The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

She laughed, and his shoulders relaxed at the ring of it. “What kinds of things?”

“Preposterous things. More than one man has approached me as I left a bookstore, offering a ride to the Second City, as if I’m a fool.” He smiled. Under the fringe of hair, behind his spectacles, his blue eyes were rueful. There was nothing of Beau-Sang in him but the curling blond hair. “I’d give anything to see it, though.”

“Perhaps one day. I’d like to speak more about your work another time. Expect an invitation soon.”

“I would be honored.” Paul-Sebastien finally tucked his hair back behind his ear, but as he bowed, the curl fell forward again. He left her with a spring in his heels. For a moment, she felt lighter, too. Then she felt Touraine’s presence just behind her, and her mouth tightened. Touraine had behaved abominably. Luca only had time to chastise her with a look before the next guest stepped forward.

Mademoiselle Malika Abdelnour mounted the dais with grace that set both Luca’s heart beating faster and her teeth on edge. When Malika curtsied, her gown flared. Waves of dark hair crashed over her shoulder.

“Your Highness. It is an honor to receive your invitation. My mother sends her sincerest regrets. She’s unwell.” Though Qazāli, she spoke in perfectly unaccented Balladairan.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I trust you’re enjoying yourself?”

“Of course. Marvelous food, wonderful conversation.” A crooked smile accentuated the scar on her chin, but it wasn’t directed at her.

Luca refused to follow the gaze to Touraine.

“I am especially pleased to hear about your generous donation to the children.”

The woman had a disarming stare, with narrow eyes lined in kohl that Luca quite thought she could lose herself in. The long scar on her chin was a sculptor’s slip, but it added an edge of mystery, of danger.

Luca sipped her wine. “Are you familiar with the school?”

“Of course, Your Highness. I attended myself. It was a… peerless education.” She smiled, but the words gave the expression an ironic twist. Or perhaps it was the scar.

Luca didn’t know the protectorate well enough to place the woman’s import among the Qazāli citizens. “And how did you find it?”

“Well… I learned much about Balladaire.”

Luca’s lips quirked. “I admit, that is the one fault of a Balladairan education. We can only teach so much about Qazāl. I could use a few lessons myself.”

Malika raised an eyebrow and looked over at Touraine again, then back to Luca. “I only hope it fares better than past initiatives to educate Shālan children.”

Luca’s hand went tight on the stem of her glass.

Then quickly, smiling as if she hadn’t just insulted the Tailleurists, the Droitists, and the Sands all at once, Malika turned the subject. “One hears you can read Shālan? Our host gift is a book of poetry by one of our dearest poets. My mother also sends a scarf she hopes will suit your tastes.”

Her eyes trailed once more to Touraine before she bowed and returned to the crowd.

CHAPTER 13A DANCE

Touraine had felt strong at Luca’s back until Beau-Sang approached them. She’d felt elegant in her new clothing, felt pride even, at the approving nod General Cantic had given her as she passed by.

During the two days between the modiste and the ball, Touraine had scrambled to find her place in this new world. Exercising gently in the morning with Lanquette and Guérin was the easiest bit to adjust to, because it was the moment that felt most like home. The two guards weren’t Tibeau or Pruett or Aimée, but they respected her skill even if they never laughed or wrestled just for fun. (Touraine secretly thought that Guérin had never had fun in her life.)

When Touraine hadn’t been training or stacking papers, Luca had drilled her in courtly etiquette.

Touraine had thought she knew how to deal with dignitaries and nobles. Say “yes, sir” or “madame” or “Your Highness.” Bow enough, salute as necessary, and let them overlook you.

“That’s all wonderful for a soldier, I’m sure,” Luca had told her in the beginning, “but you’re not a soldier anymore. You represent me personally, not the empire. People will ask you things to get to me. Stop making that face.”

Dread had tugged Touraine’s face down. She fixed it back into the polite, formal, but pleasant expression Luca had been coaching her in.

“You can hate this as much as you’d like, but I shouldn’t know it.” Luca pushed Touraine’s hand away from her belt—where the baton used to rest. Luca’s hand was cool and dry. “And sky above, stop trying to reach for a weapon.”

The rest of the house hadn’t been spared preparations for the ball. The town house felt like an army camp getting ready to march. Furniture was packed away like tents. Luca barked orders like Cantic, swinging a pen instead of a sword, spattering ink instead of blood. Clerks scribbled majestic invitations to colonial nobility on paper that cost more than a month of a Sand’s allowance, and messengers ran them from house to house throughout the city like couriers between companies.

Touraine felt the same deep-belly dread as she did before marching, too.

Guard Captain Gillett took the two other guards aside several times to talk about the house’s defenses. He only grudgingly brought Touraine into the discussions when he realized Luca was going to keep her close.

Three days before the ball, Touraine hadn’t thought she’d be alive in three days. Now she stood at the princess’s side, with the high-society types she used to make fun of with her friends.

And then, in a single sky-falling second, the bastard comte had stripped all of that comfort and her growing confidence away, and Touraine had become just a Sand again.

Just a Sand. She had never been ashamed of that before.

And she had stumbled. She’d done worse than show her hand. She couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t forget his comments at Cheminade’s dinner anytime soon. Seeing him only made