No Greater Pleasure (24 page)

“You speak as though that bothers you.”

He shrugged and pulled the collar of his coat closer around his neck. A breeze kicked up and tossed his blond hair back from his forehead. “ ’Tis not really my place. And you’d know all about that. Wouldn’t you?”

Quilla turned to look at him. “Why have you such an issue with my place?”

He gave her a long look but said nothing at first. Then he turned back to stare up the hill at the laughing guests. “You know why.”

“Jericho . . .”

His head swiveled so he could stare at her again, lips thinning. “So it’s
Jericho
, is it, now? We’ve graduated to that?”

“Would you prefer me to not address you by your name?”

“Don’t you want to know if it would please me for you to address me by my name?”

Quilla looked out across the pond, where Dane was skating, arms pinwheeling as he turned in circles. “I am not required to please you.”

“And because you’re not required to, you don’t care to, is that the way it is for you?”

Anger wanted to sharpen her voice, but she softened it so as not to give him the satisfaction. “I care, Jericho. Just not in the way you’d wish me to.”

“No?” His voice dipped low, and he turned to shield her from the sight of the party guests. “And how do I wish you to? Can you answer me that?”

“I would rather not.”

He stared at her until she looked up at him, then asked her another question. “Are you happy in my brother’s service?”

Again, she replied as she always did when faced with a question she found inappropriate. “Why do you wish to know?”

“Curiosity.”

“Ah. And are you always so concerned about your brother’s affairs?”

Jericho touched a fingertip to his brow in acknowledgment. “Point taken. However, in this instance, I think ’tis not my brother I’m concerned about.”

“Would you have me believe it’s me?”

“Aye.” Jericho had not turned his gaze from hers, and though Quilla now kept hers focused on the lake, she could feel his eyes burning into her.

“It would be my suggestion, then, that you find something else to occupy your thoughts.”

“How long will it take, do you think?”

She glanced at him, finding his eyes on her face as she’d suspected. “For what?”

“To soothe him.”

“As long as it takes,” was her reply.

“That answer is insufficient and also cowardly.”

Quilla’s small smile disappeared entirely, and she turned on him. “What are you about, my lesser lord Delessan? What purpose do you seek in trying to dissuade me from my job? I am here to perform a function, hired by your brother, which for the purpose of my job means I belong to your brother. I am his and no other’s. It’s not your concern my feelings on the matter, nor my thoughts. If I love it or hate it should not be any of your concern!”

His feathers seemed unruffled. A breeze had kicked up, making Quilla pull her cloak tighter around her throat, but Jericho didn’t seem to mind the chill. The breeze lifted the tips of his blond hair and tumbled it over his forehead in an untidy mess that nevertheless did not distract from the vivid blue of his eyes.

“Do you?” he asked simply. “Love it? Or hate it?”

The question, stated with such simple boldness, made her start to scowl, but she forced her face to smooth. “Neither.”

“I’ve made you angry. At least there’s that.”

Again, training and conscious effort kept her from goggling in surprise. “Were you trying to?”

“I’m trying to make you feel something, Quilla, and anger seemed the easiest way to breach the door.”

“Why?” She kept her voice pitched low, aware that the breeze could take her words and send them to ears not meant to hear them.

“Because if you won’t let me love you, the least you can do is allow me to be your friend.”

This set her back a literal step. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. “What? You—”

“Don’t you remember what I told you the first day we met?” He stared out over the pond, shielding his eyes to watch his nephew being chased by his chubby nursemaid.

Does the bee need to know the flower before it sups? A bird know the wind before it takes flight? The sea know the shore before it creeps upon it? Does a man need to know a woman before he loves her?

“I do. I didn’t believe it then, either.”

Jericho pulled his cloak tighter around his throat. “Then all the more reason you should believe me now that I’ve had the chance to know you.”

“Oh, Jericho.” She didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t. Please, Quilla. I know you are my brother’s. I know it’s your purpose and your place to cater to him, and not to me. And I know that even if it weren’t that I am not the sort of man you’d choose. He’s smart, and I’m but merry.” He turned and looked at her with such sincerity it made her want to take his hand. “But please, think on this. If you should fail—”

“Do you believe I will?”

“If you should fail,” he continued, “will you know this of me? That I would not take his place. That I would not have you as sent from the Order, but as yourself.”

Quilla had to look away from him. “Your friendship would mean more to me than I can say, Jericho.”

“And the rest?”

“The rest is not for me to comment upon. Please understand.” She kept her eyes upon the pond, and the young boy skating there. “But know you this of me. I do consider you a friend, and one of choice, not necessity.”

“Go, Jorja! Go!” Dane’s voice rang out over the pond.

The nursemaid, huffing and puffing, skidded to a stop at the pond’s edge. “He’s wearing me out, that one.”

Quilla laughed, watching the boy fall on his bottom “For shame, Jorja. You should be able to keep up with him.”

Jorja lifted both wobbling chins. “You try!”

The boy tried to get up and fell again, skidding across the ice. “My father says you must attend me, Jorja!”

“His father can come out and freeze his arse,” Jorja muttered. “I’m not paid enough for this business.”

“Jorja!” Dane called imperiously. “Jorja! Get over here!”

The boy struggled to his feet, slipping on the ice, but at last managing to stand upright. “Look at me!”

“I sees you, I sees you,” Jorja muttered, not even bothering to look over her shoulder at the lad. She let out a huff and stretched fat hands toward the sputtering fire in the barrel. “Who could miss him with all the caterwauling.”

Quilla watched Dane, whose arms whirled as he skated, his childish laughter high-pitched in the thin winter air. “I’ll be glad to help you watch him, Jorja, so long as I’m here.”

Jorja grunted and reached for the cauldron set to warm over the blaze. She dipped some hot cider into a mug and slugged it back with a smack of her lips. Then she settled her bulk onto the wooden log bench next to the fire.

“Watch me!”

Quilla shaded her eyes to do it, the late setting sun a glare of red and yellow against her eyelids. She blinked, watching the boy gliding and twirling. It looked most merry. Perhaps she would try.

“ ’Tis not as easy as it looks.”

She turned to give a raised-brow glance at Jericho. “No? I thought I saw you out there the other day.”

He grinned. “And you are trying to insult me by insinuating that if it’s not easy I should not be able to do it?”

Quilla shrugged, looking back out at the ice. “Perhaps you inferred that meaning.”

“Well said.”

Jorja snorted from her place on the bench, but said nothing. Jericho made a leg at her, and gave a half bow.

“Have you something to say, good lady? Pray tell, do speak.”

Jorja might be lazy, Quilla thought, but she wasn’t stupid. She didn’t seem about to sass the young master any more than she’d have done the elder.

“Uncle Jericho! Watch me!”

“Gladly, nephew Dane,” called Jericho. He strode to the edge of the pond, hands in his pockets, his rakish red scarf fluttering. “Go like the wind!”

“I am!” cried Dane, small legs pushing.

“Mind he don’t work himself to a frenzy,” cautioned Jorja, even as she could not be bothered to lift herself from the bench. “ ’Tisn’t good for children to be so active.”

Jericho gave Quilla a look that made her bite her lip to keep from laughing. In an aside, he said, “No, it’s better for children to be fed sweets until they burst and keep them docile in front of the fire.”

Quilla laughed softly, watching Dane. “It’s not so far from their treatment of him.”

“Not if I have any say. Of which I understandably have little.

But I do my best to see the lad has sport in his life.”

“You gave him the skates?” She didn’t really need to ask the question, as the answer had been evident in his eyes.

Jorja made a strangled mutter. “Quilla, I gots need of the necessary. Would you?”

Quilla nodded, thinking too much cider was not a wise thing in which to partake, so far from the house. “Of course.”

Jorja hauled herself off the bench and headed back toward the house, while Quilla and Jericho stayed in a silence that had become comfortable.

“Uncle Jericho! Watch me!” Dane slid along the ice, falling again and getting up again with a disgruntled cry.

“I’m watching you, Dane!”

And Quilla, watching Jericho watch the boy, made a connection that, upon the realization of it, seemed so obvious she could not believe nobody had noticed it before.

“He’s yours, isn’t he.” A quiet statement, not a question.

Jericho, to give him credit, did not try to dissemble. “I like to think so, yes.”

Quilla turned to watch the lad, who was no longer skating. He’d found a large stick on the ice and was poking it downward, over and over again, and yammering something Quilla could not understand.

“I was barely grown when she came to Glad Tidings.” Jericho’s gaze had gone far away. “Saradin, shining like a golden star, fallen from the heavens. Of course I was half in lust with her the first moment I saw her. She wanted naught to do with me. She’d come to be our chatelaine, but her eyes were on a greater prize.”

“Gabriel.”

He nodded, smiling faintly. “Yes. Lord of the manor. She wanted only the best, our Sara. The second son wouldn’t do. Well, not at first.”

“Oh, Jericho.” Quilla pitched her voice low.

He shook his head, watching the boy on the ice. “When she decided my brother’s infrequent attentions were not enough for her, she came to me. And I tell you, Quilla, not as excuse but as truth. She never left me alone. She thought of every excuse to get me alone. To touch me. To woo me, and yes, I know how that sounds but you should know I was young and she, very beautiful.”

“Many men use their gender as excuse, but in fact, that’s all it is.”

“You’re saying I could have resisted her, and you’re right. I could have. And should have. But I didn’t.” He looked at her. “And I’d have regretted it ever since, if not for that one thing. That boy, skating there on the ice. I’d not change a thing I did, ever. Because of him.”

“And now?”

“And now, she would have me pay court to her as I did when I was younger, and it makes her angry that I won’t. But that pleasure has palled, Quilla Caden.” He slanted her a sideways glance. “You think less of me for making love to my brother’s wife? I take the blame for it, and more, for I’ve never been man enough even to admit to him the truth.”

“You think he hasn’t guessed?”

“There can be nobody in this household who hasn’t guessed, though none will speak of it.”

“And you’ve always known?”

He nodded slightly, then turned to look at her. “She’s never said as much. I’m not even certain she’d admit it.”

“And you’ve never said anything about it?”

He shook his head, slight smile still upon his lips. “Of course not.”

“Because you love her?”

A flash in his gaze told her she’d guessed wrong. “No. Because I love him.”

The boy, obviously. But also, someone else. “Your brother.”

“Does it surprise you, Quilla Caden? That I might actually find affection for the beast who is so constantly growling? I wouldn’t think it to be such a surprise. After all, you also have affection for him.”

As he had not, she did not dissemble. “I do, indeed.”

“It’s your duty to have affection for him.” Did he tease? She could not be certain.

“It’s your duty to also have affection for him, as he is your brother.”

Jericho laughed, turning to face her. “You have ever a way with words.”

She smiled, helpless not to, for though he had angered her in the past, she could not deny his charm. “As do you.”

“So you have forgiven me?”

“I am unaware there is anything for which I needed to forgive you.”

“Dishonest flattery does not become you.”

“You bad thing! You dirty thing!”

Dane’s taunting voice made them both turn. He hacked at the ice with his long stick, his blond hair tousled by wind and exertion, cheeks pinked from cold. Again, he raised the stick and brought it down, hard, upon the ice.

“Dirty thing! Don’t make that face at me!”

“What’s he going on about, I wonder?” Jericho murmured fondly.

“Dirty, nasty beastie!”

“The eel,” Quilla said only a half beat before the same words came from Jericho’s lips. “Dane, no!”

The boy looked up only briefly, looking more like his mother then with twisted, gleeful lips and blue eyes burning with naughty glee. He bent back to his task, poking the stick down and down, faster as though he wanted to get in as much as he could before someone came to stop him.

“Dane! Stop!” Jericho put his foot to the ice, slipping. “Stop, lad!”

Quilla followed, stepping carefully. They made their way toward the pond’s center. Seeing them approach, Dane began whacking harder, his small face bright with effort.