Beata’s face cleared, annoyance changing to something akin to conspiracy. “True, Your Majesty. She keeps running away when we try to tell her things.”
“I don’t run away,” Sophie protested. “You keep trying to talk to me when I have things to do.” That wasn’t entirely true. She was still avoiding speaking too closely to the ladies-in-waiting. They would try to pry the story of why the queen had chosen Cameron as her husband from her if she gave them a chance. But the fact that they kept using “you’ll be married soon” as their reason for wanting to talk to her gave her the perfect excuse to stay with Eloisa now.
“Always so conscientious,” Eloisa said with a laugh. “Go on, Beata. Sophie has to listen to me, even if she is shy about her wedding night.”
Sophie carefully didn’t react to this. The queen knew very well that Sophie had no reason to be nervous about her wedding night. It was in her interests to keep up the charade that she was a good royal virgin, but Sophie was suddenly uncertain exactly what game Eloisa was playing. There was a fey look in the green eyes that she didn’t know how to read.
Eloisa hadn’t tried to speak to her in any intimate fashion since the Domina had worked her last healing. So why now? So late. When they were both tired. After all, there were still a few days until the wedding, so this was hardly the only opportunity Eloisa would have to provide advice.
Sophie put the silver-chased hairbrush back in its place on Eloisa’s dressing table. When Beata left the room, she turned back to the queen, waiting to see what Eloisa would say next.
Eloisa stood and stretched. “Goddess, it’s good to be out of that dress.”
Sophie, whose own dress was starting to feel more uncomfortable with each passing second, her ribs beginning to feel as bruised as her feet from the hours and hours of a very tightly laced corset, understood her relief but couldn’t bring herself to feel terribly sympathetic.
“You looked very beautiful, Your Majesty,” Sophie said. “You should bring that head seamstress into the palace staff.”
“I intend to,” Eloisa said. She lowered her arms and then walked over to the taller dresser on the other side of the room, where she kept gloves and scarves and pieces of jewelry that weren’t valuable enough to be locked up in the vault when not in use. Her walk was graceful and feline, the movements making the robe billow around her in a way that was unmistakably female.
Sophie wondered how exactly Eloisa had learned to be so . . . well, alluring. That was the word. She drew men’s eyes to her. Women’s, too. Maybe it was part of her training as a crown princess, but Sophie doubted it. Part of it had to be innate, as natural to Eloisa as breathing. Sophie walking across a bedroom in a robe would probably just look like a woman in a robe.
Whereas Eloisa was unmistakably a queen. Something to be desired. Feted. Envied. She didn’t need the dress and the jewels and paint.
Sophie watched, still not sure what Eloisa wanted, as the queen skimmed one hand over the polished wood of the dresser. It came to rest on the long triple strand of black pearls that Eloisa had worn for months on end, which should have been returned to the vault with her coronation jewels.
“I suppose I will have to stop wearing these,” Eloisa said, lifting the pearls and running them through her fingers. “It’s a pity. I’ve always liked black pearls best. The colors in them are so vivid. But they’re hardly an auspicious color for the start of my reign.”
She placed the necklace back down and then opened one of the drawers. From it she lifted a silk-wrapped bundle. She turned, offering it to Sophie.
“Here. I wanted you to have these for your wedding.”
Sophie unwrapped the silk carefully, revealing a pile of creamy—almost golden—pearls the size of small marbles. When she lifted one of them, they revealed themselves to be a long string that could be doubled or maybe tripled. Not the massive length of Eloisa’s blacks but still extravagant.
“Your mother mentioned your dress was cream rather than white,” Eloisa said.
“They’re beautiful,” Sophie said. The pearls slid smoothly across her fingers as she examined them, the sheen of them beautiful in the lamplight. “But too much, Your Majesty. Truly.”
“Nonsense. What’s the point of being queen if I can’t indulge my friends? You are my friend, aren’t you, Sophie?” The question was almost a purr. A purr voiced by a cat with razor-sharp claws, perhaps. Not an entirely friendly sound.
“Of course,” Sophie said, hands suddenly clammy under the pearls as the back of her neck prickled. She started to wrap them up in the silk again, trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed anything amiss in Eloisa’s voice. “I will always be your loyal subject and friend, Your Majesty.”
“Good,” Eloisa said, green eyes cool. “Then, as your friend, I offer some advice.”
Sophie looked up from the pearls. “Your Majesty?”
“You would be wise, I think, to be wary of showing your . . . affection for Lieutenant Mackenzie too openly. Wise, actually, not to indulge it at all.” She turned and walked toward the bed. “After all, it’s not real, what lies between you.”
Sophie’s hands tightened around the bundle of pearls. “I’m not sure I understand, Your Majesty.”
Eloisa sat on the end of the bed and shrugged fluidly. “I mean, it’s not you that he is reacting to. It’s the magic. For some men, particularly those with power, a woman’s magic is, well, let’s say it elevates the pleasure shared. Not all men. My husband didn’t find it so, but some men do. They like to touch fire perhaps. Any fire.”
“Excuse me?”