No Greater Pleasure

  He nodded eagerly, his small face wreathed with a grin. “Aye! For ’tis small, like the hold of a ship! And I am pretending to be captured by pirates.”

  “And who is playing the pirate?” She set the tray on the hall floor. Her work with Gabriel was done for the day; she’d been dismissed.

  Dane looked crestfallen. “Nobody. Sometimes in the summer when Robie Vassermidst comes to stay with his grandma and grandda he comes to visit me here and we play pirates, together. But he went away to school. Father says next year I’m to go away to school, too. Mama says no, I’m to stay here and get a tutor.”

  Dane swung his legs out of the lift and dangled them, kicking the wall and leaving black marks with his shoes. When he saw her look of disapproval, he stopped. Quilla bent to use the napkin from the tray to wipe away the marks.

  “And what of you,” she asked him. “What do you wish to do?”

  “I’d like to go to school. Robie Vassermidst says there’s pudding every night at dinner.”

  Quilla smiled at the thought. “You must study very hard in school. There’s more to it than pudding at dinner.”

  He nodded. “I know. Father says I must study very hard, too. He says I must learn to do more than read, I must learn figures and sums and all manner of things like that. Uncle Jericho says ’tis important to learn how to count and such, too, because if I want to join him in his business I must needs know how to do that sort of thing in my head, without benefit of parchment.”

  Quilla nodded, considering what he’d said. “Your uncle and your lord father are both correct.”

  “Did you go to school, Quilla?”

  She shook her head. “I had a tutor, much as your mother proposes for you. But I often wished I’d been able to go away to school, and I’ve always thought it important to keep learning. To keep teaching myself.”

  “Even now?” Dane seemed impressed. “That you’re old?”

  Old? “Even now, that I’m old. Yes.”

  In his laughter, he looked and sounded like his mother. “Oh, Quilla Caden! You’re most merry!”

  She had no time to ask him why he found her statement so amusing, for down the hall came Gabriel, his hair slick with wet and a fresh coat and vest upon his body. He paused when he saw them.

  “What is this, Dane?”

  “Dane was helping me with your tray, my lord.” Quilla gestured for Dane to get down from the lift, which he did with alacrity and a shamed face. “Have you need of me?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “No. I am seeking my lady wife.”

  Quilla nodded. “Of course.”

  “Mama’s in her sitting room,” Dane offered. “She has a headache and sent me away. Allora Walles has put a cool cloth over her eyes and is reading to her.”

  “I see we have no need of a newsletter. Not with Master Dane in the house.” Gabriel’s indulgent tone made Quilla smile as she bent to put the tray into the lift.

  “I daresay he knows everything that goes on here,” she said.

  Dane nodded, full of self-importance. “Oh, aye. Jorja Pinsky says ’tis because I am a nebby little brutus and must stick my nose in the world’s business, but Florentine told her to shut her fat lips, because I am my mother’s son in more than feature.”

  Quilla kept her gaze on the tray, not wanting to laugh. From the mouths of children come embarrassing truths. She’d have to remember to watch what she said around the boy. Not unless she had no care about hearing it turned around and spat out for the world to hear.

  “Is that so?” Gabriel sounded speculative, and she glanced over at him. “What do you suppose she meant by that?”

  Dane shrugged, dancing with the innate inability to remain still that all boys seem to have. “I don’t know, Father. Can I come with you, Father? To see Mama?”

  “If your lady mother has a headache, perhaps ’twould be better for her if you did not attend.”

  Dane sighed, shoulders lifting. “She was fine when Uncle Jericho visited. But then she shouted at him, and he left, and that’s when she made Allora put the cloth on her eyes.”

  Quilla was still watching Gabriel when his son revealed a bit more truth. Her patron’s expression darkened. Dane didn’t appear to notice, but kept up his chattering. Gabriel’s entire body had gone stiff.

  “Dane, go find Jorja.”

  Dane looked momentarily chastened, but then nodded and skipped away. “Good-bye, Father!”

  Gabriel stared after him, then looked at Quilla, who still stood by the lift. His face showed no emotion. She paused, thinking he would speak to her, but he did not. He turned and moved off down the hall toward his wife’s rooms.

  She’d prepared a light luncheon for him. Sliced bread, sliced meat. Mustard. A small flask of ale. A nice cloth on the table. “My lord, do you care to pause in your work?” Gabriel looked up, eyes magnified once more by his lenses. “Hmm? What?”

  “Your mercy for disturbing you.” She gestured at the table. “I made luncheon for you.”

  He took off his headpiece and set it aside, then rubbed his eyes. “Yes. This is a good stopping point.”

  She helped him off with his white coat, but didn’t reach for the other coat. His brief pause made her smile to herself. He’d been expecting her to help him put on the other. When he reached for it, she put her hand on the sleeve of his white shirt.

  “Leave it off.”

  He fixed his gaze upon her. “So you say?”

  “I do.”

  He tilted his head. “And why, pray tell, do you tell me to leave off my coat and wander about in naught but my shirt?”

  “Because I think you shall be more comfortable in your shirt and not all constricted in your coat,” came her reply.

  “You think being without my coat will please me.”

  “I do.” She tugged his sleeve, moving him toward the table. “And I think luncheon will please you, as well. At least, I hope so. I’m fair starving today.”

  She set out the plates and served him, then herself while he watched. She took a bite of the bread and meat and looked up, catching his glance while she chewed and swallowed. She wiped her mouth and sipped some ale to wash down the food.

  “My lord?”

  “You . . . your manners.”

  Embarrassed, she wiped her mouth again. “I plead your mercy—”

  “No. They’re not bad. They’re just . . .” Gabriel seemed to struggle for words. “You’re so carefree. With me.”

  “You would like me to be more formal.”

  He toyed with his napkin, frowning. “No.”

  Quilla took a breath and let it out, slowly. “I understand you are more used to a rather more formal approach from your staff. But if I am to be your Handmaiden, I am more than a serving lass. At least, I should be. I could be. If you allowed it.”

  This he seemed to expect, because he leaned back in his chair and fixed her with a stern look. “I told you. I do not expect you to warm my bed.”

  “Is there no way for a woman to care for a man that does not involve his bed?” She asked the question carefully, not trying to be rude but wanting to be clear. “Can you not accept my caretaking of you as friendship?”

  Gabriel reached forward and lifted his mug of ale, draining it before answering. “You are my friend because you must be. No other reason.”

  She frowned. “Your brother said much the same, and I’ll give you the same answer I gave him. I choose my friends.”

  At the mention of his brother, Gabriel’s eyes flashed. “And you would have Jericho as a friend?”

  “I have no reason to consider him friend, nor foe.”

  “But you would choose me?”

  “I would so choose, my lord. For I find much about you to admire.” She spoke the truth, not flattery.

  He scowled. “Pretty words.”

  “With truth behind them.”

  He scowled further. “I told you in the beginning my reasons for sending for you. ’Twas to avoid all that rubbish.”

  ?
??Being cared for is rubbish?” She couldn’t help the way her voice rose a bit in surprise.

  He dove into his sandwich and chewed furiously without answering. Quilla set hers aside. “My lord Delessan. Please tell me why you find it so difficult to believe I might actually enjoy your company for my own reasons and not because I am duty-bound?”

  “My brother is the charming one. The golden-haired swain. The one our mother loved. The one everyone loves.” His words spoke of loss and longing, but his tone belied any such emotion. Gabriel kept his voice flat, his face without expression. “Jericho is the charmer, the one with friends, the one who can woo anyone to near anything. ’Tis why he took over our fathers’ business and not I. He had the demeanor for it. I did not.”

  “I see.”

  He looked at her, then back toward the fire. “I don’t think you do.”

  What she saw was two brothers, each who wanted what the other had and neither able to appreciate their own blessings.

  “So tell me,” she said.

  “I am the elder brother. I am the steady one. The responsible one. I have ever had to be such, since he was born. I have always had to watch out for him, my younger halfling brother who looked like my mother when I did not.”

  “And all of these are reasons I should not wish to befriend you?”

  He stared at her. “I’m only telling you the way it is. You make your own judgment.”

  “Sometimes, we allow ourselves to focus with such intensity upon what we believe others think us to be, we create ourselves in that image.”

  “You think I’m wrong?”

  She shook her head. “There can be no denying you are the elder. And you seem to be the steadier. But he is not handsomer than you, and though his charm is more obvious, I am convinced you could equal him. If you tried.”

  His brow raised. “You sound as though you are challenging me, Handmaiden.”

  She smiled and sipped some more ale. “I only speak what I see. ’Tis for you to choose if you would attempt more frivolity.”

  “And for you to choose my friendship,” he added, his tone considering.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Gabriel bent back to his food. “It does not please me to be frivolous.”

  Quilla made no reply to that, and when the food was finished, she tidied it up while Gabriel got back to work, but she caught him humming beneath his breath while he did.

  You’ve been avoiding me.”

  Quilla looked up from the book in her hand. The library at Glad Tidings was not well stocked, perhaps because Gabriel’s private collection of volumes was kept in his room and not upon the library shelves. Still, she’d found a few novels of interest, a collection of unused religious texts that made her shake her head, and an odd assortment of personal letters bound into covers made of glue-stiffened paper.

  “I have done no such thing.” She turned back to the book, but Jericho Delessan was no more used to being ignored than his brother, for he leaned on the bookshelf next to her. She caught the faint scent of herb floating about him and looked again at his face, searching for signs that he’d been indulging. A hint of redness in his eyes was all that showed, but it was enough to prove her nose hadn’t been wrong. She couldn’t ignore him, so she sighed and moved away.

  “You have. You never join us for dinner, nor for cards.”

  Quilla gave him a rueful shake of her head. “Certainly you can see how such a thing is impossible, my lord Delessan.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’m not a guest in this house, and you well know it.”

  Jericho followed her as she moved to sit in one of the comfortable chairs in front of the fireplace. “No, but you’re no chambermaid or kitchen drab, either. You’re something else, entirely, and I’m fascinated by it.”

  She looked up at him. “Fascinated? How flattering.”

  Her attention turned to the book in her hand, but though she turned its pages, her eyes scanning the text, she could not concentrate. At last, she looked up with an exasperated sigh, to find him staring at her.

  “Staring is ill-mannered, my lord Delessan.”

  “My other lord Delessan,” he put in with an unabashed, smug grin. “I can hear it in the pause you give it. You don’t say it, but ’tis there. ‘Other.’ ”

  Quilla closed the book on her finger to keep the place. “You seem to believe you know much about me.”

  “I’d like to know more. I’d like to know all about you. How you came here. Why you do what you do. All of it.”

  “Am I to be interviewed?” She sat back in her chair and looked at him. “Shall you write an account of our conversation and send it to the newsletters?”

  “No. My curiosity is for me, alone.”

  “I came here by carriage. I do what I do because ’tis my purpose and my place to do it.” She opened the book again.

  She had not satisfied him. Jericho made a disgusted noise. “Do I threaten you, Mistress Caden?”

  She looked up again. “Of course you do not. Do you mean to?”

  His grin, meant to soften her like butter before a fire, gleamed. “No. ’Tis unintentional, yet I know I do.”

  “I just said you do not.”

  “Well then, you’re lying.” Jericho crossed one leg over the other and linked his fingers around his knee. “Because the way you avoid me tells me I threaten you. I’d like to know why.”

  “I do not—you don’t—” She cut off her protest, refusing to give him the satisfaction of the sort of reaction she suspected he expected.

  He said nothing, just watched her with the same knowing smile on his handsome face. She bent back to her book, determined not to speak and not to flee, either. She read the same page over twice before admitting to herself she could not understand a word of it.

  “You do not threaten me,” she said at last. “And I do not avoid you. We simply have no need for interaction.”

  “We’re interacting now,” he pointed out.

  “And I have not run away, so there. You see? I do not avoid you.”

  “You probably should,” he said matter-of-factly. “Else my brother will surely chastise you for encouraging my company.”

  “I am not!” She bit down again on the protest and glared at him. “My lord Delessan, I have been relieved of my duties for the day. By your brother, my patron, who does not require my company at the moment. He has given me permission to utilize this library as I see fit, and all I’ve done is take advantage of his generosity. I have done nothing for which any chastisement would be necessary.”

  “Well, not yet, you haven’t.” Jericho wiggled his eyebrows and broadened his grin. “I’ve been told I’m quite the ruiner of reputations.”

  She’d had enough. Quilla closed the heavy novel and lifted it. She stood, making certain her dress fell in smooth lines to her ankles, then crossed to him, and leaned in close.

  “Are you?”

  His gaze flickered, grew languid, along with his lazy smile. He reached to curl his fingers in the end of her braid. “I’m not proud of that, by any means.”

  “No?” She leaned closer, letting him feel her breath on his face.

  “Something tells me you’re the liar, now.”

  He tilted his head, lips parting, tongue making a slow, sensual sweep across them. “My lady, you wound me.”

  “I do, indeed,” she whispered. “And I am not your lady.”

  She dropped the heavy book directly in his lap. Jericho’s breath shot out of him. His face went pale and he hunched forward as Quilla stepped neatly out of the way.

  Then she turned and strode out of the room, at least giving him the courtesy of waiting until she’d closed the door behind her before she burst into laughter.

  Full winter had fallen, and along with it, snow. Drifts of white blown by the wind swirled and heaped in the garden and against the house, so high on the eastern side it covered a few of the lowest windows. Bertram kept a path cleared from the kitchen to the stable, but the rest of the
household was kept inside, fires lit and tempers short with the seclusion.

  “What we need’s an entertainment,” Florentine grumbled as she pounded down a swelling bowl of dough and began to knead it. “Somewhat to keep us all from tearing out each other’s throats. ’Tis too long until the Feast of Sinder. Someone will go mad and take an ax to someone else before much longer.”

  Quilla had sought the warmth of the kitchen and dubious comfort of Florentine’s company rather than face the silence and chill of her lonesome room. “I know the girls have been playing cards at night. A regular tournament, they’ve started, with the game Master Jericho taught them. The one he learned from Mistress Saradin.”

  Florentine sniffed, meaty fists pounding the dough into submission before tearing it into three hunks and rolling each into long strands, which she began to braid. “Those simpletons need more to do than play cards.”

  Quilla got up to stir the bowl of stew bubbling in the pot over the fire. “You’re the one who said we need an entertainment.”

  Florentine finished braiding the hallah loaf and set it aside to rise again near the fire’s warmth. “Don’t you know what we finds entertainment, Handmaiden?”

  “Firstly, tell me who you mean to encompass with your we, as I’m fair certain Allora Walles’s idea of entertainment is far different from your own.” Quilla smiled and leaned against the warmed bricks next to the bread oven.

  “Ah, that moronic bitch is finding the same entertainment she always does, of that I’ve no doubt, only seems she’s set her sights a bit higher than a chaff-strewn stable.” Florentine, ceaseless, moved to the bowl of sand-covered potatoes and began to brush them off, being careful to catch every falling grain of sand in another bowl.

  “Poor Bertram.”

  “And poor Billy, and poor Pipp and poor Took,” said Florentine. “And don’t forget the stable lads Luke and Perrin. She’s had her way with them, I’m sure of it, and left them with naught but the memory to keep them warm at night. Though I’ve no doubts they’d not go running to sniff her skirts again should she lift ’em, the sluttish twat.”