and carpets. Her gaze darted up to meet his, her eyes wide. He kept his grip on her wrist as he lifted his other hand to touch the bruise on her cheek. Belinda hissed, jerking her head away a fraction of an inch, then held as still as she could, eyes intent on his expression.
    He wet his lips, pressing his thumb against the masked bruise. Pain stung at the back of Belinda’s throat and in her eyes, dry and without tears. “What happened?”
    “N-nothing, my lord. Only my own clumsiness. I opened a door too quickly—” Belinda had heard a dozen women use the same excuse. Gregori believed it no more than she had.
    “A door with knuckles, and a round stone ring. Have you a lover, Rosa?”
    “No, my lord!” Horror shot Belinda’s voice up, and she clapped her free hand over her mouth. Gregori’s fingers tightened around her other wrist.
    “Have you ever?”
    Belinda dropped her gaze again, shivering. “Yes, my lord.” Let him think she was too frightened to lie to him. The truth now was better than the outrage of a man later denied virgin blood. To her surprise, Gregori chuckled.
    “You’re either very foolish or very wise to admit that, Rosa. Which is it?” He took his hand from her cheek and settled it at her bodice, plucking at the ties with the casual confidence of a man who knew time was in his favour. “Do these stays and ties hide other bruises, I wonder?”
    Belinda shook her head mutely, amending the answer privately:
not yet
.
    “You’ve lied to me once and told the truth once, Rosa. Which is it now?” He smiled at her for the first time, and as she took a breath to answer her bodice loosened. He slid his fingers, hotter and softer than Dmitri’s, under her shift, catching the weight of her breast in his smooth hand. Too smooth: there wasn’t enough water in his body, the heat speaking more of fever than desire. Belinda thought of the desire she’d had to force sickness on him, and wet her own lips, semiconsciously copying his behavior of moments earlier.
    “The truth, my lord.”
    His smile broadened. “But you don’t deny that you lied?”
    She shook her head silently a second time.
    “I cannot keep on a serving girl who lies, Rosa.” The chastisement was light and mocking. “Do you think it can be trained out of you?”
    Belinda swallowed again, letting her eyes drift shut. Gregori’s skin was too hot, his eyes too bright, his colour bad. He had been well yesterday, and his symptoms were not those of the arsenic. Perhaps Dmitri need not have worried: this once it seemed nature and the queen’s bastard had the same agenda.
    But fevers could be healed from, if a man had strength, and the hold Gregori still had on her wrist told Belinda that he still had strength to spare. She remembered the strong dose of poison in his cooling tea, and certainty warmed her: the drug wouldn’t hurt as she worked to achieve her ends, but there were other ways available, too. Cutting a man’s hair wasn’t the only way to drain his strength.
    “Rosa?” His voice was more pointed, angrier now. Belinda lifted her chin to meet his eyes, letting a tremble come back into her voice.
    “Perhaps w-with a strong hand, my lord.” Let him take her hesitation for fear. Let him revel in his stronghold, while she eked the soil from beneath fortress walls.
    Gregori’s smile sharpened, and Belinda steeled herself against pain.
             
    Viktor’s mouth thinned with anger when she undressed that night. “No,” she said, before he had time to fling the accusation. “It wasn’t you.” She kept her eyes lowered, though she watched him through her eyelashes. “I