No Greater Pleasure

  “We will also be taking a trip to Alyria,” put in Madame Fiene, as though not wishing to be outdone. “Isn’t that so, my darling?”

  Her husband, who had been staring with unabashed admiration at Quilla, nodded. “Yes, my dear. Quite right. We shall. Next summer, exactly so.”

  This caught Saradin’s attention, and she looked away from Quilla for a moment to address Madame Fiene. “I’ve heard there are women there who still choose to wear the veil, though they needn’t. Do you suppose that’s true?”

  “Oh, I do think so, yes.” Madame Fiene took a large sip from her goblet, heedless of the way the wine dripped on her powdered décolletage.

  Saradin looked back at Quilla. “Why a woman would choose such subservience is beyond my ken. Why choose to kneel at a man’s feet when your proper place is at his side?”

  Again, the weight of many eyes burdened Quilla’s shoulders, but she showed no sign of noticing. She kept her attention upon her patron. A perfect Handmaiden, putting on a show because he wished it. A show that was also her reality, no game. This was her purpose and her place, and though there were those who would seek to shame her for it, she would not be shamed.

  “A woman who knows her place is to be greatly valued,” said Gabriel to Saradin. “And one who repeatedly oversteps her place shames herself. And her husband.”

  Ouch.

  “Even the great Sinder did not require his Kedalya to serve him on her knees,” said Saradin. “Sinder allowed Kedalya was his equal, if not his better, for she had the gift of bearing children, and he did not.”

  Gabriel looked around the table at the other men, and gave a sharp chuckle. “Well, ’tis a fine thing, then, that I sit at the head of this table, and not the great Sinder.”

  “I heard Alyrian silk is the finest available,” cut in Madame Somerholde, and the tension eased a bit.

  Quilla buttered a roll and put it on Gabriel’s plate. When he took a bite of it and butter glistened on his lips, she took up the napkin from his lap and wiped them clean. She did nothing she hadn’t done before, or wouldn’t have done had they been alone in his chambers, but having an audience to her work pricked at her serenity. She was not ashamed of what she was, but neither did she appreciate being made sport of. She didn’t care to be used to put another in her place . . . except that in this case, perhaps, she did.

  “My brother should be able to tell you that,” said Gabriel. “As ’tis his business to know of such matters.”

  Quilla happened to be glancing up as Jericho answered, and she found him staring at her. His blue eyes had gone dark in the lamp-light, liquid pools of blackness surrounded by a thin rim of blue. His gaze lured her, but his words snared her.

  “Alyrian silk is the finest, indeed, and should be worn only by those women who have beauty enough to compare to it.”

  “Then you shall be certain to buy some, Carmelia,” Saradin said.

  Jericho, still staring at Quilla, said nothing. After a moment, he bent back to his food, making a great show of cutting it and moving it around his plate, but eating very little. The conversation turned to furniture and textiles, and the places one went to find the best quality. Jericho kept silent except when pressed directly by one of the Fiene girls.

  “A woman’s best asset is not her wardrobe but her spirit,” he answered to her question about what sort of fabric was most flattering. Everyone turned to look at him; he kept his eyes fixed on the table.

  “Indeed?” replied Saradin. “And what, then, is a man’s?”

  Jericho looked up at his brother. “His honor.”

  “Particularly as regards a woman’s spirit, I suppose?” Gabriel’s reply sounded casual, but was not.

  Jericho’s stony expression flushed, and his eyes flicked down the table at Saradin, then up to Quilla before meeting his brother’s again. “Among other things, yes.”

  Solid, uncomfortable silence hovered over the table, broken then by Genevieve’s light trickle of laughter. “Shall I tell you of the most interesting book I’ve read?”

  Quilla smiled slightly. She had thought the Somerholde girl to be as dim as winter sky, but she’d been wrong. The girl was apt . . . for though she made the shift in conversation seem wind-headed, it worked.

  “Oh, do,” said one of the Fiene daughters. “And I shall tell you of the one I’ve just finished.”

  Jericho didn’t look away from his brother. Gabriel, however, cocked his head with deliberate spite toward the Somerholde girl. He raised a finger to Quilla without looking at her.

  “Wait,” he murmured, and Quilla folded herself into the Waiting on the floor next to his chair.

  It was a relief, in a way, not to have to stand and be stared at. Waiting was peace, and meditation. Waiting was easy.

  “You arrogant son of a bitch!” Jericho’s voice rang through the conservatory, and the clatter of his chair falling as he stood startled even Quilla.

  “Brother—”

  “Shut up, Gabriel!” Jericho stalked around the table to tower over Quilla. “She is a person, not a doll!”

  “She is a Handmaiden,” came Gabriel’s calm reply.

  “Get up,” Jericho said to her. “Quilla, you needn’t—”

  “Go sit down, Jericho.” Gabriel’s voice had become a silk-sheathed blade. “You are making a fool of yourself in front of our guests.”

  “Get up, Quilla,” said Jericho in a low voice. “You don’t have to let him do this to you.”

  She looked up at Jericho, “My lord Delessan—”

  “It would not please me for you to address this issue,” said Gabriel as though he were discussing the weather. “Sit down, brother, or leave the room.”

  Jericho looked at Quilla, who said nothing, then around the table. Though she could not see the faces, she could imagine the expressions upon them. Even while Waiting she could feel the embarrassed fascination of the people at the table, a combination of polite horror and gleeful expectation at the scene being laid out before them.

  “Husband, this is not the place,” began Saradin, and in the same mild tone, Gabriel interrupted her.

  “It would not please me, wife, for this conversation to continue.”

  Oh, clever and horrid man, Quilla thought, grateful her eyes were below table level, because she would not have liked to see the look on Saradin’s face. At least she knew now for whom his chastisement was meant.

  Jericho’s head snapped up and he stared down the table, presumably at Saradin. After a long moment made longer by the lack of conversation, Saradin spoke up lightly.

  “Tell me, Madame Fiene, if you prefer your settee to be upholstered in Alyrian flaxen or Gahunian weave?”

  At the other woman’s answer, the guests again moved toward safer topics. Jericho said nothing else, gave not even a bow of leave, but turned on his heel and stalked away. After a few more moments, Gabriel reached down and tapped Quilla on the shoulder.

  “Go,” he said, and Quilla got gracefully to her feet and did as he’d commanded.

  The rest of the chastising came the next morning, and she began to understand him a bit more. Gabriel did not speak to her when he came out of his bedroom and went straight to his worktable. He shrugged into his laboratory coat before she could help him, and he turned his back on her when she reached a hand to do the buttons.

  He remained silent as he went about his work as if she was not there. Though she’d been assisting him with the work for weeks, he did not take the vial she offered, but instead plucked another from its case and used that. The implication was as clear as if he’d shouted.

  “I have displeased you.”

  He made no answer, but continued with his work. The deliberate refusal to acknowledge her stung worse than a slap, for a slap could be given out of love and disinterest never could.

  She might, in the past, have angered patrons. Sometimes, absolute solace was not without its price, and she paid it for them when they were unwilling to pay it for themselves. She had also, on occasion,
failed to please a patron through inaction or by not guessing appropriately what he wanted, but she’d always done her best to remedy the situation.

  She had never, through her behavior, displeased a patron so greatly as to make it seem as though she’d failed in her duty.

  The situation unnerved her, and she went to prepare his tea and the simplebread, adding a crusting of sugar on the top of it. She brought it to him. He didn’t acknowledge her. He continued his work, every subtle movement a study in his carefully artless refusal to pay attention to her.

  The day wore on but Quilla stubbornly refused to accept defeat. She busied herself with tasks around the room, and that which she would normally have made unobtrusive she made less so. The meals she brought languished, uneaten, on the table, until at last she took them away. The notes she wrote while watching him work were ignored.

  At last, when the afternoon came and he began to unbutton his coat in preparation for joining the rest of the company, she stepped in front of him.

  “I plead your mercy, my lord.”

  He stepped aside to move around her. She matched his move, looking at his face. “Do you wish me to go? You only have to say so.”

  His eyes looked down into hers, his face expressionless. “You seem to think yourself quite capable of making your own decisions, Handmaiden.”

  Of all the answers she might have imagined, that was not one of them. “What have I done to displease you?”

  “You told me you did not wish to accompany me to dinner. Yet there I found you anyway.”

  Long practice kept her face from goggling. “My lord, I—”

  “Do you know what commotion you caused by showing up there?”

  He pushed past her, tossing his white coat onto the back of the chair and moving toward his bedchamber. “You threw the entire house into a tizzy! I honored your request not to take you there, and instead you snuck in to watch us unawares!”

  She had never entered his bedchamber before, but the sting of his accusation was enough to get her moving. Her feet hesitated but a moment on the threshold. It was worth it, for he looked surprised as he turned to face her.

  “You know I would have been there if you had but requested, and I appreciate that you did not. I was not sneaking in to watch you unawares. I was helping Vernon, as the rest of the staff was otherwise occupied!”

  “I have told you that is not your job!”

  “My lord . . .” Quilla sought the right words. “You did not forbid me from making use of myself when I am not with you.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, shoulders slumping. “My lady wife . . . she is . . .”

  There were many words Quilla would have used to describe Gabriel’s lady wife, but she refrained. “Your lady wife is insecure with her place in your eyes. She wishes to maintain her status in front of her guests. ’Tis easy enough for her to pin blame upon me for her own uneasiness.”

  “She’s jealous. She believes you a threat to her place in my life.”

  Quilla nodded, moving closer, loosening his tie and pulling it free of his collar. “I know. I cannot blame her for it. ’Tis difficult to understand the relationship between a Handmaiden and her patron.”

  He allowed her ministrations. “She believes you share my bed, though I assured her that is not the case.”

  Quilla smiled as she unbuttoned his shirt in preparation for helping him change. “But she understands, as any woman does, that the possibility of my sharing your bed is nearly as distracting as knowing it has already been done.”

  He stopped her hands and put a hand beneath her chin to lift her face toward his. “She fears you are displacing her in more places than just my bed.”

  Quilla’s hands stilled on his shirtfront, half unbuttoned. She tilted her head to meet his eyes. “And how did you respond to her accusations?”

  “You are my comfort. You are my solace. You are what I need before I know I need it.” His hand moved along her jaw to cup the back of her head, pulling her closer by one step. Their bodies aligned, fitting together like pieces of a puzzle.

  “When I saw you there, in front of all those leering, pompous prats, I was proud—and angry, too. Proud at how you could make them all speechless with your grace and serenity. Proud how even taunting does not make you rise to it.”

  “And angry?”

  “Angry that your place was not at my side. That they viewed you as an absurdity, an oddity to be exclaimed over. Angry that you were not clothed in a gown of gold, with feathers in your hair.”

  “My lord. . . .”

  “Angry at any who would have you.”

  “I am your Handmaiden, my lord.” Quilla put her hands on his shoulders, tilting her head to look up at him. “There is no other who can have me, no matter how they might want me.”

  “Until you leave me.”

  His reply made her nod and furrow her brow. “Do you intend to send me away?”

  His hands smoothed along the ridge of her spine. “You will leave when your work is finished. When you have brought me complete solace.”

  “That is the intent of my service to you, my lord.”

  His face twisted and he tightened his arms around her, burying his face in the side of her neck. His fingers found the end of her braid and he tugged off the ribbon binding the bottom, setting loose her curls to cover his face.

  “And if I never reach it?”

  “Then I will have failed in my duty. The Order, after a time, will call me back as not being the right Handmaiden for you. You’ll choose another, if you like, and I . . .”

  “You’ll be sent to another patron!”

  She put her arms around him, holding him close to her. “Yes, quite possibly.”

  He groaned, a sound that twisted her heart. She held him tighter, as tightly as she could, standing on her tiptoes to better put her arms around him.

  “What is wrong?” she asked. “Please. Tell me what I can do.”

  His lips moved upon her skin as he spoke. “If you do your job, you will go away from me. If you do not do your duty, they will take you away from me. You are to be my comfort and what I need before I know I need it, but I do know, now. And I am . . . I am . . .”

  “You are what?” she asked gently. Tears pricked her eyes, and never before had the thought of leaving a patron made her weep.

  “I am not able,” Gabriel whispered, hot against her ear. His hands moved in restless circles on her back. He nuzzled his face into her hair, against her cheek, his lips tracing a path on her temple and down the line of her jaw. “I am not able to do this.”

  He stood abruptly, putting her from him with such sudden force she nearly stumbled. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead, and turned his back to her. “I am not able to allow this, Handmaiden.”

  Tears escaped her eyes and traced a burning path down her cheeks to burn, salty, on her lips. She licked them away. “If I do not please you . . .”

  “You please me overwell,” he replied, voice low, gruff. “But I told you before. I do not require your assistance in my bedchamber. I made a vow when I married her. I can do no less than to keep it.”

  A vow Saradin had not kept, but it was not Quilla’s place to mention it. She nodded, though he could not see her, and she left, still in silence.

  Chapter 9

  Gorry, but you’ve got a long face.” Florentine set the bowl of stew in front of Quilla with a thump. “What’s gone wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.” Quilla spooned some stew into her mouth. “Why should you assume there’s something wrong?”

  “Because there’s naught that goes on in this house I don’t know, and I know you’ve not been sleeping.”

  “Nonsense. I go to bed every night.”

  “Ha!” Florentine shook a spoon at her. “I didn’t doubt your going to bed, Quilla Caden. ’Tis the sleep I doubt.”

  Quilla calmly ate more stew. “I sleep well enough.”

  Florentine made a rude noise. “You must think m
e a ruddy fool.”

  “No. Just overconcerned.”

  Florentine settled down at the table across from Quilla and dug into her own bowl of stew. She made smacking noises with her lips, groans and moans of small pleasure, and sighs of delight.

  Quilla watched her, amused. “You do love your own cooking, do you not?”

  Florentine looked up with squinted eyes. “And whose else should I love, if not mine own?”

  “True.” Quilla took another bite. “For you are fair accomplished with it.”

  “Ha,” said Florentine again. “Think you I don’t know you could run this kitchen as well as I? If it pleased him.”

  “Then let us both be thankful it does not,” said Quilla, refusing to rise to Florentine’s obvious bait.

  Florentine smirked. “They’re playing cards tonight. Think you he’ll be in fair mood, or foul, on the morrow?”

  “Perhaps it shall depend upon the amount of coin that leaves his pockets.” Quilla sipped some mulled wine. “They do game each other quite fiercely, do they not?”

  “Oh, Somerholde and Fiene do love to play for gold, indeed. Our lord Gabriel is not so enamored of it, but he’ll do it, to be a good host.”

  “And the ladies?”

  “Gossiping in the parlor, I should think.” Florentine looked to the row of bells along the kitchen wall, each marked with the name of the room to which it connected. “Mostly about you.”

  Quilla bit her lip on a smile. “You don’t really think so, do you?”

  A guffaw from Florentine. “Naw. For they’re all too bloody polite to talk about you in front of his lady wife. But let her leave the room and their lips will flap so fast they’ll blow out the lamps, mark my words.”

  Quilla laughed. “You have so little faith in human nature, Florentine.”

  “I have every faith in human nature, Quilla Caden. Faith that we’re all more easily led to evil than good. That if there are two choices to be made, we’ll take the easier and most beneficial to ourselves. That the right path is almost always the rockier, and though the smooth might lead us to the Void, we’ll take it even knowing it, because that, my friend”—Florentine punctuated her speech with a wave of her spoon that dripped gravy on the table—“is the way of human nature.”