No Greater Pleasure (15 page)

She looked at him. “I’m not!”

“You’re happy here. Really.” His tone clearly stated he didn’t believe her.

Quilla nodded. “As happy—”

“That does nothing to convince me.” Jericho turned to face her. “My brother is difficult, to describe him kindly.”

“I know this.” She smiled. “I’ve had worse. Few worse, but some.”

Jericho rattled the pebbles in his palm. “Don’t you have to say that about him?”

Quilla began walking along the path. Jericho followed. The eel made ripples in the water and she caught a flash of silver in the pond’s depths. Perhaps her imagination. Or not.

“No, I don’t have to say it. ’Tis true enough. I’ve had patrons who were worse than your brother.”

“And you liked them, anyway.”

Quilla laughed and looked at him. “No, my lord Delessan. I didn’t like them.”

“Don’t you have to like them?”

Now she stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. “Sinder’s Arrow, no. I don’t have to like them. I am required to serve. To provide absolute solace. I do not need to like them!”

Jericho frowned as though pondering. “How on earth can you provide absolute solace to someone you don’t like?”

“ ’Tis no easy task,” Quilla admitted. “It takes much meditation. An unselfish heart is its own reward.”

“Do you like most of them?”

Most people never bothered to ask about her work. On her rare visits home, her family ignored her Calling, preferring to act as though she’d been away on retreat, or to school. Her patrons didn’t seem interested in anyone but themselves, and most assumed she liked them, even when she didn’t.

“Most I do. Yes.”

“And they become your friends?”

“Many of them. Many I grow to have great fondness for. Yes.”

“But you have to be their friend.” He sounded very sure of himself. “So are they truly your friends, if you must needs make a friendship with them? When you have no choice, is it real admiration, or necessity?”

Quilla frowned. “I always have a choice, my lord Delessan.”

He laughed, tipping his head toward the late harvesttime sky. “So you say. Think you that because I have no need for a Handmaiden I know not their purpose?”

He looked at her with one eye squinted against the sun that had decided to break through the clouds. “You have to be their friends, their confidantes, their lovers, their nursemaids. Their caretakers and serving girls and cleaning maids.”

She lifted her chin. “And what of it?”

“Do you not know the difference between a friend of choice and one of necessity, Quilla Caden? When’s the last time you had one?”

“I have friends.”

“Of choice?”

“Yes!”

“Can I count myself among them?”

She gave him a long, level look. “I don’t know.”

“Fair enough, Quilla, but be warned. I intend to make you know.”

He touched his fingertips to the base of his throat, his lips, and his forehead in quick succession—the Traveler’s Gesture—and with a smile still on his lips, turned and left her to stare at the water’s black surface. The surface of the pond had gone still again, but Quilla knew she would never forget the way the water had frothed, or the secrets it held beneath the calm surface.

 

 

 

T
he last thing Quilla expected to find when she opened the cupboard lift was a face. She let out a yelp, then put her hand over her heart. “Young lord Delessan! You scared half the life out of me!”

Dane giggled, then looked apologetic. “I plead your mercy. I was playing pirates.”

By himself. The lad needed playmates beyond his uncle and the houseboys. Quilla smiled. “And the lift is the place to do it?”

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.

 

 

 

S
he’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.