The Queen's Bastard by C. E. Murphy Page B

Belinda.
    Strong hands, big hands, clasped her around the waist, and the tang of fury ballooned in her so strongly that blackness swept up through her vision, and silence fell.
             
    She did not want to waken.
    She did not want to waken for a host of reasons, the first and least comfortable being that someone was carrying her, rudely, over his shoulder. Her nose smacked against the small of his back and she forced herself to let her arms dangle, instead of searching for the small dagger nested beneath her corset. Even if she could snatch it before she was noticed—unlikely—there was the second reason not to. The second reason she didn’t want to awaken: she knew who carried her, and his anger would be great.
    The third reason she would have preferred the oblivion of unconsciousness was that dangling like this, the uncounted number of beers she’d partaken of were eager to spill on the cobblestones. Belinda coughed and choked, then twisted as she heaved, trying to get away, less for worry of the man’s clothes than to alleviate her own discomfort. He swore and dumped her on her hands and knees, holding on by her waist, while she cramped and vomited more liquid than she thought she’d drunk. Bright orange bits of carrot and chunks of half-digested meat mixed in with the runny bile. Belinda groaned, pushing up to her knees and wiping a hand across her mouth. Her captor swore again and grabbed her wrist, hauling her to her feet. She’d barely caught her balance before he flung a short door open and shoved her through it, in front of him. She tripped, stumbling to catch herself, and he caught her upper arm, hauling her around and throwing her against the wall. Belinda hit hard enough to lose her breath, and stood with her head turned, eyes downcast as she panted for air.
    “Are you mad? Are you eager for the ruin of us all? I’ve been waiting since noon, girl!”
    “Father,” Belinda said in a low voice. She didn’t want to look at him yet, to see the dark eyebrows beetled down in anger. She didn’t want the moment of surprise she always felt when she saw how well the years had treated him: she could imagine, without looking, the well-trimmed dark hair with no more grey at the temples than he had borne when she was a child. The dark eyes that would now be clouded with fury, with a crow’s nest of wrinkles around them that seemed to have more to do with eternity than age. If he held as well for another few years as he had the last ten, Belinda would appear to be his sister, not his daughter at all. She had faith that he would, for all that he was already old, nearly forty-five. His still-youthful appearance helped keep him dear to Lorraine, who wore more cosmetics now than she had in earlier years, re-creating the blush of youth. If her darling Robert aged so little, certainly she, too, must be clinging to a more tender age than a loyal populace could believe.
    “Have you no answer? Look at me, girl!”
    Belinda lifted her chin and her gaze, meeting Robert’s eyes. “How did you find me?” she wondered, feeling as though the question came from a distant place inside her. Robert snorted and caught her arm again, pushing her up the stone steps that began barely a yard inside the door.
    “The gondola boy, not that I needed him.”
    Damn! The force of the curse startled Belinda, making her clench her hands in her skirts. She ought to have paid the child off, sent him on his way instead of telling him to linger an hour and wait on her return. “How long did he wait before going to you?”
    “Until the dinner bells rang,” Robert spat. Belinda allowed herself a faintly curved smile, well-hidden from the man who followed her up the stairs. At least the boy had allowed her a few hours of freedom, instead of leaving the moment her back was turned. By dinner she and Ana were well away from the canal where Belinda had left the boy, stretching Robert’s search out that much longer. She should have expected