Crown Jewel (5 page)

He reacted instinctively, determined to drive away whoever had distressed Celeste—and there was one sure way to ensure that they were left alone. Lazzaro pushed Celeste up against the railing, pinned him there, and bent to take his mouth. In response, Celeste bit his lip hard. Lazzaro grunted at the pain, but did not break the kiss. To his surprise, Celeste did not break it either, instead tangling his fingers in Lazzaro's elaborate jacket and kissing him back.

Lazzaro really hated to admit it, but he was beginning to truly appreciate why Celeste was able to charge several sovereigns for a single night. He sank his hands into the fine hair and held fast, groaning at the softness of it, the greater softness and warmth of Celeste's too-talented mouth. He finally tore away at the sound of someone loudly clearing his throat and stared for a moment into Celeste's eyes. They really were the warmest, softest brown he had ever seen. He had meant to say something, he thought, but could not for the life of him recall what. He could not seem to recall much of anything.

Another throat-clearing finally snapped him out of it. Slowly letting go of Celeste, but not stepping away at all, Lazzaro half-turned to address the intruder. "I was always taught it was in the poorest of taste to interrupt a man in the middle of a seduction."

Celeste pinched him then, generous with his nails, but Lazzaro gave no sign of having felt it.

"I am afraid the dark faerie is mine," the man said, indicating Celeste in his elaborate black and silver costume.

Lazzaro met his gaze coolly, every bit the haughty Duke. "You are mistaken."

Against him, Celeste muttered a soft curse and tried to push Lazzaro away, even as the stranger drew closer to them. "I will not say it again," the stranger repeated. "He is mine."

"Gods strike you both!" Celeste snapped. "I am not a festival prize." He finally pushed Lazzaro away and made to move past him—but stopped short as the stranger caught him up. "Leave me alone, Marco. I am attending you tomorrow night, not now."

"You will attend me now or—"

Lazzaro pulled Celeste back again. "Back off," he ordered Marco. In reply, Marco took a swing at him, which Lazzaro neatly ducked, before countering with the same. Marco only came at him again, this time with a glint of silver in his hand, and Lazzaro lost all patience. He had come out tonight for revelry, not violence. Catching the man's wrist, bending it until he was forced to drop the dagger, he threw the bastard over the low balcony so that he landed in the lush greenery below. Bastard attended to, he turned back to Celeste. "Are you all right?"

"I am perfectly capable of defending myself," Celeste said coldly. "If you think playing the hero you masquerade as will get you more free kisses, then you are as arrogant and foolish as he."

Stiffening as though struck, Lazzaro stared at him a moment. He reached into his purse and withdrew a single sovereign, holding it up so that Celeste could clearly see it—then let it drop to the ground at Celeste's feet. "For your lips, courtesan. I bid you a warm and pleasant night." Lazzaro strode past him, never glancing in Celeste's direction as he went back across the pavilion. He did not stop as he reached his table, but walked past it, ignoring Benito when he called out.

He walked down the wide stone steps that led up to the pavilion and across a smaller courtyard, fighting through the boisterous crowds until at last he reached a smaller, deserted street. Alone at last, he could no longer ignore his thoughts. The entire debacle would certainly teach him to…except he was not entirely certain what it had taught him. Not to flirt with a courtesan? Not to think he could ignore the boundaries of their respective stations? That Celeste would never see past the sovereigns? Lazzaro sighed and told himself whatever the lesson, it had been learned. That was the last time he spent money on a jewel.

His tolerance for revelry banished, he tried to put his mind back to the frustrating and fruitless task of finding his mother's killer—but wine and humiliation still buzzed in his head, making concentration impossible. He thought of his mother, how happy she had been the day of her death, and felt ashamed. They had never been as close as maybe they could have been, but he had loved her and she him. Many a woman in her rare position would have rid herself of a child or used him to milk all she could from his father.

The beautiful and gracious Lady Salvai, however, was no ordinary woman. She had begun life as an actress and raised herself to the level of an affluent cut flower. Then, straight out of one of the silly tales from the boards she had once tread, she had become lover and beloved of the King himself. A few years after their affair had begun, she had born him a son—a son she had hidden away in a monastery until he was thirteen, before finally calling him home to her side. He had never been happier than on the day he had received her letter ordering him home, except a week after when he finally reached home and embraced his mother for the first time in years.

She had been a lovely, vibrant woman of rare integrity—and she had been poisoned in the sanctity of her private chambers, murdered long before she should have died. Now, Lazzaro was too busy sulking over a whore to focus on finding her killer.

"Your grace!"

The shout, the fear in it, struck him just as the scuff of boots registered, and Lazzaro whipped around—barely avoiding the knife that would have landed in his back. Instead, it sliced his arm, so sharp and smooth that at first he felt no pain.

Lazzaro grabbed the arm of his assailant, punching him in the gut and throwing him off. He drew his own blades, a matching sword and main gauche that had been gifts from Benito on his birthday three years ago. The man—Marco—drew his own sword and attacked.

The duel was short and brutal; Lazzaro had fought more difficult opponents in worse circumstances, and while he was handicapped by being a little drunk, he still possessed more skill than his opponent. It took only for Marco to carelessly lower his guard for Lazzaro to knock his blade away, then lunge forward and shove his own main gauche into Marco's gut.

He watched dispassionately as Marco slumped to the ground, leaving Lazzaro covered in his blood, the rest of it spilling out over the cobblestones. Only then did it strike Lazzaro that it had been Celeste who had called out and saved his life. He looked up, away from Marco, and stared down the street to where Celeste stood silently watching. They stared at one another for a moment, then Lazzaro looked back at Marco, slowly and painfully dying on the filthy street known as Peddler's Row. Kneeling, Lazzaro slit Marco's throat. After a moment, hearing feet approach, he said, "You called him Marco."

"Marco de la Vega," Celeste replied quietly, slowly dragging his eyes from Marco to Lazzaro. "He controls the dream smoke trade."

Lazzaro sighed. "So I just murdered a drug lord. Wonderful." He cleaned his blades and sheathed them, then stood up. He started to turn away, but the clinking of metal against stone stopped him. He frowned at the bright gold sovereign laying on the cobblestones, just barely out of reach of the spreading pool of drying blood. Looking back at Celeste, he said, "I am relatively certain that refunds are one of the few things a jewel does
not
give."

"I should not have spoken as I did," Celeste said. "While I believe most men would help me only for a free tumble, I also know most men would not have left me three sovereigns for a mere conversation. Take back your sovereign, your grace."

The knot Lazzaro hadn't realized was in his chest eased. "I am sorry for my own words."

Celeste shrugged, sinuous and elegant even on a filthy street and standing over a dead body. "I am a whore and I don't give refunds." His gaze dropped again to Marco. "I did not think the night would end in such a terrible fashion. My experience with men does not extend to disposing of their bodies."

Lazzaro stifled a sigh. "Regretfully, that is experience I do possess. Too much of it, really."

Quirking a brow at him, Celeste replied, "Dare I ask?"

"Benito says I have a peculiar talent for drawing in life-threatening situations. He says that is what I get for having a taste for mystery solving. Such a talent requires a certain set of unique skills."

"Like disposing of bodies," Celeste drawled. "For what it is worth, after the initial panic, no one will miss him."

Lazzaro frowned, because the words did not match with the sadness that flitted briefly across Celeste's face. It should not have made him angry, seeing Celeste mourn over a drug lord, but it did. Anger, he thought in disgust. He was not angry—he was jealous. The man was dead, which made his behavior all the more contemptible. Shaking himself, he said quietly, "It seems you will."

Celeste glanced at him in momentary surprise, then shrugged and looked away. "We were children together on the streets. Later, I became a jewel and he became a better thief. We have not seen each other in years, but that old connection has been useful this past month. I have been using him, to put it plainly. Sometimes I am too good at what I do." He looked up, and for the barest moment, all of his years were in his eyes. "Whatever our present, it is hard to forget that once we were hungry children together, sleeping in whatever bit of alleyway or roof we could acquire for the night, sharing stolen bread, certain that no matter what the world did to us we would be friends forever."

"I see," Lazzaro said, not really seeing at all. He had grown up in a monastery, the only child in a place full of men who had no real concept of what to do with a child. He had not met anyone his own age until he was thirteen, and then he had met the crown prince, his half-brother. He had absolutely no concept of what life must have been for Celeste.

Shaking off thoughts of things he could do nothing about, Lazzaro pulled out the heavy gold chain around his neck, removed it, and then pulled off one of the four rings he had put there while he attended the Festival of Secrets. Handing it to Celeste, he said, "Show this to Beni; tell him to send me two men."

Celeste took the ring, Lazzaro's signet, and slid it over his own gloved finger. Then he glanced up at Lazzaro, the very image of innocence. "How will I know this 'Beni'?"

Lazzaro rolled his eyes, then leaned in close, murmuring, "I am certain you will manage, jewel. Now go."

"As you command, handsome stranger," Celeste murmured.

"Don't think you can simply vanish after either," Lazzaro added, snatching him back as it occurred to him that Celeste would do precisely that. He held fast to Celeste's wrist with one hand, using the other to grasp his chin. "You owe me an explanation."

"I will give it," Celeste said, and tugged free of his hold. He darted quickly away, before Lazzaro could say anything further.

Lazzaro watched him until he was out of sight, then sighed. How had his evening gone so awry? He had meant to spend it working, until Benito had dragged him out. Once at the festival, he had meant to spend the night drinking and bedding something pretty—then he had seen Celeste across the way and forgotten everything. Now he had a dead drug lord and no clue as to why the bastard had wanted him dead. Well, Celeste and probably the balcony had much to do with it. Surely drug lord should have been smart enough to exact revenge through other means.

Lazzaro moved and was suddenly reminded of the cut to his arm that he had been ignoring until that point. The cut was minor, though, and the blood was already drying; it could wait until he was back at the palace to tend. Kneeling again, he rifled through Marco's clothes, looking for any clue as to why a hardened drug lord would act like a jealous, besotted young idiot.

Unfortunately, his search turned up very little. Lazzaro scooped all the bits and bobs into his own purse to examine more closely later, and by the time he had finished, the royal guards had arrived to help him.

*~*~*

Celeste toyed with the heavy signet that Lazzaro had given him, and which until then had remained on his finger to minimize the risk of losing it. He had almost put it in Lazzaro's jewel case, upon his arrival in Lazzaro's private chambers, but at the last had kept it. Why, he did not know or particularly care to contemplate at present. But he rather thought he would keep it until Lazzaro mentioned it.

It was a handsome ring—white gold, with Lazzaro's name inscribed on the inside in the old language. The signet itself must be Lazzaro's personal crest, because the Nascimbeni crest was of a griffon clutching a sword and crown. The King himself had commissioned the crest when he had made Lazzaro the first Duke of Nascimbeni. However, the crest on the signet was of a building of some sort … a castle? No, Celeste abruptly realized in a flash, rolling his eyes at how long it had taken him to mark the obvious. A monastery, of course; what else would someone like Lazzaro choose for his personal insignia?

Sighing, still idly turning the ring around and around on his too-small finger, Celeste shifted on the window seat and stared down at the lush, moonlit gardens below, the dark, glistening sea beyond. More than once as a boy, he had wanted to hop a shop and sail far away, see what the rest of the world looked like, how they lived.

But professional whores did not board boats save to whore themselves to sailors, or take up the same profession on a different shore. Customers had offered him many things in the past—a house of his own, in a respectable quarter, trips on private ships to extravagant locations, other luxuries and opportunities. He would be lying if he said he was not tempted. But it was not true independence, being someone's private toy—merely an illusion of it. The life of a private jewel was, in some respects, more dangerous than being a public jewel. He would never put control of his fate into the hands of another, least of all a man who kept him around solely for the pleasure of having him available to fuck at a moment's notice. There was no stability in that.