The Claiming (13 page)

Jana had an uneasy misgiving that Alain would be very, very displeased once he realized that, instead of a woman of virtue, he had gained a slightly used courtesan. It made little difference that she could not understand the significance of his preferences, couldn’t fathom why such a thing would be important to him. The fact was, it did matter, and she was fairly certain she did not want to be around when Alain discovered her deception. Returning with Marty might almost be better, but her preference would be to escape the consequences of her deception, and also to escape Marty.

By the time a week had passed with no word from Val-risa regarding a possible rescue, Jana discovered that she was a nervous wreck and beginning to have a great deal of trouble maintaining her role as Jana the virtuous, Jana the magnificent … Jana without flaw.

The only thing that could have possibly capped what had rapidly changed from adventure to nightmare, was the arrival of the ‘real’ Jana. Otherwise, Jana was certain her situation could not get worse.

It did.

Chapter Seven

"Damn! I’ve found another one of those strange messages!" Blane exclaimed, dragging his leg off the arm of the chair where he'd been lounging and sitting bolt upright.

Alain, seated in the chair opposite him, staring pensively into the empty fire grate as he sipped a glass of whiskey, paid very little attention to this outburst until he flicked an amused glance toward his brother and caught a glimpse of Jana. She'd been busily trying to figure out the intricacies of needlework, but now her hands had fallen idle as she stared blindly at the frame in her lap. Even in the dim light from the small branch of candles at her elbow, he could see she was unnaturally pale. Her whole attitude seemed to suggest a breathless waiting.

"And what does this message say?" he asked in a bored tone.

Blane stared at Alain in dismay, realizing, belatedly, that he’d been so deeply engrossed that he’d spoken aloud thoughts better left unexpressed. He didn’t dare look at Jana. He was too rattled, unfortunately, to think of anything he could substitute and, at any rate, it occurred to him presently that it would be useless at this point to try. Alain would only have to demand the paper and read it himself to know Blane had fabricated a lie. “It says: J-- I am devastated by your defection. Return to me now and all will be forgiven. ---M.”

"An interesting puzzle," Alain replied calmly. "What do you think, Jana?"

Jana started violently, favoring Alain with the wide-eyed stare of the hunted. "About what?" she hedged, sparring for wind while her mind raced around in fruitless circles. She was very much afraid it could only be from Marty--not that she believed for one moment that he would forgive her. The question uppermost in her mind was, would Alain be able to figure out that the message pertained to her?

"I do hope we're not going to go that round again, my dear … the message," Alain prompted dryly.

"Oh," Jana said with the air of the enlightened, jumping to her feet and throwing her botched attempt at needlework into the work basket. "I’m not at all good with puzzles. I think I'll go to bed," she finished and darted for the door.

"J," Alain said musingly as if he hadn't even heard the last of this speech. "The first referred to a runaway, did it not? We assumed it was merely a local matter, but this seems to put a different complexion on the matter entirely. One would not expect to appeal to a slave to return to captivity, after all. Do you suppose this is an outworlder…? Having difficulties, my dear?" he asked pleasantly, this last to Jana, who'd dropped her basket.

"Oh no," Jana gasped faintly. She knelt and began to toss needles, pins and threads haphazardly into the basket, starting nervously as Alain knelt beside her and extended a handful of pins. "Thank you," she murmured, keeping her face averted. She didn't dare look up at him for fear he might read something in her face.

"I fear you're getting your threads sadly tangled, my dear," Alain murmured dulcetly.

"I ... I'll sort them later," Jana returned, cramming the last of her supplies in the basket and squeezing the lid shut.

"Ah ... but it may be too late by then," Alain said so softly that she glanced up at him, not entirely certain she'd heard him correctly, though the softly spoken words seemed to turn her blood to ice water. His expression was shuttered, unreadable, but her heart gave a frightened lurch as their gazes met and held.

Quite suddenly she realized that what she had done was very, very wrong, no matter how she tried to delude herself that it wasn't, that what she was doing could hurt no one. Alain had not merely wanted a companion. He had carefully chosen one, and she could no longer delude herself into believing he would be satisfied to take her instead.

All she really wanted to do in that moment was to confess, beg forgiveness and hope to find that Alain would at least be willing to send her away to some place other than Earth, but somehow, she couldn't quite find the courage to do so.

***

Alain regarded his brother over the remains of their breakfast with a slightly jaundiced eye. He hadn't had a particularly restful night and from the looks of Blane, it seemed he'd suffered a similar fate, no doubt for much the same reason.

Alain was reasonably certain that his suspicion upon returning home that Blane and Jana had become intimate in his absence was unfounded. He was not convinced, however, that Blane had not become enamored of Jana. From the first, Blane had seemed a tad too protective of her for a young man not emotionally involved.

Neither had spoken about that first day since, but both were acutely conscious that it had not been completely resolved and that simply ignoring it wouldn't make it go away. Each wished to lay the matter out for inspection and discussion and neither knew quite how to approach it.

Alain wished fervently that he didn't find Jana so achingly attractive himself. He had only to be near her to want to touch her. Thinking about her had the power to make him go hard with desire. And he resented her effect on him, particularly since he didn't trust her in the least and was certain by now she was playing some sort of deep game.

The possibility that his younger brother might be similarly plagued only complicated an already complex situation. Under other circumstances, he would have been willing to rescind his prior claim and allow Blane to contract with Jana, particularly if Jana appeared to hold an equal affection for his brother--and Alain wasn’t convinced that she did not.

He was fairly certain, however, that he would not be able to live with Jana and not have her as his own.

He found it difficult to accept that he had succumbed emotionally in the shortest possible time to a female virtually unknown to him weeks earlier. On the other hand, the effect she had on him was damnably impossible to ignore, though a lively sense of self-preservation had prompted him to make every effort to do so.

He would have been more comfortable if he could have simply accepted his desire for Jana as just that, and no more than that, though he wasn't entirely pleased to discover his passions at war with his intellect, but he had been physically attracted to women before whose personality left him cold. He didn’t doubt that it would fade once he'd claimed her. The question was, would it fade if he did not?

It would have to. Or he would have to learn to live with it. He wasn't so far gone that he was likely to forget that to possess her as he wanted to would be to commit himself irrevocably to a ten year term that could well turn out to be a decade of pure hell. And he had no intention of doing that until he was certain his suspicions about Jana were just that. He would not, again, tie himself to a woman fashioned in his first wife's mold.

He had fallen deeply, madly in love with Caro, as only an inexperienced young man could, and bartered his soul only to have the Orleans beauty as his wife, a queen for the empire he'd worked so hard to build. He'd been disappointed on all counts. In a matter of months he’d discovered that the only reason her family had allowed him to wed her, the only reason she had agreed, was because she had disgraced herself by having an affair with another woman’s husband and become pregnant. Only their anxiety to stem the possibility of complete, public disgrace, had convinced them to allow the marriage to a man who’s bloodlines were repugnant to them.

He would have been angry, and hurt, when he discovered the deceit, but he had loved Caro enough that he would have probably been willing to overlook her past, except that she had made no attempt to hide the fact that she held him in contempt. He had been forced to humiliate himself by begging his way into her bed, only to discover that she continued to carry on with her married lover at every opportunity.

By the time she died, he’d hated her as much as he’d once loved her, a fact that was far more widely known than it should have been, though he’d ceased to care. But it was fortunate for him that their last, horrendous, argument had played out before a score of witnesses. If there had not been so many present to witness the fact that Caro had fallen and broken her neck because she swung at him and missed, he might well have found himself executed for her murder.

Blane cleared his throat nervously, drawing Alain's mind from his abstraction.

"About … about Jana," Blane began uncomfortably.

Alain pushed his chair away from the table and leaned back in it casually, regarding Blane with covert intensity as he pulled his watch from his pocket and began to swing it idly by the chain. "Yes?" he drawled, without a marked degree of welcome.

"That first day with Jana…. It wasn't what it seemed. At least, I'm not sure what you thought, but the thing is, there was nothing to it.”

Alain flicked a glance at Blane and returned his attention to his swinging watch. "You're quite certain of that?" he asked pensively.

"Damn it, Alain!" Blane exclaimed, leaping to his feet so abruptly he overturned his chair. “You know I wouldn't serve you such a backhanded turn, no matter how I felt about Jana!”

"I don’t recall that I suggested you would," Alain murmured dryly.

Blane stared at Alain angrily a moment, then turned and strode to the window. He was silent for some time, staring pensively at the view. "She's ... not like Caro, whatever you might think. She wouldn’t try to … seduce me only to play us against each other for her entertainment. She is beautiful—to my mind far more beautiful than Caro ever was—but she doesn’t see it as a … a weapon. She's just about the sweetest tempered little soul I've ever met and she's kindhearted. You're damned lucky to have found a woman like her. I just hope you see that before it's too late," he finished softly.

The watch paused its swinging and was gripped in a white knuckled fist as Alain stared at his brother's back for several moments. He'd been so certain Blane's behavior had denoted nothing more than reckless, thoughtless youth. It began to sound like far more than that, however. Fighting the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he swallowed against the painful knot in his throat before he could trust himself to speak.

"Are you in love her?" he asked finally and was somewhat surprised that his voice could sound so flat and indifferent.

Blane turned a startled look upon him, flushing uncomfortably. "No!" he said, then looked confused. "I ... I think ... well ... yes. I mean, yes, I think I do love her, but not the way you seem to think. I never thought of her as anything but a sister. From the moment I set eyes on her I knew she would be perfect for you. That’s why I…."

One black brow rose questioningly. “Why you?”

Blane stared at his brother, realizing that he should confess, that he wanted to, desperately. After a moment, however, it occurred to him that while confession might be good for his soul, it would not necessarily be good for Jana. For that matter, it wouldn’t be good for Alain. Later, once Alain stopped being so bull headed and allowed Jana into his heart, then, maybe, it would be the right thing to do. Instead of answering, he shrugged, turning away so that Alain could not read his expression. “Why I tried to take care of her, for you,” he finished lamely.

Alain attempted a smile that went awry. "And Jana?" he said softly, musingly. "Does she love you?"

Blane flung his arms out in a helpless shrug. "Lord! How should I know?" he said, then frowned thoughtfully. "I expect she has a very sisterly affection for me, but nothing else." He turned to study Alain and swore softly under his breath. "Lord! You're more than half in love with her yourself, aren't you?" he exclaimed, then grinned.

Alain's dark brows snapped together in a frown. "Spare me your little fantasies, Blane," he said tersely, realizing immediately that a cool rejoinder would've been considerably more convincing both to himself and to Blane and flushing slightly with irritation.

Blane laughed. “You are, though, aren’t you? And here I thought … well, never mind about that.” Nothing good could come of reminding Alain of his broken heart. It would only make him madder than hell, and might stiffen his resolve to resist Jana.

"I hardly know the girl. In any case I'm not one of those romantic fools who believe that passion has anything to do with a higher order of emotions," he snapped bitingly and then was annoyed that he'd given even that much away as Blane grinned knowingly and chuckled.

"Well, I can’t tell you what a relief that is! I’d begun to wonder if Caro had totally soured you toward women. I know if Jana were mine I’d not be able to keep my … uh … hands to myself," Blane returned, grinning hugely.

Alain lifted a dark brow and favored his young brother with a hard, narrow-eyed glare. "Your crudities concerning my wife would be better left unsaid, I believe," he murmured silkily.

Blane threw up his hands in mock defense. But whatever else his apparent lack of self-preservation might've prompted him to utter was left unsaid since the servants chose that moment to clear the dishes. It effectively put an end to their conversation and allowed Blane time to reconsider the wisdom of baiting Alain in his present mood. Alain stopped the servant girl, Nella, as she left the room and gave her a message to convey to her mistress that he would like to have a word with her in his study when she'd finished her breakfast.