Chapter Fourteen

71 7 179
                                    

Anyone who saw Ivette and Étienne sitting together on the manicured lawns of Marseille eating strawberries and talking as if the world was not about to end once Ryssland showed would've believed them to be grossly indecent and insensitive.

Perhaps they were, Ivette thought. Perhaps there was no place to laugh, no time to smile. The past few days had not treated either of them kindly. Truth be told, their laughter and smiles were strained. The morning air was too warm and stuffy, but Ivette tried to ignore that, burying it beneath the politeness and smiles. She found she didn't enjoy herself very much.

Étienne's conversation was stilted and boring, and he looked at everything with acute dullness and admired things with little intellect.

"Have you heard what they've been saying about me?" he asked, leaning back on his elbow. His fingertips trailed idly over the grass. A warm breeze rippled gently through his hair, and the morning sun, already well into the sky, added no depth to his flat, hazel gaze.

"Who are 'they'?" Ivette returned. She tugged her sunhat down as the wind threatened to topple it from her head. It was a pretty thing trimmed with lace and pale blue ribbons. She reached into the small basket of strawberries and tugged the stem off of one before taking a bite. A burst of sourness exploded on her tongue. Unripe.

Étienne tilted his face up to her. "Oh, you know. A viscountess here. A chevalier there. It seems I am only noticed when it comes to you."

Ivette frowned, unsure of whether he was joking or insulting her. "What are they saying?"

"That I am a guileless fool who allows himself to be strung along by the prospects of power I won't ever receive. I suppose they believe that is why I supported you in court the other day." His air of nonchalance was stiff and cumbersome

"Is that all?" she hummed. Her head began to ache something awful.

"Ivette!"

"There are worse things that could be said. The Spring Courts are filled with such stagnation that people invent all manner things at the expense of others to cure their boredom."

"They blame you."

"Do they? What, pray tell, do they say about me?"

"That you are a wily seductress intent on ruining me. And after the Fête, they've doubled down at that belief."

"Harsh words indeed. I have not the feminine skill of being particularly seductive."

Étienne laughed at that, a plain sound, neat and exact, though Ivette did not know how a laugh could be exact in any particular way. But Étienne's was and it annoyed her in its almost calculative perfection.

"That does not even account for what they say in regards to you in particular over hosting foreign diplomats," he added.

"I could harbor several guesses as to what they say on that matter. Goodness knows I heard enough in court." She leaned forward on her hands, forcing an air of teasing. "Just say the word, Étienne. Tell me whomever it is that has slandered our names thusly and I will lock them up forever and ever."

Another chuckle escaped him at her jest, and he reached over to brush loose curls away from her face. She relished in the coolness of his skin.

She remembered there was a time years ago when Étienne would lay his head in her lap and let her run her fingers through his hair as they talked endlessly beneath the never changing veil of spring. She missed that feeling, and she briefly thought of asking him if he might like to do that again. To her own misfortune, she already knew his answer. Étienne would tell her that was childish. They were not children. They did not do childish things anymore, and he would not allow himself to be touched like that. Immodest. That would be how he'd describe it.

When Spring Died Where stories live. Discover now