Selfish Is the Heart Read online

  “There are many tasks to which I’ve set myself I’ve left unfinished.” Annalise forced away her frown. “But come, let’s to the kitchen, where I swear I will show you tricks that will charm any patron, no matter how stingy he might be with frippery.”

  She was not there to become a Handmaiden, she reminded herself. She was there to wait out her time until the engagement contract between her and Jacquin could be safely annulled without harm to either of them. All the rest of this was simply to pass the time.

  She would not admit how she longed to set Toquin in his place. No. Nor how the way his gaze slid over her without reaction had so maddened her she’d considered launching herself into his arms to see what he’d do. How every time he turned his face she wanted to step in front of him to force him to look at her. How each time he passed she wished to move so that he might be forced to rub against her.

  How much she wanted him to . . . want her.

  “Annalise?”

  “Put a gown on,” Annalise said absently, trying to shake off the sensual image her mind insisted on painting. “It won’t do for you to be running the halls in your shift.”

  No man for whom she’d set her cap had ever resisted her. Not since she’d first grown breasts and discovered the way a turn of the face, a flip of the hair, could draw a man’s eyes the way a lamb is tracked by wolves in the meadow. Annalise knew she wasn’t commonly pretty, but that had never mattered. If she wanted a man, she’d had him, always.

  And why did she want him? she thought as Tansy, chattering incessantly, shrugged into her gown and bid Annalise help her with the buttons at her throat. Why did Toquin so capture her attention? It was more than his face and form, which were a delight to any woman of discerning taste. And it was not his attitude, that arrogant coldness, the superiority. It was somewhat else, perhaps that sense of being unattainable. Of being so aloof.

  She wanted to crack him open and climb inside. She wanted to see him want. She wanted, Annalise thought as she led the still tittering Tansy toward the kitchens, to see what it was like when Cassian Toquin broke.

  In the kitchen, she simpered and wooed Cook, a fat biddy with a mustache and chin hairs who was just finishing the dough for the morning’s rolls when Annalise and Tansy entered. The cook, who was likely used to young women plundering her stores at strange times, waved them toward the pantry where she warned them to keep their fingers out of the crocks of honey and butter, and to clean up any messes they made. Tansy, wide-eyed, let out a deep breath when the door closed behind them.

  “How did you get her to agree?”

  Annalise, eyes seeking the ingredients she’d use instead of Tansy’s expensive cosmetic, shrugged. “Think you she’s never had anyone in her kitchen past hours?”

  “The evening snack is the last mealtime! I never thought . . .”

  “Which do you think the Order prefers, Tansy. Girls whose bellies empty in the night nibbling something in the kitchen, or being forbade such privilege and therefore sneaking food into their rooms where the bugs and rodents might congregate?”

  Tansy looked so suddenly guilty Annalise knew she’d been one such girl. “Nobody ever said we were allowed to come for food . . .”

  Annalise sighed and put her hands on Tansy’s shoulders to square them. “We are not children here. This is not a school. There is no punishment, for there aren’t any rules. We’re required to study and learn and grow toward the day we’re determined capable and ready to take our vows, yes?”

  “Yes,” Tansy said doubtfully.

  “So, if you are hungry, then why not eat?”

  “But . . . I’m not hungry now.”

  Annalise gave an inner sigh. “Fine. Come here to the table and let me show you how to make up your face using what any household will have.”

  It took little time and effort to paint Tansy’s lips and highlight her eyes with pastes made from spices common enough Annalise could near guarantee no kitchen would lack them. The end result was lovely, as Tansy proclaimed when taken to the cloudy-looking glass hung by the kitchen’s back door.

  “I’m pretty!”

  “You’re always pretty, Tansy.”

  Tansy touched her face in awe, then turned to Annalise. “It’s so much prettier than using all those pots of color, and so fast!”

  “And so easy, so simple, that none but the most inquisitive patron need ever even know you’ve used anything at all.”

  “How ever did you learn such tricks?” Tansy looked again at her smiling reflection.

  Annalise wiped her hands free of the remnant of spices. “You learn to make do with what you have. Or have not.”

  Tansy hugged her again, and Annalise suffered the embrace because to put Tansy off was much like trying to keep an overeager kitten from climbing one’s skirts. Tansy even went so far as to kiss her cheek. Annalise laughed.

  “I’m well-pleased to have made you so happy, Tansy.”

  Tansy took Annalise’s hands. “I thank the Invisible Mother every day you were assigned to share a room with me.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Tansy, my goodness.”

  “Life brings what the Invisible Mother provides.”

  Annalise didn’t believe that for an instant, but she smiled and patted Tansy’s cheek. Before she could say anything, the back door flew open and two laughing figures stumbled through on a cloud of distinctive-smelling smoke.

  Annalise didn’t know their names, but their clothes showed them as stable hands. Both tall, both fair-haired, both ruddy cheeked, they might have been brothers but seemed too intimate a pair for that. Perhaps not lovers . . . at least, not yet, she mused, watching as the hand of the slightly taller one grazed the other’s back low enough to almost touch his buttocks. Neither of them saw the women in the kitchen.

  “Herb,” she murmured, and a sudden longing rose within her. She could taste it on the back of her tongue, and not merely from the scent the young men had brought in the door with them.

  Tansy let out a startled squeak, and Annalise wondered at an Order that most often served men but had so few about to inure its novitiates to their presence. At the sound, the shorter man turned, eyes wide, and his companion a moment after.

  “Ah, your mercy, mistresses. We’d no idea you were here,” said the shorter with a swipe to get his hair off his brow.

  “Let’s go,” Tansy said with a tug on Annalise’s hand.

  “Hello, lads.” Annalise looked them up and down.

  Both straightened, flushing. The taller glanced at his friend. Both had red eyes and spots of color on their cheeks. Definitely herb.

  “You go,” she told Tansy quietly. “I’ve somewhat to which I must attend here.”

  “What? But you . . .” Tansy sputtered, then quieted. “Oh, my!”

  Annalise shot her an amused glance. “Go on, little kitten. I’ll be fine.”

  Tansy ducked her head and backed up, turning only at the last second but still looking behind her at Annalise before she left the kitchen through the hall door. The young men simply stared. A stomach rumbled loudly.

  Annalise smiled. “Well, lads. Let me guess. You’re here for a snack?”

  “Aye.” The taller seemed bolder now, by the way he eyed her. “Will you tell Mirinda?”

  “If you mean the cook, no, I won’t. What concern is it of mine who raids the stores at night?” She looked from one to the other. “I could be additionally persuaded to hold my tongue, lads, at little cost to you.”

  “Oh?” The shorter grinned. “What might that be?”

  “A bowl of your herb. I’m fair to aching for lack of entertainment here.” She grinned in return.

  “Huh, and here I thought they kept the ladies occupied,” said the shorter.

  “Oh, indeed, in all manner of pursuits. And yet I find myself in sore need of something a bit more . . .”

  “More exciting?” The shorter man inched forward. “You’d not be the first, I wager.”

  “Indeed,” Annalise murmured. �€