Two Dark Reigns (Three Dark Crowns #3)(10)
“They don’t allow girls to ride,” Billy says, and Arsinoe frowns. They would change their minds soon enough if only they could see Jules. Small, wiry Jules, who could weave her horse in and out of a herd as though the two were of one body.
On the racetrack, the horses cross the finish line to a chorus of mixed cheers and groans. The last race of the day, and none of the horses they had bet upon had won, but the three of them stand up, smiling. Arsinoe takes Billy’s hand in her left, and pulls Mirabella along with her right as they make their way down from their seats, her ill-fitting gray dress riding up over the legs of the trousers she insists on always wearing underneath. By contrast, Mirabella looks lovely in white, full sleeves and lace to her throat. Before they left the island, neither had worn any color besides black, and Mirabella, a few colored jewels. But Mirabella, with her beauty, manages to look at home in anything.
Arsinoe takes a deep breath. It is pleasant to be out, even if the warm summer air smells like city instead of the sea. Sometimes Billy’s family’s brick row house—fine though it may be—can feel so stifling. As they turn down the avenue in the midst of the crowds, she bumps a shoulder into a passerby. Before she can apologize, he recoils at the sight of her scars, still bright pink and running down the right side of her face. Billy makes a fist, and Mirabella opens her mouth, but Arsinoe pulls them back.
“Never mind it. Let’s just go.” They do but closer to her and just ahead, their shoulders protecting her shoulders, their scowls a barrier against anyone who might slight her. “Good Goddess,” she says, and laughs. “You lot are as bad as Jules.”
They walk on, navigating the crowds and watching the cabs and carriages pass. It is busier even than Indrid Down High Street, and never seems to slow. A cab dashes by, pulled by a poor bony horse, his back a wreck of whiplashes.
“Oi, go easy on him, will you!” Arsinoe shouts, but the cabbie only sneers.
“If only I had the fullness of my lightning,” Mirabella adds. “Or my fire. I would start a cozy flame in the pocket of his pants.” But she does not. Away from the island, their gifts weaken and fade. Even if Arsinoe were a true naturalist instead of a poisoner, she may not have had enough left to comfort the horse anyway.
Billy shakes his head. “Don’t try to tell me that no one mistreated their horses on Fennbirn.” But his eyes lose focus as he tries to remember an example. Even in the capital, respect for the naturalist gift kept the worst of abuses in check.
Arsinoe curses when someone runs into her from behind. She does not know if she will ever get used to the crowds. And somehow, she is always the one jostled. Something in Mirabella is still regal, and no one comes within a foot.
“Oh no,” says Billy. They have reached the end of their street, the row of grand, red-brick houses with wrought iron gates and front steps of bright white stone. But clustered around their doorway is a gaggle of young ladies in dresses of pink and green and pale yellow. It can only be Christine Hollen, the governor’s daughter, and her ever-present troupe of society friends.
Arsinoe looks up to the window of the third-floor room she shares with Mirabella. With four stories’ worth of rooms in the town house, they had not really needed to share. But when she and Mirabella had arrived on the mainland, legs shaking and clothes still soaked from the storm, they had clung to each other’s elbows and refused to let go. So Billy’s mother, Mrs. Chatworth, had directed them, lips trembling, to one of the larger guest rooms.
“I don’t know if I have the stomach for this today,” Arsinoe mutters. Christine Hollen had apparently “set her cap” at Billy during the time he was away on the island, and no amount of Arsinoe’s presence seemed able to deter her. If Arsinoe had to endure one more tea watching Christine paw and fawn over Billy, she was likely to behave in a way that Mrs. Chatworth would deem unladylike. Or even more unladylike than usual.
“There’s no way we can scale the bricks and sneak in through our window?”
“Not without being seen,” Mirabella says with a smirk. She touches Arsinoe’s shoulder. “You go. Take off awhile until they have gone.”
“What?”
“Yes, what?” Billy asks. “I’ve no desire to be left alone in there with my mother and Christine. If you go, Arsinoe, you might return to find me gagged and engaged.”
“Go,” Mirabella says again. “Maybe . . . maybe you should visit Joseph.”
“Do you mean it?” Arsinoe asks.
“Of course I do. Why ruin a perfectly lovely day?”
“What about Miss Hollen and the governor’s girls?”
Mirabella steps closer to Billy and slips her hand into the crook of his arm. Just that simple movement and change of posture: a subtle shift in her hips, a slight incline of her head, and anyone watching would think that she and Billy were madly in love. Well, were it not for the shocked look on Billy’s face.
“You leave Christine Hollen to me.”
Arsinoe glances at the girls up the street. All are girls Mrs. Chatworth will gladly welcome into her home and would gladly marry her son to. Girls who are nothing like the strange, foreign ones she took in. They dress in proper skirts and do not have deep scars on their faces. Christine Hollen, in particular, is one of the prettiest people Arsinoe has ever seen. Golden hair and peach cheeks, a smile that dazzles. That she is also quite rich seems just plain unfair.