Page 13 of The Shadow of Breninsol
Eleanor skirted around the room. The sparkling riches and wine combined with the freeing attitude were jarring. The courtier’s behaviour was so unexpected to Eleanor that she felt like an inconsequential twig adrift in the stormy waters that was this rising party. She stopped at the doorway, finding herself in the last and final room.
The antics would have been obscene if she was paying attention to it. Something else caught her eye, not the scene inthis room. She found herself inexplicably drawn to the figure of the man who occupied the chair, a silent, compelling presence that held her gaze. A ring of nobles surrounded him, creating a space as if they knew he was untouchable.
In the party’s deepest room sat a person who could only be described as a king, dressed in a long-coat and waistcoat made of richly woven silks, in a shade of blue that was almost black. Despite the distance and her position by the door, she recognised he was handsome, ridiculously so, and she knew that spelled trouble.
She blinked. He wasn’ttheking; she knew that. That man was famous for being blond and akin to a bright light. This man, though, was the antithesis of the bright king. The gold chair he sat on wasn’t a throne, but it became one with him sitting on it. Whoever he was, he looked like a king.
More than a king.
A god.
The air around him felt charged with something…something dangerous, too dangerous for her to be around. Yet, she didn’t care, as his dark eyes found hers from across the room. Her eyes widened as he smirked at whatever he read on her face. Her clear desire must have been inscribed across it.
His gaze was a lazy and slow perusal of her that was full of infernal temptation. She felt his eyes trail all over her body. From the distance between them, she felt rather than knew, he’d paused on her exposed hips and stomach, and then languidly trailed back to her face. Pinning her in place with dark eyes that flashed brilliant silver as a flicker of white light passed over him.
A delicious spike of pleasure shot through her at being the centre of his attention, and she knew she would stand here while he looked his fill of her, not caring how stupid it seemed. She wanted to please him, and she was willingly to stand in this very spot all night just to have his attention. Every fibre of her beingyearned for his complete and utter focus, wanting him to see only her.
Eleanor sucked in a breath as she watched a dark silk-covered arm raise in her direction, and the anticipation of what he would do made her heartbeat wildly. He flipped his hand over for his palm to face up and curled two of his ringed fingers, making a come-hither motion, insisting that she be closer. Her thighs instinctively tightened as she watched the movement of his fingers curling. She licked her lips as she thought of what those fingers could do with that same movement. With that simple movement, he was calling to her, his gesture a silent beckoning for her to approach and come closer.
AndStars, she wanted to obey.
She wanted to be closer, rather than on the opposite side of the room. That provocative motion combined with his devious lip curl made her want to please him. It made everyone around him want to please him. He was someone who got exactly what he wanted and right now he wanted her.
Her throat was too tight to swallow, the forgotten wine in her glass growing warm. The intensity of his stare was stifling, he looked at her like he’d forgotten everyone around them, that she was air, and he was suffocating. Even she had forgotten where she was and all she saw was him. An impossible sense of familiarity waved over her. For a breath, she felt…
No…impossible.
After all this time, why now?
She stumbled back, the warmed wine sloshing over her hand.
No.
She was not going over to him. She couldn’t.
As Eleanor blinked, her surroundings snapped into focus, revealing the writhing and stumbling nobles, Favours, and courtesans. Unbidden, her eyes desperately searched to reconnect with him until they found him. The corners of hismouth turned up in a smug, silent smirk, a gesture of pure amusement that grated on her nerves.
Annoyance flared in her eyes, a stark contrast to the pleasurable shiver trickling down her spine, yet his smirk widened, anticipating her approach.
No.
She knew, with a bone-chilling certainty, that she could never get caught up in him. He was a storm cloud on the horizon, a dangerous threat, no matter who or what he was. He was trouble. Mustering every ounce of willpower, Eleanor used all of her strength to force her heavy, reluctant limbs to carry her out of the room, backing away inch by painstaking inch. As if simply escaping to the farthest room could magically make her problem disappear.
Eleanor backed away from temptation itself and realised with a heavy heart that she wouldn’t find any sleep tonight.
Eleanor made her way back through the series of dazzling rooms, she needed a distraction from the gnawing sensation that clawed at her insides, almost screaming at her to go back, to finish what she’d started.
A soft-looking blond lord holding the arm of one of the younger courtesans caught Eleanor’s eye. She couldn’t place the girl’s pleasure house but ruled out The Ladies Grace and Moonlight House. The colour of the lord’s silk long-coat wasan odd one, neither a colour nor not a colour. It was a blend between green and yellow, a choice the aristocrats would deem unconventional. It wasn’t the lord’s strange long-coat that gave her pause though. He stood out to her, as he was one of the few in court that she’d seen with facial hair. She wasn’t sure if his yellow waistcoat matched his moustache and goatee or his embellished long-coat by design. The fair moustache and goatee made the way he held onto the young courtesan’s arm and the accompanying creepy smile disturbing.
As she looked at the lord, she realised his grasp was too firm to be friendly, and the courtesan’s wide, watchful eyes contradicted her smile. They darted between the lord and the room as if seeking an escape.
Eleanor clenched her jaw, recognising this wasn’t her concern. This was their purpose. She needed a simple, agreeable lord for the night to secure another invitation, but this man’s unsteady movement as he leaned towards the courtesan revealed his intoxication. A man with that look in his eyes wouldn’t mean anything good; he’d be mean, cruel even.
Eleanor took two glasses from the nearest serving tray and was walking towards the lord before she could think through her decision. She had but a single vial of her narcotic left. She’d been reluctant to use it, but her ingrained preparedness led her to slip it into an empty seam. Tonight seemed to be the night she’d use it.
As she got closer, Eleanor realised how young the courtesan looked. The girl looked closer to Julia’s age than to any of Madam Grace’s ladies. The young courtesan’s eyes held a guarded, but hopeful, relief, as if Eleanor brought with her the promise of salvation. She wouldn’t turn away, but the girl didn’t know that. Eleanor had committed herself to this and was confident in her ability to handle herself and him.
“I’m a powerful man,” the drunk lord slurred at the young courtesan.
