When Spring Died

Chapter Eighteen

"I don't want to talk about it," Ivette said.

"Well you look a fright."

"I said I don't want to talk about it."

"You'll note I didn't ask," Étienne bit back with a disdainful curl to his lip. He pulled away from Ivette, adjusting his coat sleeve. It shouldn't have annoyed him that it was now slightly damp because of her, but he had no desire to forgive Ivette for anything at the moment. "Frankly I have no wish to listen to you lie. Falling into the lake...really, Ivette, you expect me to believe that?"

Ivette didn't so much as look at him. "You may believe what you will."

"That man," he said, referring to Sasha, "is no more inclined to save your life than Laurent is to keep a civil tongue in his head."

"Yes, and you are a paradigm when it comes to speaking kindly at all times," Ivette retorted, trying and failing to lift some of her sodden skirts to ease her walking. "And don't say that about Laurent. He'd be more civil to you if you weren't so patronizing."

A peculiar meanness filled Étienne. Perhaps it was because he hated Ivette's noncommittal, distant answers. Perhaps it was her instant defense of her brother when Étienne was certain he knew better. Or maybe, and this was most likely of all, it was because he loathed the brightness in her eyes that came when she looked at that pretender of a tsar--a look he could not recall her giving him in many a year. Whatever it was, it provoked something awful within his heart.

They were in the palace now, Étienne trailing after Ivette who marched through the halls with a great deal of dignity for one so completely and utterly out of sorts, soaking wet. She left a trail of dampness on the floor behind her as she went. For some reason, that annoyed Étienne too.

"My concern isn't Laurent, alright?" Étienne insisted. "In the gardens...what if you'd been seen like that? What then? Your reputation is in tatters as is, and have you any idea what rumors would be invented had you been spotted in your current state with the tsar?"

"In Vesna's name, why must you make mountains out of molehills? There was no one else around, and I did nothing worth--"

"And that is another grievance of mine. You were alone with him. What would you have me think? Or any other respectable person in Marseille? You are not engaged to him, nor are you a relative of his. To be alone in his company is degrading to yourself and an insult to me."

Like frost creeping up a windowpane by night, so did that indifferent mask of coldness slink over Ivette's face. She looked so much like her mother that Étienne had to blink twice to be sure it was not some apparition of Adeline come back from the dead.

"It appalls me, Étienne, the way you manage to revert everything back to you and your own pride."

Étienne's hands balled into fists, his hazel eyes darkening with ignominy. "Speak nothing on my pride, Ivette. You have been careless and indecent from the moment the Rysslandic embassy stepped foot on Frantsiyan soil. Are you that enamored by foreigners?"

"Oh, spare me," Ivette scoffed, rolling her eyes as she walked faster. But she could not outpace Étienne who kept up with her so easily it was as if he exerted no effort whatsoever.

"What did he say that had you laughing so? Does he amuse you, Ivette? Do you think him charming?" His tone was not forceful, but oh, was it mocking.

"Dear heavens, do you even hear yourself? Are you really so jealous that you envy the fact His Highness made me laugh?"

They came to Ivette's study and she wrenched the door open, heading inside. Étienne was after her before she could shut him out.

"I don't trust him, and I don't want you alone in his company."