Chapter 50: Chapter Fifty: A Lady's Preference Be Damned

The razor blade scraped across Carnen’s cheek with a familiar sting, removing the stubble of the past long days of imprisonment and poisonings. His father’s men had mocked him mercilessly when he had first attempted to grow a beard on the long sailing voyage that had landed them here in Stalis. They said a boy who had never seen battle had no right to one, and that joking patch of wispy hairs was no badge of pride anyhow. Carnen had cut it off that same day, but turned it right around on his tormentors with the declaration that he did not wish to imitate their most disgusting hygiene habits of food chunks glued in most noticeable stains around their lips.

Now Carnen was so used to being clean shaven that he had no tolerance for the itching growth that was the beginnings of a beard, and his bride-to-be seemed of a similar opinion. The last thing Charlotte had murmured to him before shuffling her way out of the royal bedchambers this morning was the most irritating comment “Kiss was… thank you. But… pricklier than I’d imagined.”

Aya certainly hadn’t complained about his kiss. She’d moaned in delight and melted right into it, and he wanted to snap a retort to Charlotte about how kissing her frozen lips was like making love to a brick wall. She would never provide him near as much satisfaction as her maid had managed within seconds of her first, most amorous kiss, but Carnen certainly could not give voice to that admission.

Clara had seen his darkening expression though, even as Charlotte remained oblivious to it, and she’d lightened his mood with the compliment, “I think that perfect shading of stubble makes you look wonderfully roguish, Carnen. You should keep it.”

Charlotte had stammered some response then that, yes of course, he still looked wonderful, not at all sickly or feverish…

She was truly the most irritating woman that Carnen had ever encountered.

She kept going on and on, until he interrupted her, kissing her hand and taking his leave to prepare himself for their wedding.

Now the much detested stubble had been cleared, the injuries his father had dealt him were fully healed and covered up, and his tunic of military fashion was richly embroidered and well fitted. He would appear perfectly respectable to all these Stalis lords and clergymen now gathering in the chapel. Right up until the reception that is. Once the call came for him to parade himself out with Charlotte and start waltzing, he was sure to become a laughing stock.

His door eased open, and he caught sight of a woman in a rich red dress and veil, lurking at his back. He turned away from the mirror in an instant and drew his sword.

“Oh, Carnen, it’s me!” Clara raised her hands in laughing apology. “And might I say you look just splendid.”

He instantly relaxed, giving a nervous swallow. “I did not recognize you with that veil.” Not to mention the fact that she had never before come by his rooms, much less opened the door without knocking. “Why are you all covered up like that?”

“An expected modesty of the venue,” she excused. “And a gift to Charlotte as well. This day is not about me showing off my face all done up in make-up. It is about Charlotte.”

“Charlotte will not be wearing a veil, and neither should you be,” he insisted. “I don’t want some assassin slipping into your dresses and walking right into that chapel.” Walking right up the aisle, and planting her knife in his heart the second he lifted her veil and met those lovely doe eyes, maybe giving him one final kiss before leaving him to bleed out on the stones…

“So paranoid.” Clara sighed, pulling off the adornment. “Though I suppose most rightfully so.”

Carnen stiffened in concern, staring at the freshly swelling bruises on Clara’s cheeks.

“I shall inform all our guests about the required change to dress code this day,” she continued on airily. “But now I require an alternate cover for these most obvious marks, so do you still have that strange yet most effective cream of yours? I could not find Doctor Martin, and we’ve only an hour before the ceremony now.”

Carnen opened his trunk in an instant and fished out one of the most precious jars of concealing medicine. Clara was staring at the sheaves of paper peeking out from the corner of his well-used notebook. “Charlotte mentioned you were a poet,” she murmured, and Carnen blushed.

“That is not…” He avoided her gaze, focusing his attention on opening the jar so he could see to treating her face. “Those are tactical notes from the war room,” he settled on finally. “I do not write poems.”

“Many noblemen do, here in Stalis,” she offered. “It is a sign of wit and care, and an easy way to win yourself a wife.”

“I already have a wife,” Carnen grumbled, “and if I read her any poems, she’s liable to faint. I’m already concerned she’ll have a heart attack in our marriage bed the second I lay hands on her.”

“I’ll give her some advice after the ceremony to better prepare her for it,” she whispered coyly, and his cheeks further reddened. “You will both of you be up the whole night, I assure you.”

“Ah, thank you.” He cleared his throat, passing her the cream.

She stepped up to his mirror and started rubbing it gently into the marks on her cheeks.

Carnen watched her in weary frustration. He shouldn’t even ask why Yuri had struck her. He already knew the likely reason. “He was angry you spoke on his behalf this morning? Even angrier you said we’d be throwing Charlotte a ball, I would guess.”

Clara gave a bitter laugh, offering with scathing sarcasm, “Oh no. He was thrilled that his son would be dancing in public, and he even offered to dance with me as well. Your father is perfectly loving, you see, and his wife is just a clumsy wench. I fell.” The purple welts began to lighten and she gave a happy sigh. “Right on my face. Both sides. My floor has a hell of a right hook, you see.”

Carnen gave a somber smile. That spirit of hers… Clara truly was such a wonderful person. She deserved so much better than his father. “Well, try not to trip at the reception,” he played along. “I’ll be stumbling enough for the both of us. Though I am relieved my father forbid us from needing to perform any dances.”

“Oh no. There will most certainly be dancing,” Clara retorted, turning back to face him. “Yuri will not be attending the reception, as he made most clear. He’s exhausted from his night of hard riding and torching ships anyhow, but Charlotte will still have her ball, and you simply must dance with her, Carnen. It will look terrible if you don’t.”

“My father…”

“Will not be there and will not take issue with it.”

“Well, I take issue with it then,” he snapped. “I never should have made that stupid promise that I would give her a dance. I just wanted to shut her up.”

“Carnen,” Clara chided, eyes weighing into him in clear rebuke. “Do not speak so harshly about your wife. You may not love her yet, but she is head over heels for you, and you will not break her heart or upset her in any way. Not until after I have solidified our family’s control of this country. Is that clear?”

“I will never love her,” he muttered. “But fine. If you’ve done all the hard work to miraculously get my father to agree to this ball, then… Waltzing can’t be that hard I suppose.”

“No, it is just a simple box step, and you are not a clumsy oaf, despite your joking, so you shall pick it up with ease, I assure you. Come now, give me your hands.”

Carnen looked to her in unease. “Do we really have time for--?”

“Time enough.” She eased shut the door and held out her hand. “Come here now.” She guided his hand to alight on her waist, then took the other, held out to the side in light clasp over her delicate long fingers.

Carnen had never stood this close to his father’s new wife before, and he found himself incapable of looking at her directly. “Chin up and back straight,” she insisted though, so he did so, locking eyes with her.

She hummed the tune and told him how to step, and they glided across the room in graceful synchronous. She smiled. “You’re leading perfectly. You’re a natural at this, just as I predicted. So let’s try something more advanced. On every twentieth count there comes a spin. Like this.” He performed it flawlessly, and Clara laughed.

She had a delightful laugh. She was truly so breathtakingly beautiful, especially when she smiled.

The last move was tilting her sideways toward the floor in what she called a dip. Those dark eyes weighed into him so intensely in that moment that he froze. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking you have your father’s eyes.”

And if his father walked in on them in this moment, in this most scandalous pose, he would break both their skulls. Carnen’s hands instantly dropped from her and he stepped away.

“This ball is most certainly a mistake,” he asserted, but Clara kept that tender hand upon his arm.

“You do not have to be afraid of him, Carnen,” she whispered, and he threw off her hand.

“I am afraid of nothing,” he asserted. “I am perturbed that you are in here, that you came here at all. You should not be in here.” He yanked open the door, eyes weighing into her in clear command that she take her immediate leave.

She walked toward that exit with graceful decorum. “Yes, we should both of us be heading to the chapel now to see you married to Charlotte.” She paused, making a long study of his jawline. “I still think you should have kept that roguish trimming of stubble though. You’re a grown man, hardly younger than I am really. You should start working on a proper beard.”

He kept watching her, perturbed, until she vanished from his sight. These new feelings stirred by her words and by her hands on his body… They were even more disturbing than his longing for Aya. Clara was hardly older than he was, it was true. She had only been in his life a few months, and he had never thought of her as his actual new mother, despite her efforts to connect with him.

Now it appeared that she was seeing him in a new light as well… “She is my father’s pregnant wife, and I am marrying Charlotte,” he reminded himself sternly, and that was Clara’s plan he was playing along with by doing so.

He had to be misreading this, perceiving an attraction where none existed simply because he was repulsed by Charlotte and he felt sorry for Clara. He knew she deserved better than Yuri, and he himself yearned to be with someone spirited and strong…

Someone who would not leave strangle marks around his neck after they lay together in the nights.

Though that had been part of the thrill, and a part of him swore that no other woman was ever going to be nearly as fun or as challenging and alluring as his teasing assassin.

Carnen should have just stayed unconscious and in hell, because they were all of them headed there anyway. Clara would be the first to die should his father catch sight of her acting so boldly, and Carnen would see the worst punishment, because he was a philandering brute just as Charlotte had first denounced. However expertly he lied his way through the ceremony, this wedding reception was certain to end in violence.