Selfish Is the Heart Read online

  He moved from her to stalk toward the closet at the back of the room and return the text. “You can’t know it.”

  “She believes it.”

  This stopped him, and he turned. “She’s been in contact with you?”

  Serenity nodded after half a breath. “She writes to me upon occasion.”

  “What does she say?”

  “What do women say when they write to each other?”

  He kept his mouth from a sneer only by forcing himself to blankness. “I’m not a woman beginning or end, Sarenissa. I don’t know.”

  If the use of her name from before her life in the Order startled her, she didn’t show it. “She writes of daily charms. Of the weather, of conversation. Of her life, Cassian. Her happy life.”

  He swallowed a rush of bitterness. “Not of . . .”

  Me, he’d almost said and choked it back.

  “Not of the boy? No. She knows he is in good care, here. And she has . . .” Serenity hesitated for longer this time.

  He turned to face her. “What? Don’t call yourself my friend and then not finish. Tell me.”

  “She has someone, Cassian.”

  “Yes. A patron. I know.”

  It was Serenity’s turn to shake her head. “Not only a patron.”

  He could no longer keep his neutral mask. The sneer twisted his mouth, and Cassian covered it with one hand, but only for a moment. The taste of simplebread crumbs turned his stomach.

  “She’s not coming back, and even if she did, what would you do?”

  “I would . . .” He cleared his throat and then again. The chime had sounded for the afternoon lesson. They wouldn’t be alone for much longer.

  Serenity gazed at him overlong before she sighed again. “You would what?”

  “I would ask her to forgive me.”

  She showed no surprise at his words. She nodded as the door opened and young women, led by their chatter, began to enter. She moved closer to touch his sleeve only, knowing him well enough not to try for a more intimate embrace than that.

  “How could she, when you won’t forgive yourself?”

  Then with another tug on his sleeve, Serenity moved through the gaggle of novitiates and out of the room. Cassian watched her go. He folded the towel over the remains of the simplebread. He smoothed the front of his jacket, though nary a wrinkle dared mar it.

  He faced the room.

  “Good afternoon, Master Toquin,” Wandalette said cheerfully.

  “Good afternoon, Wandalette.” His voice, steady, betrayed nothing, yet she looked at him with some astonishment. “Yes?”

  “You . . .” she hesitated.

  Cassian, having no more patience today than any other, and in fact in possession of rather less, raised a brow. “Yes?”

  “You never say good afternoon, or call us by our names!”

  “Pull out your texts,” came his reply. And then, spying her at the back of the room, “Ah, Mistress Marony. I believe I’ve a chore for you today, after class.”

  She nodded. Neither of them gave any indication they noticed the low buzz his words had produced among the other novitiates. Annalise looked at him from across the room, her pale eyes heavy lidded and thoughtful, and then she turned her attention to the book in front of her as though she might study the words he knew full well she’d long ago memorized.

  Roget’s accusation that he never faced temptation had shamed Cassian into asking Annalise to assist him, and now Serenity had forced him to thinking of much he didn’t wish to know. He was in no mood to parry with Annalise, but it had been done and there was no going back now. Roget would be back again in a sixmonth or so, on his rounds to serve at all the Sisterhouses. By then the woman would be gone, one way or another.

  Cassian had meant what he said when he told Annalise he didn’t believe she’d ever be granted a patron. She was not the sort to bend. The question, therefore, was would she break, instead?

  Chapter 13

  Their time with him ended, the other novitiates left for the afternoon service with backward glances and hushed speculation Annalise ignored. Only when the door had closed behind them did she move to the front of the room, where he sat behind his desk. He’d been staring out the window the entire time.

  “You needed me?”

  “I need your assistance.” Toquin gestured toward the closet at the back of the room. “We have texts to sort, I believe.”

  Annalise looked toward the closet, then at him. “Why now?”

  His brow furrowed. “Plead your mercy?”

  “Why do you want to sort them now, when you did not before?”

  “Why do you question what I want and what I don’t?”

  She smiled at the rise in his inflection. He was not so cold as he’d like to feign. The question would be whether prodding him to anger would be better than enduring his disdain.

  “Because I am insufferable,” she suggested.

  Toquin stared a long moment before answering. “You take pride in being so?”

  “Should one take pride for what one cannot take credit?” Annalise asked coyly, testing him further with a drop of her lashes, the slightest jut of her hip.

  Ah. He noticed that, sure enough, for his eyes narrowed and his mouth thinned just the barest bit. He noticed, and did not like it. It was different, his reaction, not the bored irritation the others wrung from him.

  “You claim no credit is yours, yet you could change that quality.”

  “Oh, I’ve tried, with little luck. It’s going to be the most difficult task I’ve faced here,” she told him honestly, yet with the intention of teasing. “Perhaps that and . . . humility. Perhaps that, too.”

  “So much for proving me wrong.”

  Ah, that slap stung, and was well-deserved. “I spoke out of turn that day.”

  “Only that one?” He got to his feet, big boots thumping the boards.

  He smoothed the front of his jacket, toying briefly with the flash of red at his throat and then at the sleeves, pulling them to fully cover his wrists. He was meticulous in his grooming, but Annalise thought it was meant to distract her more than tidy himself.

  Distract her from what?

  “Why do you wear that?” She pointed at his jacket.

  Toquin looked at himself, then at her. “Why do you wear that?”

  “It’s what I’ve been assigned to wear. It’s a uniform.”

  “So is my choice of garment.”

  She laughed. “Really? A uniform for what? Is that what men would wear if they allowed them to join the Order instead of merely working for it?”

  Incredibly, he laughed. So briefly it might have been a sneeze, but nevertheless, a chuckle. Toquin looked as surprised as Annalise felt.

  “It could be. I find it . . . comfortable.”

  “It’s not fashionable, that’s for sure. Though I’m fair certain you might set such a fashion should you ever present yourself in finer company than what you find here.” She looked him up and down. “It suits you.”

  “I find the company in the Motherhouse as nice as any.”

  “Ah, you’d have me think you’ve had other company then, sir, and I know for a fact this is untrue.” Annalise leaned against his desk, her fingers gripping the polished wood and the edge of it firm against the backs of her thighs.

  “I have company enough. The closet, Mistress Marony.”

  She sighed. “It excuses me from afternoon services, yes?”

  “Do you wish to be so excused?”

  “I do indeed.” She lowered her voice as though to tell a secret, when in fact she meant only to encourage him to lean. “I find myself fair weary of them, altogether.”

  He made a noncommittal noise and did not lean as she’d hoped. “Your presence is not required at services.”

  “But everyone stares if you don’t attend.”

  One corner of his mouth twitched. “How can they stare if you’re not in attendance?”

  “They stare later, and drop remarks about h