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failes-xtra-bits · 4 years

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Prince’s Gambit Review: Ch 6 (aka the chapter of increasing sexual tension)

This review is basically the entirety of chapter 6 copied and pasted (because it was too hard to pick only a few quotes :P) with a few dumb comments thrown here and there XD.

All quotes are in normal text and anything I’ve written will be in bold.

‘I want your best room,’ said Laurent, ‘with a big bed and a private bath, and if you send up the house boy, you’ll find out the hard way that I don’t like sharing.’ (You’ll probably remember he says the same line at the brothel.)

They sit down

Then Laurent rose and made his way around the table, sitting himself beside Damen, close as a lover.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Verisimilitude,’ said Laurent. The earring winked at him. ‘I’m glad I brought you along. I wasn’t expecting to have to tear things out of walls. Do you visit brothels often?’

‘No,’ said Damen.

‘Not brothels. Camp followers?’ said Laurent. And then: ‘Slaves.’ And then, after the satisfaction of a pause: ‘Akielos, the garden of delights. So you enjoy slavery in others. Just not in yourself.’

Damen shifted on the long bench, and regarded him.

‘Don’t strain yourself,’ said Laurent.

‘You talk more,’ said Damen, ‘when you’re uncomfortable.’ (I noticed this too. I thought it was kind of cute that he’s an awkward talker :P) …

Laurent was watching Volo with the same expression with which he had regarded the women in the brothel. (And somehow Damen still assumed Laurent was straight.)

He goes to play cards.

Damen extended an invitation for the man (Charls!) to join him if he wished, which the man very much did, hiding his curiosity about Damen only imperfectly, under a blanket of merchant manners… Damen gave an obscure name and pedigree from Patras.

‘Ah, Patras! Yes, you have the accent,’ said Charls. (So observant as always Charls.)…

Charls leaves and Laurent returns.

Damen said, ‘If you wanted a drink and an old hat that badly, you could have just bought them from him. Cheaper and quicker.’

‘It’s the game I like,’ said Laurent. He reached over and appropriated another coin out of the purse Damen carried, then palmed it. ‘Look, I’ve learned a new trick.’ When he opened his hand, it was empty, as if by magic. A second later, the coin dropped out of his sleeve onto the floor. Laurent frowned at it. ‘Well, I don’t have it quite yet.’ (I love this bit! It’s the first we see of Laurent’s more adorable side.)

‘If the trick is making coins disappear, I think you do have it, actually.’ (As much as I love Laurent’s sass, I do love a bit of Damen sass too.)

‘What’s the food like?’ said Laurent, his eyes on the table.

Damen tore off a piece of bread, and held it like a treat to a house cat. ‘Try it.’

Laurent looked at the bread, and then he looked at the men by the fire, and then he looked at Damen, a long, cool look that would have been difficult to hold if Damen had not had, by now, a great deal of practice.

And then he said, ‘All right.’

It took a moment for those words to penetrate. By the time they did, Laurent had settled next to him on the long bench. Laurent straddled it, facing Damen.

Laurent was really going to do it…

Laurent ate the bread. It was like feeding a predator, the same feeling. Laurent was so close that it would be easy to wrap a hand around the back of his neck and draw him closer. He remembered the feel of Laurent’s hair, his skin, and fought the urge to press against Laurent’s lips with the pads of his fingers…

Another piece of bread. Laurent’s lips brushed against his fingertips. It was brief and soft. This wasn’t what he’d intended when he picked up the bread. He had some sense that his plans had been overturned, that Laurent knew exactly what he was doing. The touch resembled the first brush of lips in the kind of sensual kiss that begins as a series of smaller kisses, and then, slowly, deepens. Damen felt his breathing change.

He reminded himself forcefully of who this was. Laurent, his captor. He made himself recall the fall of each lash on his back, but thanks to some misfiring of the brain, found himself instead in the memory of Laurent’s wet skin in the baths, the way his limbs fitted together like a hilt fitted to the blade of a balanced sword.

Laurent finished the morsel, then rested a hand on Damen’s thigh, and slowly slid it upward.

‘Control yourself,’ said Laurent.

And shifted in, until, facing one another on the straddled bench, they were almost chest to chest.

Laurent’s hair tickled against Damen’s cheek as he brought his lips to Damen’s ear.

‘You and I are almost the last ones here,’ Laurent murmured.

‘And so?’

The next murmur slid softly into Damen’s ear, so that he felt the shape of each word, made of lips and breath.

‘And so, take me upstairs,’ said Laurent. ‘Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough?’

It was Laurent who led the way, trailing up the stairs, with Damen following. He was aware of each step, and he found his pulse beating fast beneath his skin.

They go upstairs and meet the messenger. They speak, Laurent gives him signet ring and he leaves.

Damen rose and gave Laurent a long look.

‘You look pleased.’

‘I’m the type who takes a great deal of pleasure in small victories,’ Laurent said.

Laurent goes to bathe and Damen goes downstairs. On his way back up he brings a plate of food for Laurent.

‘Here,’ said Damen, and passed him the plate.

‘Thank you,’ said Laurent, looking at the plate with a blink. (Still surprised anytime Damen does anything good or nice :P) ‘The bath is free. If you like.’

He bathed. Laurent had left him clean water (Even though Laurent himself does nice considerate things)…

When he returned, Laurent had carefully eaten half of everything on the plate, and had placed it on the chest where Damen could get at it if he wanted it. (and again) Damen, who had eaten his fill downstairs and who didn’t think Laurent should be able to take over his bed when he had left untouched the vast comfort of his own, ignored the plate and came to stake his claim beside Laurent, on the blankets by the hearth…

The fire was warm. Damen enjoyed the feel of it against the bare skin of his torso.

After a moment, Laurent said, ‘I don’t think I would have arrived here without your help, at least not without being followed. I am glad you came. I meant that. You were right. I’m not used to . . .’ He broke off. (Laurent slowly warming up to Damen and his hatred melting away ever so slightly.)

His damp hair, pushed back as it was, exposed the elegantly balanced planes of his face. Damen gave him a look.

‘You’re in a strange mood,’ said Damen. ‘Stranger than usual.’

‘I’d say I’m in a good mood.’

‘A good mood.’

‘Well, not as good a mood as Volo,’ said Laurent. ‘But the food’s decent, the fire’s warm, and no one’s tried to kill me in the last three hours. Why not?’

‘I thought you had more sophisticated tastes than that,’ said Damen.

‘Did you?’ said Laurent.

‘I’ve seen your court,’ Damen reminded him gently.

‘You’ve seen my uncle’s court,’ said Laurent (Yes! A point I make all the time lol) …

‘Tell me something,’ said Laurent.

He spoke after a long and surprisingly comfortable silence. Damen looked over at him.

‘What really happened to make Kastor send you here? I know it was not a lover’s quarrel,’ said Laurent.

As the comfortable warmth of the fire turned to chill, Damen knew that he had to lie…

‘You were half right,’ he heard himself say, as though from a distance. ‘I had feelings for . . . There was a woman.’

‘Jokaste,’ said Laurent, amused.

Damen was silent. He felt the ache of the answer in his throat.

‘Not really? You fell for the King’s mistress?’

‘He was not the King then. And she was not his mistress. Or if she was, no one knew it,’ said Damen. Once the words started, they wouldn’t stop. ‘She was intelligent, accomplished, beautiful. She was everything I could have asked for in a woman. But she was a king maker. She wanted power. She must have thought her only path to the throne was through Kastor.’

‘My honourable barbarian. I wouldn’t have picked that as your type.’

‘Type?’

‘A pretty face, a devious mind and a ruthless nature.’ (XD)

‘No. That isn’t—I didn’t know she was . . . I didn’t know what she was.’

‘Didn’t you?’ said Laurent.

‘Perhaps I . . . I knew she was ruled by her mind, not her heart. I knew she was ambitious, and, yes, at times ruthless. I admit there was something . . . attractive about it. But I never guessed that she would betray me for Kastor. That I learned too late.’

‘Auguste was like you,’ (interesting how early he makes that comparison despite his hatred of Damen) said Laurent. ‘He had no instinct for deception; it meant he couldn’t recognise it in other people.’

‘And what about you?’ said Damen, after a difficult breath.

‘I have a highly developed instinct for deception.’

‘No, I meant—’

‘I know what you meant.’

Damen had asked it in an attempt to turn the questioning back on Laurent. Anything to close the doors. Now, after a night of earrings and brothels, he thought: Why not ask him about it? (I love how 2 chapters ago Damen makes a point of how uninterested he is on this subject and now… XD) Laurent didn’t look uncomfortable. The lines of his body were relaxed and easy. His soft lips, so often drawn into harder lines, their sensuality suppressed, at this moment expressed nothing more dangerous than mild interest. He had no difficulty returning Damen’s gaze. But he hadn’t given an answer.

‘Shy?’ said Damen.

‘If you want an answer, you’ll need to ask the question,’ said Laurent.

‘Half the men riding in your company are convinced you’re a virgin.’

‘Is that a question?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m twenty years old,’ said Laurent, ‘and I’ve been the recipient of offers almost as long as I can remember.’

‘Is that an answer?’ said Damen.

‘I’m not a virgin,’ said Laurent.

‘I wondered,’ Damen said, carefully, ‘if you reserved your love for women.’

‘No, I—’ (insert gay judgement meme) Laurent sounded surprised. Then he seemed to realise that his surprise gave something fundamental away, and he looked away with a muttered breath; when he looked back at Damen there was a wry smile on his lips, but he said, steadily, ‘No.’

‘Have I said something to offend you? I didn’t mean—’

‘No. A plausible, benign and uncomplicated theory. Trust you to come up with it.’

‘It’s not my fault that no one in your country can think in a straight line,’ said Damen, frowning a touch defensively.

‘I’ll tell you why Jokaste chose Kastor,’ said Laurent…

‘He was a prince,’ said Damen…

You don’t understand the way a mind like that thinks. I do. If I were Jokaste and a king maker, I’d have chosen Kastor over you too.’

‘I suppose you are going to enjoy telling me why,’ said Damen. He felt his hands curl into fists, heard the bitterness in his throat.

‘Because a king maker would always choose the weaker man. The weaker the man, the easier he is to control.’

Damen felt the shock of surprise, and looked at Laurent only to find Laurent gazing back at him without rancour. The moment stretched out. It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t what he had expected Laurent to say…

‘What makes you think Kastor is the weaker man? You don’t know him.’

‘But I’m coming to know you,’ said Laurent.

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