Something in the way she said it made me shiver. "Dare I ask?”
“I am sure you noticed Duke Augustine’s flirtatious behavior with our queen, but did you also take note of the way his gaze lingered on the other ladies of the court? The man has an appetite for women.” Florence crossed over to the herb shelf, dancing her fingers across the various labeled jars. “I’ve spent most of my life in Pontarena, and have never had the pleasure of an introduction to the duke. He has no idea who or what I am.”
I stared. “You can’t mean to…”
“Seduce him? If necessary.” Florence selected a small blue bottle. For what she’d just offered to do, she didn’t appear troubled in the slightest.
“But he’s ancient.” He was older than my father, by appearances. Handsome for his age, but certainly out of Florence’s range.
Florence choked out a laugh. “I could be his mother.”
“You can’t be more than thirty-five.”
“Try seventy-two.” The words made my jaw drop, but Florence made a face like she was tired of having this conversation. “A benefit of my close friendship with the Lord of Night.”
She removed a blue vial from the shelf.
“Now, as to the duke: first we must ensure that he is…shall I say,amenableto conversation. A few drops of this in his wine will loosen his lips.”
I looked over the concoction, removing the lid to sniff. “What is it?”
“Blue lotus extract, a touch of henbane, and tincture of passionflower. He will feel that he’s had three cups too many after a single drink.” Florence pressed the bottle into my hand. “Ensure this finds its way into his goblet, then leave the rest to me.”
The liquid sloshed in its container, warming to my touch as I recalled my previous attempts at poisoning. This time I had no intention of taking a life, but I’d hardly mastered the art of discretion. Sneaking anything into the duke’s cup and getting away with it would be difficult.
“After Percy,” I started, chewing my tongue, “Quinn said that I should go to him if I ever needed to poison someone again. He said I lack subtlety.”
“Well, the viscount is many things, and unobservant is not one of them.” Florence raised a brow. “Do you trust him?”
Not once in the months since my arrival did he show any signs of poor character. And Nicolas trusted him, which had to be worth something. I tucked the bottle into my sleeve. “He would never betray me. Besides, he will understand it as an act done to protect Nicolas, and his loyalty to the man is remarkably unwavering.”
“Then by all means, employ your guardian. It’s about time you learned to delegate.”
Florence adjusted her hair in the mirror, and I could have sworn she used magic to do so. Only a few simple gestures, and she’d made herself into a walking temptation. I wondered when I would learn to wield magic like she did.
“It’s a good thing I kept my gowns,” she said. “The duke should find a taste of home irresistible.”
The viscount was neither in the hall nor in his chambers, which struck me as odd. Since the arrival of the Banewights and the Duke of Demagret, he’d been notably scarce, but it seemed particularly unlike him to let his guard down in the presence of strangers. I considered that perhaps he’d picked up on the tension and was tailing the new arrivals, either on his own volition or on Nicolas’ private orders.
Whether it proved my hypothesis or not, I found him in their company within the Lord’s Chamber. Propriety might as well have left a protective salt barrier at the threshold; I couldn’t enter the space, and considered myself fortunate that the door had been left open to begin with. All I could do was watch from the corridor and hope Quinn would notice.
Something about the salon took the gentleness right out of a man. They shared uproarious laughter over risqué tales, the bulk of which were mercifully inaudible from the corridor. At the center of the group, Asli Doonle-Banewight commanded attention with sweeping gestures, his hands painting pictures in the air as he recounted something that had the men howling like beasts. From what I could tell by the pantomiming, his story involved a man, a goat, and a very angry merchant.
Quinn splayed out his legs in front of him, reclined comfortably in a white bergère. An easy smile rested on his face, creasing his cheeks where there would one day be laugh lines. A loose cluster of hair fell over his eye, undoubtedly ruffled in some episode of tomfoolery I had missed. Despite all the noise in the room, I could pick out his laugh: that low, rolling chuckle that started in his throat when he was getting into mischief. Almost a purr.
He must have felt my eyes on him. He didn’t seem surprised when he finally looked at me, but the smile did shift with an undeniable fondness. Excusing himself, Quinn stood up and crossed the room, stopping at an arm’s length and bowing with a playful flourish. “Your Highness.”
I lifted my tablet to write, but Quinn rested his hand on top of it, gently easing it down.
“Do you need me?” he asked.
I nodded, so he followed me down the corridor and a level of stairs, all the way back to my chambers. He hesitated in the threshold, but left the door just cracked enough not to raise suspicions. At last he turned to face me, gaze trailing down to my opened, extended hand. To the blue vial, then back to my eyes.
I worried he’d try to change my mind, to convince me that whatever this was, it was a bad idea. Even worse, I thought he might reject my request, and that perhaps his original offer to help with these unscrupulous endeavors was merely him being polite.
Instead, he took the glass into his hands.
“And who are we murdering tonight, Nightingale?” he asked, but the humor of his words was lost in his voice. Mercifully, he was taking this seriously.
