Scholar of Decay (4 page)

“Aurek.” Joelle’s summons dragged him back to himself. “Jacqueline is the head of the Renier family.”

“Yes,” he managed to respond. “I can see that.”

Confused, Joelle plucked at his sleeve until he took a step back. She smiled ingratiatingly at her cousin. “Aurek and his brother are Borcan nobility.”

“How nice,” Jacqueline murmured.

“Aurek’s quite the scholar,” Joelle continued. “He’s planning to search all the abandoned buildings in the city for some clue as to who abandoned them.”

“With your permission,” Aurek added quickly as Jacqueline began to frown. With an effort, he kept his tone casual, making it seem as though he asked a favor of the beautiful woman who ruled only the social calendar of Pont-a-Museau. Greatly daring, he met her gaze again.

She stared at him for a long moment, and while he felt a shadow
stroke his soul, he also felt a flash of kinship—gone too quickly to be understood or even to be absolutely certain it had ever existed. Then the emerald eyes hooded, and, his heart pounding, Aurek looked away. “I assume you’ve the permission of the city council.” Her tone lightly seasoned the words with contempt. “Our mayor is here tonight, if you haven’t.”

Aurek had seen the mayor, a powerless man who’d been despondently drunk when he arrived and had been getting drunker as the evening wore on. “I have the permission of the council, mamselle.”

“To search all the abandoned buildings,” Jacqueline repeated mockingly, and for a moment he was afraid she’d deny him. Prepared to fight for access if he had to, this was not the arena he would have chosen nor, now that he finally knew who could stand in his way, was she the foe. Then she laughed. “How ambitious for a … scholar. You will let me know if you find anything?”

Aurek bowed, the obeisance not quite submission. “Of course.”

“What’s going on?” Dmitri demanded as, dismissed, they merged back into the crowd.

“What are you talking about?” Aurek asked absently. Having gained the approval he needed, his thoughts were already preoccupied with sketching out the parameters of his morning search.

“You two—you and Jacqueline Renier—came to some kind of understanding back there, and I was deliberately left out.”

“We two came to an understanding,” Aurek reminded him. “Not we three. What passed between Jacqueline Renier and myself had nothing to do with you.”

A muscle jumped in Dmitri’s jaw. “You know, you’re a real ass sometimes,” he snarled.

“Don’t be so childish.”

“Childish? That’s a good one. Go ahead and keep your little secrets then. I know you didn’t want me to come here with you, but you needn’t be so obvious about it.”

Aurek frowned at his brother’s back as he stomped off toward the table that held the wines. Four older sisters had clearly overindulged the boy.

“Well, what did you think?”

“What did I think of what?” Jacqueline asked, accepting a drink from a fawning third cousin and then ignoring him.

“Of the Nuikins.” Joelle leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Aren’t they lovely?”

“Have you taken up procuring, Joelle? How nice you’ve found something to do that suits you so well.”

Joelle pretended not to hear the insult. “I just thought that you could use someone to take your mind off that last unfortunate incident with Henri—” The expression on Jacqueline’s face closed Joelle’s throat around the second name.

“Incident?” the head of the family asked coldly. She rested one hand above the neckline of Joelle’s gown, her nails just pricking the skin. “My feelings for Henri Dubois are not to be discussed by you or by anyone else. I thought I made that perfectly clear. If you’re having difficulty understanding my wishes …”

“No, Jacqueline. I’m sorry, Jacqueline.” Joelle’s voice trembled as she groveled, and she licked at lips gone dry. “I didn’t think. I just wanted to help.”

After a long moment, Jacqueline let her hand drop to her side. “Don’t do it again. There are limits to what I will accept, even from family.”

“No, Jacqueline. I’m sorry, Jacqueline.” Wringing her hands, Joelle watched her cousin sweep regally away at the center of an adoring crowd, then took a deep breath and turned to Louise. The benefits would not be as great if Louise took advantage of her discovery, but it seemed a shame to waste such a tasty pair. “What did you think, Louise?”

“I think I’m going to rip out his liver and feed it to him.” Skirts swirling around her ankles, Louise stomped across the room.

Joelle dabbed at a drop of blood on her collarbone. “Could be worse,” she sighed philosophically. “Could be my liver.”

Enclosed by her own circle of parasites and postulants, eyes narrowed almost to slits, Louise watched Aurek Nuikin through gaps that opened and closed with the movements of the swirling crowd of dancers. How dared he ignore her! How dared he share whatever it was he shared with her twin and not grant her even the slightest bit of admiration! The boy with his golden hair and violet eyes was better looking, true, but the boy was nothing. Louise had lived in the shadow of power long enough to recognize it in nearly any form, and she recognized it in Aurek Nuikin.

The party whirled about him as though he were an island—solid, gray, and uncompromising. Seen against his quiet reserve, the manic gaiety and pockets of deliberate decadence seemed contrived and brittle. The contrast made him even more desirable. In spite of the streaks of white in his long blond hair, Louise judged his age at no more than thirty-seven or eight. His younger brother had the broader shoulders, the more imposing physique, but Aurek was well built enough.

Not that it mattered.

She wanted him; it was all she could think of. The heat of
desire clouded her senses to the exclusion of all else.

And he ignored her!

Her lips curled off her teeth. Bone and muscle writhed within their sheath of silken skin. Hissing softly in irritation, she struggled to banish the red haze from her vision. It took all her strength to fight her way back to control without appearing to be fighting at all.

“Incomparable one, you’ve gone so pale. Are you ill?”

Louise glared at the young man who’d spoken. He wasn’t family, merely the son of a man who imported silks and satins. He wouldn’t understand. “Get away from me,” she snapped.

Hurt and confused, the rejected gallant found himself gleefully pushed back out of the inner circle by those who retained favor.

The moment she could see clearly again, Louise shoved a babbling cousin aside and began to make her way across the room.

The currents of power in the ballroom had changed since the sisters’ arrival. Entirely understandable, all things considered, Aurek allowed. For all his preparation, he’d been taken by surprise when brought face-to-face with the Lord of Richemulot. The information he’d been given, while sufficient for him to draw a number of conclusions about who—or rather what—ruled the domain, had been distinctly incomplete as to gender.

He tracked the larger eddies circling about Jacqueline and watched the cream of Pont-a-Museau society, such as it was, fawn over her in a disgustingly obsequious manner. If her glass was empty, someone filled it. Delicacies of every kind were offered from all sides. Her reaction intrigued him: she stood like the dark eye of an encircling hurricane. It wasn’t so much that she accepted the homage as her due as that she seemed completely unaware of it,
the way she was consciously unaware of her arms or legs. It astonished him that anyone at the focus of so much intense attention could appear so alone. Nothing touched her.

Do I feel sorry for her? he wondered.

“You don’t look as if you’re enjoying yourself.”

Startled, for he hadn’t heard her approach, he looked down into the open invitation on the face of Louise Renier. A dead man would have responded. Fortunately, as acknowledging physical needs during most of Aurek’s research could result in an immediate and unpleasant death, he’d long since learned control. “I’m observing the crowds,” he told her, to all outward appearances unaffected.

“Really?” The tip of a pointed tongue moistened her smile. “And what exactly are you observing?”

“I doubt you’d be interested.”

“Try me.” It was very nearly a command.

“Yves! Look!”

Still furious about what had happened at the docks, Yves ignored his cousin’s imperious order. “Leave me alone, Chantel, I’m eating.”

Snatching the cake from his hand, she spun him around and pointed across the ballroom. “You can stuff your face later. Look at Louise! She’s hunting the stranger!”

“So what?” he snarled, turning back to the table and cramming a handful of smoked oysters in his mouth. “If she wants to risk it, it’s none of my business. If I could smell the stink of magic on him, she should be able to, and if she can’t, who cares?”

Chantel rolled strangely colored eyes under pale brows. Yves ruled their little group because of size and speed—they all bore the scars of unsuccessful challenges—but she was beginning to
suspect that, though cunning, he wasn’t very smart. “One little sniff of power that none of the rest of us caught and all of a sudden this guy’s a mighty wizard.” She easily dodged his irritated swing. “You’re missing the point: if Louise is hunting the older stranger, he’s going to be far too busy to protect the younger one.”