The Vauquelin Parlor
here was rather something about being looked at so in the midst of Niccolette Ibutatu’s field. Perhaps it was Diana’s memory of the duel on Clock’s Eve, and of the glimpses she had gotten – stolen, she was beginning to realize now, for sidelong looks at such loveliness had even then felt like theft – of the way Niccolette had looked at the duelists.
There had been something ruthless about her eye even then, even from such a long distance. Like a duelist, she had thought then, of course; like a surgeon, she thought now, and there was something uite a bit more frightening about that. She had heard a little now, asking around, about the way Niccolette dueled, at least Uptown: about her careful, clever eye, and the way she chose her targets.
She thought that hearsay could not do justice to the woman’s dueling, but this – this could, perhaps. She was beginning to grasp what it might feel like to be opposite her with the timer set and a great hush fallen over the audience, in the space between the arbiter’s call and the first breath of monite.
Only now, the seconds seemed to stretch.
She knew, of course, there was no danger. A useful occupation “politician’s wife” might have been, but it was no threat to her, whoever and whatever she was. Whatever a politician’s wife of her standing knew, whatever she suspected, meant very little. There was no warning look in Niccolette’s eyes, she thought, no reprimand.
Examination instead, at least at first. The firelight glinted in Niccolette’s eyes, catching them more green again than hazel. They traveled down her neck, swept over her dress. Diana thought that she could feel them like touch, like fingers working their way around elaborate eyelets, into folds of silk, over lace inset just shy of skin – so that it was almost a surprise when they found her hands and she felt nothing.
What did she see? Diana wondered, as Niccolette’s eyes lingered and wandered down her dress. No, not wandered: this was more focused, more precise, than wandering; this was nothing like wandering. A surgeon knew rather well the shape of a woman underneath the cut of her dress and her corsetry. She shivered, shifting the cross of her ankles.
Niccolette was close enough to touch, if Diana reached for her. She had been for some time, but something about the way her posture had shifted inward seemed to invite it rather more.
There was something in particular about a lock of hair just brushing Niccolette’s cheek that called to her. The younger woman was immaculately arranged; it would’ve been terribly impolite, but she wanted to reach out and tuck it behind the other woman’s ear, if only for how close it would bring her hand to Niccolette’s cheekbone.
Then ask me, the other woman said simply.
When it came to it, Diana was not exactly sure what to ask. She knew very little about these sorts of things. Are you a criminal? seemed ridiculous; Niccolette Ibutatu was hardly a common thug, and by a broader standard, most of Uptown Vienda was guilty of some sort of crime. Are you a – pirate seemed even more ridiculous, frankly. Was your husband a pirate? seemed most ridiculous of all, for all Mr. Ibutatu had been the aeroship pilot.
She did not want to ask any of those, not really, not at this particular moment. And so what was it she did want to ask, at this very moment, as if the other woman had handed her the reins?
“What would you cast?” she asked instead quietly, shifting to sit a little closer herself, looking into Niccolette’s eyes. “If we were dueling, at this very moment – at the second tier, perhaps, and the first turn was yours.”