The rest of them came to their feet with varying degrees of steadiness. Leah was annoyed to see that Zoe, Annova, and Nelson all seemed to maintain perfect equilibrium, whereas she felt dizzy enough to tumble over, and she hadn’t had so much as a drop of wine or a lick of keitzee. “The only repercussion I can see is that Seka may no longer consider me reliable,” Leah said. “She appeared to believe you dropped by without an invitation—but she’s not stupid. She might figure it out.”
“If she does, she does,” said Zoe, unconcerned. “Even if you never provide another scrap of information about the Karkans, I think Darien will still think this venture has been completely worthwhile.”
Leah feigned alarm. “So will he then cease to fund me? If I’m no longer useful to him?”
“Judging by our receipts these past two ninedays,” Annova said, “you don’t need the regent’s backing.”
Zoe put one hand on Annova’s arm and one on Nelson’s and started pulling them toward the door. “And if you conclude that you don’t want to run the shop at all, whether for yourself or Darien, you still have a decision to make,” Zoe said over her shoulder. “Which is, what exactly do you want to do with your time?”
Leah opened the door for them, shivering as the cold air rushed in. “Thank you for reminding me,” she said. “I had forgotten that I still need to figure that out.”
Zoe laughed. “It’s the great work of our lives,” she said. “Determining what we want our lives to be.”
“My answer keeps changing,” Annova said.
Zoe laughed again. “So does mine.”
Nelson freed himself from Zoe’s hold so he could give Leah a hug. She couldn’t help leaning into the embrace; even when she was most irritated with Nelson, she could take comfort from his warmth and presence, and right now she was feeling sorely in need of comfort.
He squeezed her tighter and spoke quietly in her ear. “That Chandran. He’s a better man than he thinks he is. Make sure he knows that you know that.” He kissed her cheek and followed Zoe and Annova into the night.
Leah switched off the glowing sign in the window and cut the power to the gaslight; the whole shop was plunged into darkness except for the candles burning in the back of the shop, where Chandran was still standing. She headed toward him in an utterly straight line. When she was close enough, he held his hands out, and she collapsed into his arms.
“What a night,” she whispered into his shoulder. She felt him nuzzle the side of her neck. “I feel like I’ve just climbed off the deck of a ship that was caught in a storm at sea.”
“What very strong personalities your primes have, to be sure,” he murmured into her hair.
“And strong powers,” she said with a shaky laugh.
“Yes, but it is the personalities that put those abilities in play.”
“I don’t know why Zoe brought Nelson. The way it turned out, I’m glad he was here—though Zoe could have defended herself without his help.”
Chandran pulled back enough to look down at her, though he kept his arms wrapped around her waist. “She seems to be very interested in your well-being and aware of the fact that I have become a part of your life,” he said in his precise way. “Might she have brought him for no greater purpose than a chance to meet me?”
“Yes! That’s what I’m afraid of!” Leah wailed. “First Darien—then Josetta—and now Zoe and Nelson—they’re all meddling in my life! Or trying to.”
Chandran freed a hand so he could trace the outline of her face, from the corner of her left eye, to the edge of her ear, down along her jaw. He ended by tapping his fingertip lightly on her mouth. “Those are the choices you make,” he said gently. “Either you live all alone someplace like Malinqua with no one to care if you are well and if your heart is whole. Or you live in Chialto, surrounded by family and friends who care very much about those things. You are alone and free, or surrounded and connected. You choose.”
She pursed her lips to kiss his fingertip. “You are alone and free,” she said in a low voice. “Is that the choice you wanted to make?”
Slowly, he shook his head. “If my life had unfolded otherwise, I would be at the center of a loving circle. In my moments of weakness, I would be able to call on others’ strength. In moments of triumph, I would have hands to clasp in celebration. I would have strength of my own to lend. I would savor the victories of my friends. I would give gladly and receive gratefully, and I would fear many things, but not one of them would be lonely solitude at the end of an empty day.”
She couldn’t stand it. She pulled his hand away so she could kiss him urgently on the mouth. For a moment she could feel him resist—try to resist—drawing his battered honor around him like dented armor. But then he swept her closer, held her tighter, kissed her with the desperate hunger of a man on the verge of drowning who had finally fought his way clear of the sea. She could feel the battle raging in his soul as his powerful will was overcome by his burning, inextinguishable desire for human connection.
With a gasp he tore himself away and stood there, panting. “I am sorry,” he managed to say. “I think I am not to be trusted alone with you.”
She reached for his hand—reached for it a second time when he pulled it away. That time he let her keep it, though she could feel him trembling. “And I think you are,” she said. “I think I can trust you with my heart. With all the random fragments of my life that make no discernible pattern and make no rational sense. I think you can help me put them together again, just as I can help you with yours.”
“But I am not—you cannot be sure—the things I have done . . .”
She kissed him gently. “The sweela prime told me you were safe to love,” she whispered. “But I had already decided that on my own.”
He cast his eyes down a moment, too moved to even look at her. “I am humbled by your trust,” he said.
She tugged him closer, put her arms around him, nudged her face against his chest. “I don’t want you humble,” she said. “I want you joyful.”
She felt his mouth as he kissed the top of her head. “I might manage thunderstruck,” he murmured. She could hear the beginnings of a smile in his voice. “It is not quite the same thing.”
She laughed. “I’ll take it.”
She lifted her face and he obligingly kissed her. She kissed him back, but her mind was already turning on practical matters. “I obviously can’t bring you to Darien’s house,” she said. “The room you’re renting—what’s it like?”
“Cramped and noisy and impossible to beautify,” he said promptly. “Not a place conducive to transcendent experiences.”
That made her giggle. She could feel a rising excitement in her blood, the first euphoric edge of passion. “Well, then,” she said, looking around. “Here we are.”
“Windows,” he said.
She took his hand. “Upstairs.”
With her free hand she grabbed one of the candles, and he did the same, so they made their way up the back stairwell by wavering yellow light. Once they were upstairs, they lit a few more candles and assessed the possibilities. The scrubbed wooden floor wasn’t very inviting, but they dug through boxes to find fleece rugs from Berringey, brightly woven wool blankets from Dhonsho, and embroidered pillows from Welce. Leah arranged cushions and fabrics while Chandran knelt beside her and sorted through one of the trunks that had recently arrived from Cozique.
“What are you looking for?” Leah asked, stripping off her overtunic and laying it aside.
He turned to her with a smile, his hands full of small glass jars. “Items I thought I saw in this shipment the other day.”
She reclined against a pile of pillows and smiled up at him. “And those items are?”
He set down all of the jars but one and unscrewed the lid. Immediately the air was filled with a smoky scent, half sweet, half seductive. “Perfumes,” he said. “Elixir
s.”
He used his fingers to scoop out a cinnamon-colored cream. Moving closer, he applied it in gentle strokes across her cheekbones, to the tip of her nose, from her chin all the way down her neck, to the hollow in her throat, to the fabric that edged the neckline of her undertunic. She shivered with restrained delight at the scent, at his touch, at the way the cream felt cool against her skin and slowly heated to a temperature hotter than her own body.
“I love that,” she whispered.
“I thought you might.”
She slipped off her undertunic and her trousers, everything except thin undergarments so sheer they hid none of her curves. Chandran scooped out more cream, rubbed it slowly into her shoulders, her arms, the palms of her hands, pausing to kiss her fingertips. Another handful, and he was smoothing it down the insides of her thighs, the long lean lines of her calves. He pressed his mouth to her kneecap.
“My whole body is on fire,” she said, taking the jar away from him. “Now you.”
He shook his head and handed her a different container. “This one,” he said.
She pried off the lid, then made an impatient gesture. “Your tunic. Take it off.”
She sniffed at the jar in her hand while she watched him disrobe, his motions as deliberate as always. He was not only heavily bearded, he was covered with dark hair on his arms and chest; in the uneven candlelight he appeared to be almost equal parts flesh and shadow. She sniffed at the jar again.
“This smells like a forest,” she said, dipping out a fingerful of pale green paste. “I like it.” She touched the high ridges of his cheekbones, rubbed the cream into the ruddy skin at the join of his neck and shoulders, down the central corridor of his torso where the dark hair was sparse. He sucked in his breath as her fingers approached the waistband of his trousers.
She set the jar aside, pushed him down onto the blanket, and lay on top of him, feeling every inch of his body where it pressed against hers. He buried his fingers in her hair, drawing her into a kiss, and she gripped his shoulders, rocked against him, feeling desire rip through her like a form of starvation. She had to have him, she had to; she was full of a hollow craving that could not be sated any other way. She moved aside just enough to pull off the rest of her clothes and he did the same.
Now they were naked and clinging to each other, kissing with passion so intense it was almost mindless, their hands exploring each other, their bodies repositioning themselves—their bodies conjoined, striving, slippery with cream and drenched in the scents of desire. Leah rolled onto her back and Chandran rolled with her. They rocked together, clung together, gasped and drove together again. Her hands were curled tightly over his shoulders, her body arched up to his; he moved inside her and she moved with him and there was no room for any other thought, any other sensation. They were surrounded by the scents and textures and colors of the entire world, and yet they were their own world. All of existence came down to this.
TWENTY-ONE
Taro wanted Leah to host a party.
She learned this much too early the following morning when she stumbled downstairs after about four hours’ sleep, fighting a headache and already late for work. Virrie and Mally were nowhere in sight, but Josetta and Rafe were still lingering at the breakfast table, talking with Taro, whose presence came as a surprise to Leah.
“When did you get here?” she asked, stuffing a piece of buttered bread in her mouth without even bothering to sit down.
“Yesterday evening,” he said, motioning her over so he could kiss her cheek. “I did try to wait up for you, but Josetta said you had some kind of mysterious meeting set up at the shop and you might be home late.”
Leah glanced at Josetta, who was trying to maintain a demure expression as she sipped a glass of juice. Clearly the princess had guessed that something in addition to the “mysterious meeting” had kept Leah away from the house long past midnight. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. “And it was quite the exciting evening,” she agreed. “The Karkans were there, and Zoe and Nelson showed up. I actually thought there was going to be bloodshed.”
Now Josetta’s smile disappeared. “What happened?”
Leah hesitated. “I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to tell. This was something Darien and Zoe came up with. I just provided the venue.”
Rafe pushed himself to his feet, flashing his easy grin. “Surely you can tell the prime. I’ll give you some privacy.”
Josetta stayed put. “I want to hear everything,” she said. She flicked a look at Leah. “All the details.”
Leah bit her lip to keep from laughing, but she quickly grew serious again as she gave Josetta and Taro a brief synopsis of the evening. She obviously wasn’t going to escape from the house anytime soon, so she sank to a chair as she finished her recitation. She could only hope Annova was at the shop with her usual punctuality. “I don’t know if there will be repercussions,” she finished up. “But Zoe seemed satisfied with how everything turned out.”
“Nelson and Zoe offering violence to foreign royals,” Josetta said on a sigh. “Good thing Taro wasn’t there to add his own threats.”
“Not me. I’m a peaceable man,” Taro rumbled.
Leah took a bite of fruit and studied him for a moment. “I’ve never seen you tumble boulders or shake the earth,” she said, “but I have to believe you could do it.”
“But how would you stop assailants?” Josetta wanted to know. “Mirti could break their bones, and Kayle could drive the breath right out of their lungs. What would you do?”
“I could flay them alive,” he said softly. “Strip the flesh right off of their bodies. At least that’s what my uncle told me. I’ve never had cause to do it.”
Josetta shivered. “And I hope you never do.”
“Ugh. Me, too,” Leah said. She finished her hasty breakfast and gulped the last of the juice. “I want to get to the shop, but I have to ask— Why are you here? Did something happen?”
“Merely that Natalie was bored and lonely, so I offered to bring her to the city for a few days so that Romelle could get some peace,” Taro answered. “Mally was delighted to see her, and the two girls went off somewhere with my wife early this morning. I hope it’s not too much of an imposition.”
“Not an imposition on me,” Leah said. “It’s Josetta’s house.”
“It’s Darien’s,” Josetta said. “And of course it’s not an imposition! We’re delighted to have you.”
“I thought we could have a dinner or reception one night,” Taro said. “Bring in all the Frothen relatives who live in Chialto so they have a chance to get reacquainted with Leah.” He shrugged. “And to meet Mally by her true name. It’s been more than a quintile since the primes announced that Odelia would be put aside, and we’ve made no move to formally introduce Mally as herself. But she’s a Frothen, too, and her aunts and uncles and cousins should get to know her.”
Leah’s chest was tight. “I’m not sure—is she ready—how do you plan to introduce her?”
Taro smiled at her kindly. “Someday I hope you will be willing to tell Mally—and the world—that she belongs to you,” he said. “I would like to claim her, and I believe Nelson would as well. But for now, I can merely call her a Frothen. Everyone will believe me. That should be good enough.”
Leah nodded dumbly, trying to absorb that, but Josetta was already making plans. “Do you only want Frothens here?” she asked. “Or should we invite all the primes? What about Darien? If Romelle isn’t here, we don’t need to invite any of Vernon’s other wives, though I’m sure my mother would love to be included.”
“I’ll let you and Virrie make up a guest list,” Taro said. “But we don’t want Leah to be too overwhelmed.”
Josetta turned to Leah with an artless smile. “Is there anyone in particular you’d like to invite?” she inquired.
I suppose I can’t kill a princess, Leah thought. “Um—I
don’t know. I’ll think about it. Maybe.”
Taro arched his heavy eyebrows, but didn’t ask any questions. “Let’s have it as soon as we can,” he said. “I can’t stand to be in the city too long.”
“But, Taro,” Josetta said in a sweet voice, “it’s almost Quinnelay changeday. Don’t you want to stay for the celebrations?”
He snorted. “It’s eleven days before the celebrations start, and, no, I do not! Who would hold a regatta in the dead of winter? Not that I would go to a boat race if it were summertime, which is when any reasonable person would schedule such a thing.”
Josetta laughed. “We’ll try to get your party planned by firstday,” she promised. “Virrie and I will get started this morning.”
Leah stood up. “I have to get going. I’ll see you all tonight.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Josetta said brightly, jumping to her feet and following Leah from the room. They were scarcely out of Taro’s earshot before the princess whispered, “Well? You were out so late everyone started to get worried. Rafe wanted to go down to the shop to make sure you were all right, but I persuaded him not to.”
Leah groaned and stepped through the kierten, out into the brisk morning air. She drew her jacket tighter; Josetta just hugged her arms around her body for warmth. “Thank you for that, at least. Doesn’t he realize—don’t you all realize—that I lived on my own in Malinqua for five years? I can take care of myself.”
Josetta unwrapped one of her arms so she could touch Leah briefly on the shoulder. “Yes, but now you don’t have to,” she said. “That’s what it means to be part of a family.”
It was very much along the lines of what Chandran had said last night. Leah wanted to say, You’re not really my family. But she supposed, in some convoluted way, the princess was related to her. Well, Josetta was Nelson’s niece and Mally was Nelson’s granddaughter, so they were connected by Ardelay blood. And Ardelays, Leah was beginning to understand, never let go of their own.
“I’m still not quite used to being watched over so closely,” was all she could think to say.