She giggled. "Oh, yes. I forgot that I should not show my breasts to Andrew. Please to forgive me."
There was absolute, utter silence.
Then, softly, Johann started to laugh. The queen was the first to join in, then Edith.
Maeve took a step forward. She was not laughing. "I presume we'll be having a wedding now."
Selena straightened. "Truly? How exciting." She frowned suddenly. "What is a wedding?"
Maeve's face was uncharacteristically hard. "It's what two people do before they get into bed together."
Selena laughed, a bright, clear sound that filled the room. "Then it is too late."
"Ian," Maeve said, "I'll expect to see you in the parlor in ten minutes." She snapped her chin up and sailed out of the bedroom, forcing the gawking crowd to follow.
The door slammed shut behind her.
And then, very quietly, Maeve started to laugh.
Ian couldn't believe what he was doing. He was dressed now-damn it, anyway-and heading down the
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dark, shadowy corridor to the parlor, where his mother waited for him, presumably to lecture him on morality. His mother.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into the bright, sunlit foyer. The light hurt his eyes, reminded him once again that he was emerging from his love nest and returning to the world.
The parlor door was closed. He knocked sharply, heard his mother's muffled "come in," and went inside.
Maeve stood alongside the fireplace. She stood tall and straight, her hair hastily bound into a topknot that hung precariously above her left ear, her hands plunged into the pockets of her pale green cashmere wrapper.
Something was different about her, though he couldn't name it.
One reddish eyebrow slowly rose. "So you can still walk. I would consider that a triumph."
He realized suddenly what was different about her. There was no fear in her gaze, no nervous stroking of her ribbon, no awkwardness in facing him. She looked lucid and sure of herself. In control.
He was proud of her. "You look good, Mother."
A tiny smile tugged one side of her mouth. "Really?" She patted her hair, felt the tumbledown chignon and frowned.
Without thinking, he went to her, eased the knot of hair back to the center of her head, and reanchored it with a few hairpins. Images swirled through his mind as he touched her ear, her temple. She was thinking of his father, and how he'd once fixed her hair in this very parlor. Before a ball, no, after a supper
He tried to control the images, and found that if he concentrated, they blurred, became an inconsequential smear of color and sound. No more irritating than a mosquito droning by one's ear.
He drew his hands back and stared down at his mother. There was a strange look on her face, and he
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realized that she'd been stunned by the familiarity of his gesture. "Thank you," she said quietly.
"You're welcome."
"You have slept with Selena," Maeve said at last. "And I mean this in the ... romantic sense."
"I don't suppose you'd believe that we were waiting for our clothes to dry?"
A laugh slipped from Maeve's mouth before she could stop it. "Don't be impertinent. I'm trying to be ... motherly here."