Page 22 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

“No,” Sabre said, softly.

“Then this is what I need,” Crystelle said, and kept Sabre’s chin up, meeting his gaze. “The king is renovating houses in the lower city. An honorable venture, but that means he’s discovering that several lie empty. I hear that they’re considering turning them into gardens, which is a very…noble…idea to have. Gardens are lovely, but there are also at this moment four gangs of children who depend on those empty houses for shelter. Where will they sleep, do you think? In the rosebushes?”

“So you want us to…make orphanages?” Sabre asked.

“Oh, yes, that always works.” Crystelle rolled their eyes. “I’ll give you the names of a group of people who would be willing to run shelters on neutral grounds, and you will do your magic in council. Is that possible?”

“With Adrien, yes.” Sabre frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because a courtesan asking political favors of the prince’s best friend will go over swimmingly,” Crystelle said, and glanced at Laurent. “Darling, really. He’s sweet, but you need to teach him how things work here.”

“He’s getting there.”

“I suppose you can just collar and muzzle him and lead him around like a pretty bauble,” Crystelle said, and patted Sabre’s cheek. “I’ll give you the names. Now…” They shook themself off, and it was as though they were putting on a costume, the person they once were slipping away into their shadow. “You will feed me chocolates, and I will tell you all the rumors I heard about your dear, sweet Laurent when he left the House of Gold.”

“Wonderful,” Laurent said with what sounded like real amusement, as Crystelle draped themself over a chair. “I can’t wait.”

* * *

Despite all the dramatics that led up to it, the evening ended up being far more enjoyable than Laurent would have thought at first.

They did indeed lounge about with Sabre—at first bemused, then a bit less so after a few glasses of expensive wine and truly excellent chocolates, feeding them to Crystelle and laughing at their wild stories about life in the House of Gold. Laurent, who rarely talked about his past with anyone who wasn’t Sabre, found he could enjoy revisiting some of the stories from his past. Crystelle made up a few wild tales and repeated some that Laurent knew were absolutely fabricated—he’d made them up himself.

Crystelle was every bit the performer during the rest of the evening, but as entertaining and genuinely enjoyable as it was, he couldn’t stop thinking about the Crystelle who’d spoken to Sabre about threats and politics. This was, he realized, his life now. People who seemed to be as cut-and-dried as an overdramatic whore turned out to be spies, and come to think of it, was it really that much different than it had been?

When Crystelle left, it was with more than a few priceless baubles from the de Valois suite: some jewelry that Sabre said must have belonged to his mother, a pair of cufflinks that belonged to some distant Valois relation—not his father, Laurent knew those were at home on their dresser. They’d taken a painting that Sabre said wasn’t worth anything, but Crytelle found entirely too delightful to leave hanging up in a suite that no one used more than a few days a month. It was a portrait of a man who looked vaguely like former noble-turned-pirate Xavier de Sartre, smiling too widely to be an official portrait, entirely naked save a vase he was holding in a very particular place.

“My father told me that when he left and ran off to Diabolos, he had that painted and sent a copy to my father and Isiodore,” Sabre said, smiling a bit. “I asked if he sent one to the king, and apparently, and if you look very closely at the landscape over Emile’s hearth, you can see a very, ah, indistinct shape of a naked de Sartre in the background. It was a wedding gift.”

He didn’t seem to mind parting with the painting, though, and when Crystelle left, they kissed Laurent and Sabre both, full on the mouth, with tongue, and gave a hearty, amused laugh when Laurent asked if they’d like a job. He’d been serious, but Crystelle clucked their tongue and bopped him on the nose the same way Rose did to Duke Pawsington.

“Darling, I can’t possibly, but you know I appreciate it. I have reasons for staying at the House of Gold.” Crystelle’s smile went a little sharp, their voice briefly going back to the strange, controlled coldness of earlier, when they’d been discussing politics with Sabre. “And I might have, let’s call it a longstanding engagement with a client who would prefer I stay there and keep an eye on things until a certain change in management is achieved, if you take my meaning. And then, I think I’ll retire to the country.” They winked.

Laurent smiled. “The offer’s open, if you’d like.”

“I know that, you underhanded snake, and thank you for knowing that’s a compliment,” Crystelle said, with a pointed look at Sabre.

Sabre blushed, but Laurent caught a glimpse of a wicked smile as he bowed deeply. “I’ve learned my lord husband thinks so, and that’s enough for me.”

Crystelle laughed, and that was that. They went on their way, with a small fortune in slightly out-of-fashion jewelry and a nude painting of a disgraced former noble that was now going to hang in a whorehouse. If there was a better way for this evening to end, Laurent couldn’t think of what it could be.

Actually, no. There was definitely a better way for this evening to end, and it involved Sabre on his knees, hands behind his back, crying prettily as he choked on Laurent’s cock. Then, Laurent would sprawl wantonly in that nice, big bed and let Sabre fuck him, controlling him until Laurent decided he’d begged enough to be allowed to come.

That would be the perfect end to the evening, and Laurent had a feeling that Sabre would agree.

CHAPTER 4

A Portion for Foxes

It often surprised people to find that Charon did, in fact, like being a courtesan. There was something pleasant about ending a good, long session with a client who really needed his services. His duties in Arktos were not dissimilar to those in the House of Onyx but the difference was that here in Staria, the nobles paid him for the privilege of suffering under his hands, his implements, his harsh, implacable voice and even more implacable dominance. It was a much more enjoyable situation for everyone involved.

Lord d’Arbre—so named, as he’d told Charon, because his family owned a large thicket of forested land south of the capital—was as high-strung as the rest of the nobles who sought Charon’s services on a regular basis. He’d been in quite a state when he’d arrived, having gone a few months without an appointment thanks to whatever business one had to do, when one tended a large estate full of trees. Charon was from the desert. It was not known for its greenery.

Lord Eduard d’Arbre was a harried man who always looked as if he too were a tree whacked with a sharp axe and a breath or two away from being felled. Eduard paced around the room for an hour, ranting about tariffs and logging equipment and using words that meant nothing to Charon, but seemed to cause Eduard no small bit of stress to even speak them aloud. Charon took his hand to Eduard’s backside, made him sob over his lap, then spanked his upper thighs until they were red and hot to the touch. He finished with a wooden spoon and then the cane, bruising him beautifully, making him gasp and shudder and grind helplessly against Charon’s thigh. Eduard liked to be humiliated, so Charon called him worthless and unintelligent while he fucked him, took his own pleasure and made Eduard lick his boots while he came in Eduard’s hair.

Then he carried him to the bath, gently cleaned him, put Eduard in his lap and stroked his hair, murmured that he was very smart and that everything would be fine. He made Eduard come after all of that, holding him firmly while he squirmed and begged for release. When Eduard left, smiling and blurry-eyed and under, he gave Charon a beautiful amber pendant made from the sap of one of his trees, which Charon gave to Laurent and asked to have added to whichever debt was still the highest in the house. He knew all about making a life that was different than the one you’d had before, and for those who had helped him in so many ways, Charon would pay that forward if he could. There were other debts he owed, things that were not money or riches, and he was still working on paying those back.

With Eduard smiling and relaxed, Charon too felt the pleasant hum of dominance well-tended and went to settle in for the rest of the evening with his favorite book and his athenero-laced tea, which was his preferred way to wind down for the evening. The book was called On the Habits and Culture of the Fierce Lukoi by Victor Owl-Eyed, a Gerakian scholar who’d recently published an account of life on the remote island of Lukos. Charon wanted very much to visit Lukos some day, a place like Arktos in that it was harsh, but with unrelenting snow, and full of fierce warriors who built their own homes and took mates for life. The quietness of the life there appealed to him. If there was anything he disliked about Duciel, it was the noise of the city, the lack of places to be alone and quiet with his thoughts.

---