Chapter 30: Silk and Scissors
The coldness that had settled in her bones after leaving the Officers’ Quarters was a different kind of chill. It wasn’t the damp of the stone corridors; it was internal, a glacial calm. The ledger was her only warmth, a dull pulse of purpose against her side as she walked. The evidence of her uncle’s treason was a tangible thing, but the memory of the twins’ shared kiss, of Lucien’s final, vulgar promise filling her, felt more real. She smelled of them. She tasted of them. And Nate had seen.
She needed to scrub it all away, or lose herself in it completely.
The main ball was a dying beast, its roars reduced to exhausted murmurs, its glittering scales now just piles of stained silk and tarnished brocade. She avoided the thinning crowd, slipping through a servants’ passage she remembered from childhood, her heels clicking on the bare stone. The route led her past the old conservatory, its glass panes dark, and towards the western wing, which had fallen into genteel disrepair after her grandmother’s death.
The door to the music room was ajar, a sliver of faint, flickering light spilling onto the threadbare runner in the hall. From within, she heard the soft, hesitant notes of a harpsichord, played badly but with feeling. A wisp of a forgotten melody.
Teresa pushed the door open.
The air inside was thick with the scent of old roses and dust. A single candelabra burned on the lid of the grand instrument, its light dancing over peeling gold leaf on the ceiling and the sad, frayed strings within the harpsichord’s open case. The player was Lady Sayr Valorian, her back to the door, her silhouette a stark cutout of black silk against the warm glow. Her ivory shoulders were bare, her black hair a cascade down her back. She played a wrong chord, laughed softly to herself in the empty room, and tried again.
“You’re flattening the seventh,” Teresa said, her voice echoing slightly in the cavernous space.
Sayr started, her hands lifting from the keys. She turned, her face a mask of amused surprise that quickly softened into something more intimate. “Your Highness. I was hiding from a baron with breath like a cheese cellar. I didn’t think anyone else knew this room still existed.”
“It was my grandmother’s,” Teresa said, stepping inside. The door sighed shut behind her. “She hated the sound of the violins in the main hall. Said they screeched like cats. She’d come here, alone, and play for hours.”
“A woman of taste,” Sayr remarked, her dark eyes tracking Teresa’s movement as she approached. “Though I fear my playing would have driven her back to the screeching cats.” She watched Teresa, not with the predatory hunger of the Perkins twins, but with a sharp, curious intelligence. “You look like you’ve been fighting ghosts. Or fucking them.”
Teresa let out a short, brittle laugh. It felt like glass breaking in her chest. “Something like that.”
She stopped beside the harpsichord, trailing her fingers over the dusty rosewood. The silence between them was heavy, but not uncomfortable. It was a shared space, a mutual escape from the performance downstairs.
Sayr shifted on the bench, her gown rustling. “I saw Captain Williamson outside the officers’ stair. He looked… thunderous. And you descended looking like you’d walked through a storm. Seems a connected tempest.”
“It’s not his concern,” Teresa said, too quickly.
“Of course it is,” Sayr countered gently. “He’s yours. Everything here is yours. That’s the burden, isn’t it?” She reached out, not touching Teresa, but her hand hovered near the ledger still tucked under Teresa’s arm. “Is that the ghost?”
Teresa looked at her. Sayr’s beauty was a different kind—sharp, pale, with a mouth that seemed always on the verge of a clever smile. She was here for the social scene, yes, but there was a depth to her observation, a lack of judgment that was profoundly disarming.
“It’s a ledger,” Teresa said, the truth feeling like a confession. “It details payments from my uncle to the eastern garrison commanders. For their ‘loyalty.’”
Sayr whistled low. “Treason. How dreadfully mundane.” Her gaze lifted from the ledger to Teresa’s eyes. “And you carry it around like a holy book. No wonder you need a distraction.” Her smile turned wicked. “I, however, am excellent at distraction.”
Teresa’s heart began to beat again, a thick, slow rhythm against her ribs. The hollow cold was still there, but now there was a spark in the center, a tiny flame of want. She didn’t want strategy. She didn’t want complicated games. She wanted the simplicity of friction, of release, of being touched without being seen through.
“Prove it,” Teresa said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Sayr stood in one smooth, graceful motion. She was taller than Teresa had realized. She closed the distance between them, the dusty air seeming to crackle. “With pleasure.”
The first kiss was a question. Sayr’s lips were soft, exploratory, tasting of wine and something sweet. Teresa answered by parting her own, inviting her in. Sayr’s tongue met hers, and it was different—softer than Amberley’s fierce ownership, less arrogant than Lucien’s. It was a conversation.
Then Teresa pushed. The spark became a flame.
She walked Sayr backward until the other woman’s back pressed against the polished frame of the harpsichord. The instrument gave a faint, discordant groan. Teresa’s hands went to the lacings of Sayr’s gown, not fumbling but tearing, the fine silk giving way with a satisfying rip.
“Hey,” Sayr gasped against her mouth, but the protest was lost in a moan as Teresa’s hand cupped her breast, thumb rubbing roughly over the already-hard nipple through the thin chemise.
“You wanted a distraction,” Teresa murmured, biting Sayr’s lower lip. “Don’t pretend to be delicate.”
Sayr laughed, a breathless, excited sound. “Fuck, no.” Her own hands came up, tearing at Teresa’s bodice with equal ferocity. Buttons pinged against the floor. Cool air washed over Teresa’s skin, followed immediately by the heat of Sayr’s hands, mapping her waist, her ribs, her breasts.
They kissed like they were trying to consume each other, all teeth and clashing tongues. Sayr’s thigh slid between Teresa’s legs, pressing up against her core through the layers of ruined skirt. Teresa ground down onto it, a low, desperate sound escaping her throat. The pressure was perfect, blunt and immediate.
“God, yes,” Sayr panted, her head falling back against the harpsichord with a thud. “Ride it. Fucking ride my leg.”
Teresa did. She hooked her arms around Sayr’s neck and moved, a frantic, graceless rhythm, the rough fabric a delicious torment. She could feel herself getting wet, soaking through her smallclothes, onto Sayr’s stocking.
Sayr’s hands groped behind her, flailing until they found the edge of the harpsichord’s lid. She shoved the candelabra aside, sending it skittering, wax splattering. Then she hauled herself up to sit on the lid, the ancient wood creaking in protest. She pulled Teresa with her, yanking her up so she straddled Sayr’s lap, their faces level.
They were a tangle of torn silk and bare limbs on the grand instrument. Sayr’s gown was ripped open to her navel, her breasts free. Teresa’s own bodice hung in tatters. Sayr kissed her again, deep and filthy, while her hands pushed Teresa’s skirts up around her waist.
“I need to feel you,” Sayr breathed, her fingers hooking into the waist of Teresa’s smallclothes. “Now.”
Teresa lifted her hips, allowing Sayr to tug the soaked garment down her thighs. The cool air hit her exposed cunt, a shocking contrast to the heat building there. Sayr’s eyes dropped, dark with hunger.
“You’re dripping,” she whispered, awe in her voice. She spread Teresa open with her thumbs, exposing the slick, swollen flesh. “Someone worked you up good, didn’t they?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She lowered her head.
Her tongue was a flat, hot stroke from Teresa’s opening to her clit. Teresa cried out, her hands flying to Sayr’s hair, gripping the black waves. Sayr ate her with a focused, devoted fervor, her tongue plunging inside, then curling around her clit, sucking it hard.
“Yes… right there…” Teresa gasped, her hips bucking off the harpsichord lid. The room filled with the raw, wet sounds of Sayr’s feasting, the groan of wood, their ragged breaths.
Teresa looked down, watching the top of Sayr’s head move between her thighs, her pale shoulders working. The sight, the sensation, was wiping her mind clean. There was no ledger, no uncle, no Nate’s disappointed eyes. There was only this: the punishing pleasure coiling in her gut, tightening with every lash of Sayr’s tongue.
“I’m close,” Teresa warned, her voice strangled.
Sayr pulled back, her chin slick. “Not yet.” She maneuvered them, turning Teresa around so her back was to Sayr’s front. She guided Teresa forward, bending her over the harpsichord, Teresa’s palms slapping down on the keys. A jarring, chaotic chord erupted into the room.
Sayr knelt behind her. Teresa felt her breath on the back of her thighs, then the soft, open-mouthed kisses along her slit from behind. It was an impossibly intimate angle, devastating. Sayr’s tongue probed deeper from this position, fucking her with it.
“Oh, god…” Teresa whimpered, her fingers scrambling against the keys, producing random, plinking notes.
Sayr rose, her body pressing against Teresa’s back. She was still mostly dressed from the waist down. Teresa felt the hard line of Sayr’s thigh again, and then something else—the firm pressure of Sayr’s own core, hot and demanding through her layers, grinding against Teresa’s ass.
“You’re so fucking wet for me,” Sayr hissed in her ear, one hand snaking around Teresa’s hip, her fingers finding Teresa’s clit. She rubbed tight, fast circles. The other hand gripped Teresa’s hip, holding her in place as Sayr rocked against her from behind, their bodies moving in a frantic, scissoring rhythm.
It was frenzied. Animal. The harpsichord groaned and clanged beneath them with every thrust. Teresa’s breasts were crushed against the cool wood, her nipples hard points of sensation. Sayr’s fingers were a blur on her clit, her own grinding movements becoming jerky, desperate.
“Come with me,” Sayr demanded, her voice breaking. “Teresa, come on. Let go.”
The use of her name, stripped of title, was the final trigger. The coil snapped. Teresa’s climax tore through her with a violence that stole her voice. Her back arched, her mouth open in a silent scream, her cunt clenching around nothing, pulsing. She shook, her legs giving way.
Sayr rode her through it, her own rhythm shattering into frantic spasms against Teresa’s backside. A high, sharp cry ripped from Sayr’s throat as she came, her body stiffening, her fingers pressing almost painfully into Teresa’s flesh.
They collapsed forward together onto the instrument, a heap of sweat-slick skin and wrecked clothing. The discordant echo of the final abused chord faded into a ringing silence, replaced by the sound of their heaving breaths.
Teresa’s face was pressed against the dusty keys. She could smell the old wood, the musty felt of the hammers, and the sharp, intimate scent of their shared sex. Slowly, she pushed herself up. Her hands left damp prints on the polished wood. Between her legs, a mixture of her own arousal and Sayr’s was smeared, glistening in the candlelight. She saw a similar wet patch on the lid where Sayr had been grinding.
Sayr slumped beside her, a dazed, triumphant smile on her face. She traced a finger through the mess on the harpsichord lid, then brought it to her mouth, sucking it clean. “A masterpiece,” she sighed.
Teresa began to laugh. It was a raw, unhinged sound that bounced off the high ceiling. Sayr joined in, their laughter mingling in the dusty air.
As the laughter subsided, the world seeped back in. The cold of the room. The weight of the ledger, now lying forgotten on the floor beside the harpsichord bench. The reality of what she had to do at dawn.
Sayr sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked at Teresa, really looked at her, the amusement in her eyes softening into something like understanding. “The ghosts are still there, aren’t they?”
Teresa nodded, the momentary levity draining away. “They always are.”
“Then you’d better go slay them, Your Highness,” Sayr said softly. She leaned over, pressed a final, surprisingly tender kiss to Teresa’s shoulder. “And if you need another distraction… you know where to find me.”
Teresa slid off the harpsichord, her legs unsteady. She gathered her torn clothes as best she could, then bent to retrieve the ledger. Its weight was familiar again, a purpose reclaimed.
She left Sayr Valorian sitting on the grand piano, her ivory skin glowing in the candlelight, a smudge of Teresa’s rouge on her neck. Teresa walked back into the silent hallway, the taste of a stranger on her lips, the evidence of her uncle’s betrayal solid in her hand, and the first grey light of dawn beginning to bleed into the windows at the end of the corridor. The performance was over. The work was about to begin.