"Quite late to be out, isn't it, my lord?"
"I was going to say the same to you. And out alone, as well. One could almost think you were waiting for something." A smile threatened to pull at Vivienne's lips, hearing the words he didn't say. Or someone. Perhaps that was her line to give, but she preferred to operate off her own script.
Without looking at him, she fixed her gaze back on the full moon hanging fat and bright over Val Royeaux, casting its blue-white shine across the palace grounds. Out in the covered stone walkway, there might have been a chill at this hour, but Vivienne clutched a low heating spell close to her skin, which kept her comfortably warm no matter the temperature outside (how Odette had once envied Vivienne's ability to maintain it so easily and constantly!).
"Perhaps I merely wished a moment of solitude, and you are here intruding on my privacy," she suggested, in the damningly neutral voice that worked so well to hide her true reactions. She leaned a hip against the sill of the stone archway giving her the view out onto the gardens and gates, and she knew the light of the moon flattered the gems on her dress, and the translucent, transparent shawl more like a discarded bit of fairy gauze than a garment wrapped loosely around her shoulders.
Presentation was key, and Vivienne never forgot that.
"But you have not yet chased me away," he reasoned. Again, the smile which wished to make itself known.
"Tsk. I would never be so rude."
"Ah, so then I might stay?" The quiet click of Bastien's heels against the stone, and without looking, Vivienne could feel his nearness, and it soothed something in her that she never knew needed soothing until he was there. When she looked on him, she understood more what the heroines of those old songs were on about, twittering about true love and devotion and heartbreak. Generally, this realization displeased her, but at this late hour, she was willing to brush that aside to ponder another time.
"If you must." The lightness in her voice was her real answer.
"And I must." That, she could almost believe. Bastien had been besotted since that first Wintersend ball, and as far as she could tell, had never wavered. It did not come easily to Vivienne to trust—relying on anyone but oneself had a way of ending a career (or a life) prematurely—but there had been, since then, a constancy to Bastien which she appreciated. Perhaps she did not rely on it, but it was enjoyable for as long as it lasted.
Now she graced him with a look, and she was glad for the mask that hid the way the corners of her mouth turned up when she set eyes on him. Your duke, First Enchanter Asha had called him earlier, a turn of phrase which pleased Vivienne more than it ought to: her duke, her Bastien, hers.
In the shadow of the pillar she could just barely catch the gleam of his eyes through his mask, and Vivienne lifted her chin a little, silently bidding him come closer.
"How is Nicoline?" The poor dear had retired from the party early, a freedom she was permitted as the Duchess de Ghislain (but which, for one below her station, would have been a terrible faux pas).
"She's asleep, now. The rest should help her head," Bastien said, joining her at the archway, though he spared barely a glance at the serene landscape. Once, Vivienne and Tristane had debated the merits of Bastien and Nicoline's relationship. Tristane had said it was no good to chase after a man so loyal to his wife; Vivienne preferred to think a man who did not so easily cast aside years of companionship was a better target for her efforts than some whimsical chickadee who flitted from thing to thing and person to person as it suited him. There was a certain tenderness in the attention Bastien and Nicoline paid each other; there was a partnership there—which Vivienne tended to think was why Nicoline was so permissive of Bastien's open affection for Vivienne.
"Poor dear; what terrible timing." Nicoline, unlike others, was not prone to headaches and fainting spells, so it was particularly unfortunate she'd been so overcome that night. On the other hand, it had allowed Bastien and Vivienne ample time to dance together.
"We could continue this conversation in my quarters," he proposed.
"Bastien, I will not intrude upon your private quarters with your wife." Not yet.
"Bah, Nicoline won't mind," he said, with a flippancy that characterized much of his attitude towards the opinions of others. But Vivienne knew that if Nicoline chastised him, he wouldn't do it again.
"No." She did not need to put force behind her tone to make it final. Winning Nicoline to her side was and always had been a part of Vivienne's machinations with the famille de Ghislain. It would be so much easier if Nicoline were an ally, so Vivienne would not poison that well without cause, and she would take all due courtesy.
"You shall make me feel the slightest bit untoward for keeping you out here all night," he warned, and she might have laughed, if she did not suspect they were fully capable of spending the entire night in conversation; of staying there thinking just a moment more until the sun began to break over the palace.
"I'm sure you'll grow bored of my conversation before then," she said, in the feinting coquettish way that was meant for him to object over.
"How you jest, Vivienne!" And there it came, and Vivienne smiled privately to herself behind her mask, and did not argue. Bastien moved closer, and reached out to trail his fingers just so lightly along the underside of her jawline, behind the mask. "I could never tire of you," he said softly. He stepped back to offer her a hand. "Another dance, madame?"
"Another! Have you not had your fill yet?" she asked teasingly, putting a hand on her hip.
"Nor shall I ever," he replied.
"There's no music," she said. Bastien seemed to have been waiting for this protest, for he almost immediately broke out in song, in that smooth tenor she had first heard through the solid wood of a closed Circle door in Montsimmard.
"Enchanter come to me, enchanter come to me, enchanter come to see…" She should have had better control over her heart, to stop it from softening like warm honey at the whim of another, but she could not, at the moment, do more than offer a feeble reprimand to herself. She took Bastien's hand, and allowed him to pull her into a Nevarran waltz, the softness of his song resounding gently off the curving stone ceiling to wrap around them, as if to veil them from the rest of the world.
Perhaps it was not wise for Vivienne to feel so genuinely about this man, but for once, she would allow herself this simple pleasure, and handle herself whatever repercussions came of it. It seemed a worthwhile exchange.