“True enough. But there’s plenty of fun to be had in a crowd.”
Slipping from her corner, Mia drifted through the ballroom like the smoke from her lips. Smiling at the compliments, politely declining entreaties to dance. She strode blithely past two guards in fine-cut coats at the bottom of the stairs, pretending she belonged and thus, appearing to do just that. There was no one else in the room who shouldn’t have been there, after all. The invitation had taken her five patient nevernights to steal from the house of Dona Grigorio.* And the masques these marrowborn fools insisted on wearing every feasteve made it easy to walk among them unmarked. Especially with her curves strangled in a fashion designed to draw the eye away from her face.
Mia checked her paint in a small silver mirror case, applied another dark red coat to her lips. And taking one last drag from her cigarillo, she crushed it under her boot heel and stumbled past the velvet curtains into Aurelius’s booth.
“O, apologies,” she said.
Don Aurelius and his companion looked up in mild surprise. The pair were sat on a long divan of crushed velvet, half-empty glasses and a bottle of fine Vaanian red on the table before them. Mia pressed her hand to her breast in faux alarm.
“I thought this one empty. Forgiveness, I beg you.”
The young don gave a small nod. His handsome smile was dark with wine. “Think nothing of it, Mi Dona.”
“Do you…” Mia heaved a sigh, uncertain. Reaching up, she unfastened her masque, used it to fan her face. “Apologies, might I trouble you to sit for a moment? It’s hotter than truelight in here, and this dress makes it frightfully hard to breathe.”
Aurelius ran his eyes over Mia’s unmasqued features. The black eyes framed with artful smudges of kohl. The milk-pale skin and pouting, dark red lips, the necklet of jewels at her slender throat, a fox-quick glance to the bare skin below as Mia made a show of adjusting her corsetry.
“By all means, Mi Dona,” he smiled, motioning to the spare divan.
“Aa bless,” Mia said, sinking down onto the velvet, fanning herself again.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Don Gaius Neraus Aurelius, and my lovely accomplice here is Alenna Bosconi.”
Aurelius’s companion was a Liisian beauty around Mia’s age—probably the daughter of local administratii, by the look. Dark of hair and iris, her skin olive, the gold chiffon of her gown accented by metallic powder on her lips and lashes.
“Four Daughters, I adore your dress,” Mia gasped. “Is it an Albretto?”
“A fine eye,” Alenna replied, raising her glass. “My compliments.”
“I’ve a fitting with her next week,” Mia said. “Presuming my aunt lets me out of the palazzo again. I’ve a suspicion she’ll have me sent to a convent amorrow.”
“Who is your aunt, Mi Dona?” Aurelius asked.
“Dona Grigorio. Stuffy old cow.” Mia pointed to the wine. “May I?”
Aurelius watched her fill a glass and finish it just as swift, bemusement in his eye. “Forgive me, I didn’t know the dona had a niece?”
“Color me distinctly unsurprised, Mi Don,” Mia sighed. “I’ve been in Galante almost a month and she doesn’t let me out of the palazzo. I had to sneak out to be here this eve. Father sent me to summer with her, insisting she’d teach me how to behave like a god-fearing daughter of Aa should.”
“Meaning you don’t behave like one should now?” Aurelius smiled.
Mia made a face. “Honestly, you’d think I’d bedded one of the stableboys, the way he goes on about it.”
Aurelius raised the bottle to Mia’s glass with an inquiring tilt of his head.
“Another?”
“Most generous, sir.”
Aurelius poured, passed the full glass. Mia took it with a knowing smile, let her fingertips brush the young don’s wrist, arkemical current prickling between their skin. Alenna raised her glass to golden lips, faint annoyance in her voice.
“There’s not much left, Gaius,” she warned, glancing at the bottle.
Mia looked to the girl, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Any fear she might have felt was swallowed by the shadows at her feet. She rose from her seat with silken grace, sank down on the divan beside the golden beauty. Looking into Alenna’s eyes, she took a small sip of the wine. It was rich, velvet smooth, dancing dark upon her tongue. And taking away her empty glass, Mia pressed her own into Alenna’s hand, fingers entwined, lifting it to those golden lips.
She looked over her shoulder to Aurelius, saw him watching, enraptured. She smiled as she whispered, loud enough to be heard over the music below.
“I don’t mind sharing.”
*
Aurelius stood behind her, hands roaming her bare arms, across her breasts. Mia felt his lips at her ear, brush the edge of her jaw, reaching back to tangle her fingers in his hair. Leaning into the hardness at his crotch she sought his mouth, sighing as he left a trail of burning kisses down her throat, stubble tickling her skin. Finding the silken ribbon lacing the back of her corset, he pulled it loose with slow, steady hands.
Alenna was behind him, unbuttoning his jacket and letting it fall to the floor. Her cheeks were flushed from more than drink, long fingernails tearing his silken shirt and leaving his torso bare. Mia reached back to the hardness of his chest, fingers slipping down the troughs and furrows of his abdomen. His lips were at the nape of her neck, she felt the press of his teeth, sighing yes as he bit harder, seeking his mouth again. But with his free hand, he took hold of her long tresses, easing her head back, back, goosebumps thrilling along her skin as he pulled her corset away.
The music was faint and far above, near lost beneath the song of their sighs. They’d stumbled down the stairs, Aurelius ushering Mia and Alenna before him with playful slaps on their backsides. House guards pretended to pay no mind as the trio had stumbled past, Mia pressing her lips to Aurelius’s throat as he’d stopped to give the Liisian beauty a long kiss. He’d pushed Mia against the wall and reached between her legs, setting to work with clever fingers right there in the hallway. They’d barely made it to his room.