Cerulean Sins   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

"Because you will not tolerateanything else."

Oh, I remembered now. "Great," I whispered.

He squeezed my shoulder gently. "Nothing has been said. We can go on as we are."

I shook my head. "No, I won't be the one responsible for tomorrow night if it goes all wrong. I won't risk him, because of my moral outrage."

"As you like, ma petite, " he said, in that careful voice that said nothing.

"What has happened now?" Asher asked, and his voice wasn't quite empty, there was a thread of fear in it. With what was sleeping down the hall, I couldn't blame him.

I eased my arms from around my knees. They were stiff from holding on too tight. I tried to smooth my numb hands down my legs to touch my skirt and found only my hose. The navy skirt was too short for me to have been sitting the way I was. If there'd been anyone in the room to see, they'd have been able to tell my underwear matched it.

I got my knees under me, moving slowly, stiffly, my body tight with tension.

"What has happened?" Asher asked, and this time his voice was bland.

"Nothing, mon ami, " Jean-Claude said, "or rather, nothing more."

"It's my fault," I said. I got to my feet, still moving slowly.

"What is your fault?" Asher was looking from one to the other of us, trying to read something from our faces.

I stepped off the fur, and my high heels made a sharp sound on the floor. "That you're in danger from Musette."

"You have done all you can to protect me, Anita, more than I had ever dreamt. No one challenges Musette for fear of Belle Morte. You have done what many council members would fear to do."

"Ignorance is bliss," I said.

He gave me a quick look through the shine of his hair. "What does that mean?"

I walked towards him, where he still stood just inside the door. "It means that maybe I can be brave because I don't know any better. I've never seen Belle in person. Don't get me wrong, she's impressive enough from a distance, but I've never met the real thing."

I was standing in front of him now. He had turned his face so that only the perfect half showed. He hadn't hidden himself from me this completely in months.

I reached up to touch the side of his face he'd turned away, and he flinched, jerking back hard enough to make the door rattle. " Non, non. »

"I've touched you before," I said, and my voice was low, soft, the voice you'd use to talk to a skittish animal or a man on a ledge.

He turned his whole face away from me. "You saw the paintings.