As for a physical level…
I pull my gaze from Monty’s profile and heave a sigh. I’m starting to regret inviting Monty out here, for if I was alone, I could satisfy this heat right here and now. Tug open my robe and slip my hand beneath my undershorts and coax myself to climax, with only the moon and stars as my witness.
Good grief, what is happening in my mind? I’ve never been so preoccupied with sex.
I squeeze my thighs together and down a heavy gulp of tea. Part of me wishes it was liquor but that might make things worse.
“So…how did I do today?” I ask, breaking the silence just to give me something rational to focus on. I keep my voice low so as not to carry beyond the rooftop. “For our courtship lesson?”
Monty takes a long drag of his cigarillo, then removes it from between his lips. A breath of floral smoke fills the air. “You did well. You had fun, which was our primary lesson. Furthermore, you didn’t overexert yourself to gain your romantic subject’s interest, which was Lesson Two.”
“I think I failed at Lesson Three,” I say with a grimace. “You told me to act with curiosity, but I wasn’t at all curious about him.”
“He wasn’t your type?”
I ponder that for a moment. “I think I have to get to know someone well to understand if they’re my type. So maybe I didn’t give him enough of a chance.”
“No,” he says with a decisive shake of his head, “you made the right judgment. He was a fucking idiot.”
I snort a laugh. “I suppose that’s what I get for interfering with your lesson and conspiring with Araminta. I was under the impression there’d be more than one romantic subject to choose from.”
“You’re telling me you were going to subject me to the company of multiple Conrads?”
“That sounds like a nightmare,” I say, wrinkling my nose.
Monty takes another drag from his cigarillo while I sip my tea. He speaks again. “If it takes time and familiarity for you to determine if you’re attracted to someone, how are you going to find the right partner by Lughnasadh?”
I shrug. “I wasn’t planning on a love match. Only someone who will serve my purposes.”
He shifts on the blanket until he’s facing me on his side, propped up on one elbow, his cigarillo in his free hand. “You made that clear when I first asked you what you wanted in a husband. All your answers revolved around your modeling needs and getting out of your handfasting.”
“I suppose I’ve always viewed relationships from a rational perspective,” I say. “Pine martens mate out of instinct and they don’t stay with their partners or their children after their kits reach maturity. I was raised that way. It wasn’t until after the war, when the territory lines of all the courts changed and the Earthen Court was relocated in the south, that I witnessed a different perspective. When I migrated south, I got my first glimpses of human cities on the way. I saw communal lifestyles. By the time I settled in the court’s new unseelie forest, I was too curious about all I’d seen to return to solitude. Too entranced by the art I’d glimpsed. Instead of settling in a quiet tree burrow, I took up residence in Cypress Hollow. It’s an unseelie village that caters to fae creatures while giving them a taste of society. They live in houses, cook, work, and marry. It was quite strange to get used to.”
Monty nods his understanding. “I imagine so, after three centuries on your own.”
“It was even stranger when I took the next step and debuted in human society. Now there were rules about what I could and couldn’t do, and my every aim was to secure a husband. There were numerous qualifications for who my partner should be and none of them included love, sex, or attraction.”
Monty’s posture visibly perks. “Back up a moment. How did you go from living in an unseelie village to debuting in high society?”
Of course he wants the full story. He was intrigued the minute I briefly mentioned it when we arrived at the carnival. It isn’t my favorite story, but I suppose I can oblige his curiosity.
I lie back on the blanket and fold my hands over my belly. The sight of the stars and the crescent moon peeking behind the swaying branches of my rooftop tree sets my nerves at ease, even as I summon the words to explain one of my least favorite memories.
“One of the most respected figures in Cypress Hollow decided to take seelie form one year. She left for the nearest human city and came back not only a married woman but a pillar of high society. She wanted to give a selection of us the same chance she’d had and sponsor our debuts in society. I’d recently learned to shift into my seelie form by then, and I was still haunted by the memory of all the art I’d glimpsed when I snuck into the human cities during migration. I craved another look at the paintings I saw, another chance to study the impossibly intricate sculptures I’d seen. When I discovered a societal debut would include art lessons, I was sold. Obsessed, more like. It was the perfect opportunity, and I took it. I had to learn etiquette too, of course, and the steps to a few dances that I was too afraid to perform. But above all else, I learned to draw.”
“So that’s how you honed your craft,” Monty says with a warm smile. “It all makes sense now. Though I don’t suppose you were drawing scantily clad ladies back then.”
A blush heats my cheeks. “Oh, I was, and I was scolded for it, especially since mine were self-studies and not recreations of the acceptable classics. So I learned landscapes and portraits too.”
He shifts slightly at my mention of self-studies, but his expression soon turns serious. “You said at the carnival that your debut season didn’t end well. What happened?”
“I did all the right things. At least I tried to. But there were certain aspects I never understood. There were rules to polite conversation, which I memorized and thought I excelled at until I noticed some of the girls would say things that defied my comprehension. They would state the most mundane of phrases and then laugh as if they’d told some joke. I’d always laugh along with them, but later—often weeks after the fact—something would click into place and I’d realize I’d been made fun of, right to my face.”
Monty’s eyes turn down at the corners. “The elite have a way with words, don’t they?”
“It was humiliating. There was one fellow debutante who was particularly cruel yet so clever and loved by everyone around her. She took a strong dislike to me, which she masked as friendship. When I realized what she was doing—that everything she said in front of me, to me, and to others in my presence was meant to cut me down—I lost it. I lost my patience for the entire charade, for her, for society, for those who laughed at me, and my inner hunter took over. We got into a very public confrontation, which ended when I…”
I purse my lips, realizing what I was about to admit. I’ve never told anyone what happened next.
