Wedding (15 page)

We were parted into our separate circles but
I felt his eyes on me, and his mind in mine, throughout the long
dance. When it ended and he led me back to the high table, he was
more thoughtful. “Don’t be too hard on Dominic,” Josh said. “I
can’t swear I wouldn’t have done the same, in his situation.” He
knew he had hit a nerve, didn’t wait for my response of look or
word or thought, but strode across the floor to secure Naomi the
witch from her last partner.

The dancing went on for hours, with periodic
short breaks as much for us as for the musicians, during which
times we drank and snacked on the supper buffet, rested and
relieved ourselves. Unlike our little makeshift trio at La
Sapienza, these were professional musicians; the band had enough
members that they could play continuously for long periods, one or
two at a time taking a breather, the rest of them able to carry on
seamlessly. In the early stages everybody participated, children
and old people, heavily pregnant wives and mothers just up from
childbed. The tunes were for circle dances and reels, or formal
couples dances requiring only the chaste touches of held hands, or
at waist and shoulder, although closer contact, if desired, was not
prohibited.

After my dance with Josh, Sir Nicholas
Galloway, emboldened by whiskey, approached. “How about it?” he
boomed, making a turn with him sound like the demand to go upstairs
in the brothel after the madam has been paid at the door.

I had no reason to refuse, so I stood again,
let him put his arm around me and lead me out. He was a forthright
man and self-assured, more comfortable alone with me than in the
company of the sedate Ormondes and the reserved Lady Ladakh.
Because of the festival, he made no pretense of being uninterested
in me, sexually or otherwise, his hand ascending from my waist to
squeeze the side of my breast, or descending to slide over my
buttocks, as the steps of the dance provided opportunities. He was
as free with his
crypta
as his hands, getting answers to
some of his questions without having to ask aloud, a method that in
his case I found preferable.

At one point, thinking to win a respite from
the groping, I mentioned Cassandra Galloway, whom I had known at La
Sapienza. “Is she a relative?”

“My sister,” Sir Nicholas bellowed, laughing
and patting my rear affectionately as if I had made a weak joke.
“Glad to hear news of her, of course, but we don’t need to gossip
like old wives tonight.” He turned me around so that we were facing
the same direction for the promenade while his hand crept up slowly
under my arm, fingers spread to envelop my breast without being too
obvious. We continued the dance in silence.

“Margrave Aranyi,” Sir Nicholas roared in my
ear toward the end, making me jump, “is doing well for himself.” He
was staring at Stefan, who was dancing, not with Dominic, but with
Alaric, the Master Falconer, but Sir Nicholas made it clear through
his thoughts that he was speaking about me, of my impending
marriage and motherhood.

Absurdly, I felt the need to demur. “It’s a
girl, you know.” It was the only one, of all my shortcomings, that
I didn’t mind admitting, since it was the only one I didn’t feel
was a deficiency.

“So Margrave Aranyi said. There’s nothing
wrong with girls, as long as a man has an heir. Next time, perhaps,
you’ll have a son.”

“Perhaps.” Now was not the time to say I had
no intention of having more than one child.

Sir Nicholas ran his hand over my
velvet-sheathed rear and cupped a cheek. “A gifted wife is worth as
much as land or family name, especially for someone like Margrave
Aranyi, who doesn’t lack for either. Now that you’re in whelp, he
has everything a man could want. I don’t suppose,” he bawled in his
version of a suggestive whisper, “that you’re free tonight.”

The funny thing was I might have been
tempted, if he wasn’t so loud, if he would promise to speak only
telepathically—and if I wasn’t secretly hoping for Dominic to claim
me despite my rebuffs. There was something appealing about the man,
his friendliness, his open appreciation and his robust virility.
All the fondling hadn’t produced the usual nausea in me, just a
slight queasiness that could be mistaken for excitement. He was
about my age, attractive and youthful, his inner eyelids glinting
like tarnished silver in the torchlight, although his gift was not
especially strong. But he
was
gifted, and at this large
gathering that counted for a lot. “No,” I answered his question
with just the right amount of regret, “I’m not.”

After Sir Nicholas relinquished me, Sir Karl
Ormonde was waiting his turn. He, too, was curious to see what had
brought Margrave Aranyi to marriage so late in life, although he
was subtler than Sir Nicholas. Other than holding hands for the
dance, he touched me only with his mind, and he did that so well
that I was surprised to find myself opening up to him, disclosing
my Terran origins and some of the details of my rendezvous with
Dominic at La Sapienza—even a glimpse of our time in the travelers’
shelter. I wanted to kick myself for not shielding my thoughts more
prudently.

“Nonsense.” Sir Karl refuted my silent
castigation, smiling with closed lips. It was not a warm smile.
“Better to get the truth out in the open from the start. A marriage
can’t thrive on secrets.” Unlike Sir Nicholas, he was appalled at
what he had uncovered. When the dance ended he dropped my hand
abruptly. With deliberate cruelty he said, “I’m sure you’ll
understand if I say that this sudden marriage of Margrave Aranyi’s
comes as a surprise. Stefan has been strictly brought up, and he’s
always been a credit to us. He’s of age now, and must make his own
decisions, but I promise you—” He scowled at me with his cold,
contemptuous face. “—as his father, I won’t allow him to be shoved
aside or insulted.”

Sir Karl turned his back before I could think
of a reply, searched protectively for his son, saw him soliciting
Katrina for the next dance, and looked over to me again, comparing
Dominic’s two companions. His parting thought was merely that it
was a shame, if only to be expected, that a man of Margrave
Aranyi’s reputation was marrying someone less than respectable.

Back in my seat, I pulled the whiskey
decanter toward me, then remembered in time and pushed it away.
Lucretia, Lady Ladakh, perspiring from the dancing, commiserated.
“It’s difficult, isn’t it, everyone around you indulging, and not
being able to. I sometimes think I weaned Drusilla too soon,
couldn’t go through one more festival on water.”

Lucretia had a kind face, with large,
widely-spaced gray eyes, and a warmth of character hidden at first
by Christian rectitude. I was tempted to confide in her.
“Especially after being put in my place by Sir Karl Ormonde,” I
said.

“Oh, that old hypocrite.” Lucretia dismissed
her neighbor with a sneer. “May the Threefold God forgive me for my
lack of charity. But honestly, Mistress, you mustn’t trouble
yourself over such pettiness. His only quarrel with you is that
Margrave Aranyi is marrying you instead of one of his daughters. No
woman would be acceptable to him. He thought Stefan was moving in
as
companion
with a lifelong bachelor.” She watched as the
dance ended and Dominic bowed to his partner. “Be glad the son
doesn’t take after the father.” She read my confusion and
clarified. “Both. Your lord husband is a better man than his father
was, and his companion is more virtuous at his tender age than his
own father will ever be.”

A man hovered at her elbow, Marcin, a tenant
farmer from the Aranyi lands, a recent bridegroom himself, married
to my maid, Katrina. I thought he was offering Lady Ladakh
something, more food or drink, but he was asking her to dance.
Lucretia apologized for leaving me, smiled into the man’s anxious
face and stood up. “It’s Midsummer,” she said over her shoulder as
he whirled her away. “It only comes once a year.”

I was seeing my first genuine mid-season
festival, the uninhibited celebration of the mountain people, not
the sheltered, convent-school atmosphere of a seminary. At La
Sapienza we had all been telepaths; at Aranyi we were few. Here on
this one night we were expected to accept the desires and the touch
of anyone, not just of other gifted people. Many of the ’Graven
used alcohol to dull their sensitivities and to get in the mood if
they could not achieve it by
crypta
alone, but that way was
not available to me. I had recognized Sir Nicholas’s offer for the
rarity it was, the opportunity to spend this night with a gifted
partner, even as I had felt compelled to reject it. His proposal
had failed more by being premature than from any other reason.

Clara, Lady Galloway, sank down beside me,
fanning herself with a napkin and reaching for a bottle. She
favored me with a brilliant smile, poured herself a glass of red
wine, knocked it back in one great swallow, and said, “It’s my
first chance in years, neither breeding nor nursing.” She refilled
her glass, sipped it, and remarked, obviously picking up on my
reflections, “I’m sorry you didn’t hook up with my Nicholas.”

After the fiasco of my botched companionship
with Alicia and Tomasz at La Sapienza, I was alert to the
possibilities of her meaning. “Sorry?” I asked.

“It’s a relief when your husband chooses
someone you can actually talk to. You’ll see, once you’re
married.”

Like Stefan
. To Clara I said, “But I
thought these festivals were just for one night.”

Clara studied me more closely. “You
are
a stranger, aren’t you!” she said. “Sir Karl Ormonde has
been maintaining to anyone who’d listen that you’re Terran, but I
wouldn’t believe fire is hot on his word.” Her voice was a rich
alto, harsh with scorn when she spoke of Stefan’s father, otherwise
lilting and captivating as she explained the nature of Eclipsian
marriage and festival nights. “The thought that your spouse
secretly lusts after someone very different from yourself can be
quite mortifying. Watching Nicholas get all hot and bothered by an
attractive, gifted, intelligent woman like you—”
And older
,
she was thinking, but had not yet drunk so much that she would say
it aloud. “—is very reassuring.”

I caught more of the thoughts behind her
words. She was praising herself as much as me with her description,
implying that if I was all these things, so was she. Which, of
course, she was. She was not beautiful by Eclipsian standards, but
she radiated a foxy sensuality at odds with the cool elegance of
her tall, lean body and narrow, handsome face, a juxtaposition that
Sir Nicholas, like most men, found irresistible. Her amber eyes
glowed with acumen; her milky inner eyelids were but an ineffective
camouflage for the strong gift beneath. Clara acknowledged my
appraisal with a smile and a nod, a moment of mutual admiration
that went to my head like a shot of the forbidden whiskey, with the
same elevation of my dejected mood.

Gratitude made me careless. “I’m sorry, too,”
I said, in answer to her earlier regret about Sir Nicholas. “It’s
just that—”
That what? What could I say that would not
offend?

Clara shook her head. “I warned Nicholas that
Margrave Aranyi would require your company tonight, betrothal or
no, after being so long parted. But my husband had his eye on you
from the start, and he’s the sort of man who has to find things out
for himself.” She lifted her glass. “To Mistress Amalie, wherever
you’re from. The wives of perceptive husbands salute you.”

Alaric, the Master Falconer, was bowing and
extending his hand as Clara drank her toast. The man’s perfect
profile and equally impeccable manners struck her receptive mind
with a wallop. She set down her empty glass and stood up in one
quick motion, excused herself to me and headed back to the dance
floor.

With Lady Galloway’s defection I was left on
my own. Every member of our party at the high table was dancing
with someone from the household or a trooper from the Aranyi lands.
These gentry and minor nobility from the outskirts of Aranyi were
like one large, extended family, with years of friendship behind
them, and had undoubtedly explored all the possible
interconnections at previous festivals. They had no interest in
each other this night, once the requirements of civility had been
met, and I had already turned down Sir Nicholas, the one man
amongst them likely to pursue me. If I wanted to restrict myself to
my own kind, nobody could object, but I would sit out most of the
dances and only earn myself a reputation for snobbishness.

When Berend looked my way I smiled and
nodded, standing up and stepping into his arms for a more energetic
version of the earlier waltz. Berend was a graceful dancer,
delighted to be the first of the household to partner the
prospective Lady Aranyi. Blossoming under the balm of his elation,
I relaxed and gave myself over to the festival. Berend twirled me
and dipped me skillfully, gradually losing his formality as he saw
my growing pleasure in the dance. When the music ended he embraced
me, pressing himself against me and stealing a kiss. But he did not
presume. He had bowed and moved away to find another partner before
the touch of his lips had really registered.

After that I never missed a dance except by
choice. Once I had shown myself willing with Berend, just about
every man in the household, and many of Dominic’s troops, male and
female, decided to try their chances. Nobody was forbidden to
anyone on this night, other than father and daughter, mother and
son. Opening my mind further, I found, as no doubt most ’Graven had
in their turn, that I could feed off the others, almost become
drunk myself, simply by lowering my mental shields, allowing in a
light, one-way flow of emotion from those around me. It was briefly
exhilarating—dancing with abandon, desired but safe, protected from
unwanted propositions by Dominic’s presence and my status as his
betrothed.