Page 132 of Unrivaled
I'd worked so hard to do my job well, to prepare her properly, to open her eyes and keep them open.
Now I had to wonder if I’d done my job too well.
“Let's get something for you,” Yasmine said.
“I don't need anything,” Audrey told her.
She meant that in the truest sense.
“Sometimes it isn't aboutneed,” Yasmine cajoled.“Sometimes it’s aboutwant.”
“I think youwantan excuse to look closer at those pots,” Audrey said, laughter in the words.“Here, let me oblige.”
Yasmine made a happy noise.I found some shade while they looked over the brightly painted pots and pretended not to notice, in the crowd ahead, Luca standing with a group of men.I smelled the perfume stand before I saw it, possibly due to the crowd that, despite being four deep in places, melted out of the way for Audrey as she moved along to it.I stayed at the back as conversation flowed between the women and they lifted bottles to their noses, commenting on the combinations of ingredients.
Luca had located her, though.He was moving in.
I braced myself, knowing it was too late to quietly move around him.
Nearby, Chay and Thomas settled into place in the shade, much as I had.They didn’t stop beside me.All three of us were working, not here for chit-chat or to compare our thoughts on products.
Audrey was working, too.I saw a man who might’ve seen thirty winters glaring imperiously at Audrey as he wandered by.Luca caught his gaze.The hardness in the lordling’s expression took me off-guard.
Luca knew him.And he, very clearly, also knew Luca.
I didn’t like what I was seeing.Audrey didn’t have many enemies, but her primary enemy was enough of a problem, even if he was solo.She didn’t need to risk Luca’s enemies deciding she was an extension of him.
The assistant, red-faced, leant back from murmuring something to Audrey about the deep purple bottle that was in her hands.She’d waved away the concerns, but then Luca got involved.
“By the wife,” I heard near-by, from a younger woman with a pale blue hat.“She’s buyingfunerary oils.And not evenniceones.She really has no decorum.”
“Soft like gold, not enough silver in her to polish,” agreed her friend behind a gloved hand.
The memory of my charge standing in the shafts of sunlight in the orchard at noon, the naked sword in her hand and the shield thrown over her back as she drank deeply from a flask, rose in my head.Mayhap she loved a scent others abhorred; she wouldn’t be the first, nor the last.But she certainly had quite enough silver in her to polish, and unlike far too many people who’d laid down and allowed the locways to roll over them, she had iron, too.
“These are the most luxurious scents,” Luca was telling Audrey, as the person behind the stall arranged a different, much more elaborate collection of bottles on a tray and offered them up to Audrey.“How many bottles would a standard person use of this per year?”
There was color in her cheeks now.Yasmine was peering at the ingredients in these new bottles.While Luca and the merchant went back and forth, the two friends exchanged glances.The unkind Hat and Gloves continued to whisper.Their gazes flitting from the expensive perfume to Luca with speculation.
Yasmine turned her face away from Audrey, disguising whatever she said.She put down the bottle in her hand like someone might set down a viper, then brushed off her hands.The look Yasmine shot Luca was full of derision.
“She doesn’t even lookgratefulto him,” Hat whispered.
“She’s rich,” Gloves responded.“She doesn’t need gratitude.He’s wasted on her.”
Mayhap Gloves could be saved.
Funerary oils were the exact same as bath oils, bar the label, and unless the body was being treated for the purpose of preservation.Audreyknew that, and the salesclerk ought to have.But the purple bottle she picked up again was taken from her hand by Luca.He replaced it with an elaborate one.I knew more about glassware than I wanted, thanks to the cider and knappchs she’d used to fund her way back from the brink.I could spot expensive crushed sand when I saw it.I needed no such expertise to know when a noble was sticking their nose somewhere it didn’t belong.
That was Luca’s specialty.
Yasmine had moved along to the far end of the stall.She unstoppered a bottle and offered it to Audrey, who wandered along in apparent nonchalance.I started wandering too, leaving Hat to live another day.Audrey smelled the bottle that Yasmine offered.Though Yasmine’s expression was friendly as she held it out to Audrey, when Audrey smelled it, they both shared a quick glance of poorly hidden mirth.The joke was shared between the two of them, but not with the audience gathered around, watching her make selections.
Rather than slip away, Audrey turned to Luca and called, quite loudly, “I’ve had enough, thanking you, lord Luca.”She gave him a polite, and remarkably shallow, curtsey.“My nose needs a rest before I shop further.I’ll see you about?”
“A twelve-month supply ought to do,” Luca was saying, flashing his smile.
My disgust rose, and so did the chatter around us.I fell into the place he’d left at Audrey’s elbow.For the first time in a long time, color sat high along her cheekbones, a mixture of embarrassment and anger, if I was any judge.
