No Greater Pleasure Read online

  Although it was not the first time she’d spent much of her day secluded from anyone but her patron, that was the way some households worked, and she accepted that. Here, now, for some reason, it bothered her more than it had before.

  She needed no long periods of meditation to figure out why. She enjoyed her time with Gabriel, and did not enjoy as much the time away from him. She liked to watch him work, to see him solve a puzzle and complete a task. She liked to earn a smile from him, or a word of praise.

  He would never be a man who charmed with laughter. Not like Jericho, who flitted from female to female and left a path of adoration and sighs behind him. Oh, the ladies fawned over Gabriel, too, at least as much as etiquette allowed since he was wed. But not in the way they did for Jericho, who was almost shameless in his flirtation.

  Quilla saw all of this from her hidden places. She might not participate in the games or the jaunts, but that didn’t mean she didn’t see what went on. How Genevieve’s cheeks pinked when she looked at Persis, or how his eyes wandered to her brother’s more often. How Lavender and Marzipan mocked their mother behind her back, because she insisted upon wearing flannels against the cold. How Donnell Fiene picked his nose when nobody seemed to be watching.

  No, she was not part of the brannigan, but she could not help but become involved with it. It affected her patron, and therefore it affected her. He spoke not of his increasing ennui with the party and his desire to return to work.

  He was trying, she realized, to be more like his brother. Like cramming an overlarge foot into a too small shoe. Gabriel was attempting frivolity.

  And it was making him miserable.

  She’d never been in a situation quite like this one, where a patron insisted on putting himself into situations he despised, over and over. No matter what she did to soothe him during the day, no matter how hard she worked to make the small amount of time he spent working as free of stress as she could, the evening invariably came and with it, his forced participation in the activities.

  Worse, each day Saradin begged more from him. Attendance at breakfast. His presence at luncheon. She wooed and charmed him with pretty words and smiles, with coos of encouragement and anything else she could manage to get him away from his workshop . . . and therefore, away from Quilla.

  Whatever else Saradin Delessan might be, she was not stupid. She might play at it as part of her madness or perhaps to make herself appear more appealing to those for whom an intelligent woman posed a threat. But she was not stupid.

  Quilla knew this, had seen it in the woman’s eyes during each confrontation. She knew Saradin was smart and spiteful. She suspected she was cruel. She had not expected her to be vicious.

  The evening had fallen, and the conservatory shone with lamp-light. Pools of it shone through the heavy glass walls to form golden puddles on the drifts of snow outside. The plants inside, the riot of green growing vines and flowers forced to artificial bloom, looked even more beautiful cast in golden light than they did beneath the winter sun.

  Saradin had planned for dinner in the conservatory, an idea greeted with cheers and applause from her guests and muttered cursing from the staff.

  “Don’t she know how much work ’tis for us to drag all that food there and back again? Not to mention the linen and flatware and china . . .” Florentine grumbled and groused, but was in her element planning the elegant affair. There was to be roast swan, intact, stuffed with an entire duck, and a capon inside of that. A bounty of side dishes would accompany it, using the best the household could offer.

  “She’s got us stripping the cellar bare for this, she does!”

  “Florentine,” Quilla chided. “You adore this, and you know it.”

  The cook grinned. “I do. I do indeed.”

  But though she did, indeed, adore the preparations, the location had proven to be something of a logistical problem.

  The kitchen was located in the far back of the house, down a flight of stairs and dug half into the ground to help combat the ever-present heat from the fireplace. The dining room and ball-room were directly above it, both accessible by the cupboard lift.

  The conservatory, on the other hand, was on the house’s far side, past the foyer and the sitting room and parlor. It had been added on after the house’s initial construction, and its access was therefore gained through a short, elegantly appointed but narrow and curving hallway opening off a little-used morning parlor.

  It made bringing dinner there quite difficult. But not impossible, and quite impressive, in the end. Quilla, driven to distraction by Florentine’s ceaseless complaints, had offered to help with the transport, as the cook had admitted she didn’t quite trust the maids or the houseboys with the more fragile glasses.

  So Quilla, though she did not have to, helped load a cart with steaming dishes and pushed it to the conservatory, where the sound of laughter reached her before the scent of flowers and perfume.

  Lolly and Rossi had already gone in to serve the wine. Vernon the butler held the door for Quilla to push the cart through, then took over.

  “I’ll take it from here, mistress,” he said. “And thank you kindly for the help.”

  “ ’Tis my pleasure, Vernon.” Quilla smiled at the older gentleman. “Are you certain you don’t need my help?”

  He shook his head. “No, mistress. The footmen will help me.”

  Quilla smiled at the thought of Bertram and Billy playing footmen. “Perhaps our lord Delessan needs to hire more staff.”

  Vernon chuckled. “Aye, and you know he won’t do that, even if he could at the moment. Not when he’s got us to provide for him.”

  Quilla nodded. “I know it. But it does make it harder on you.”

  Vernon leaned closer to say in a low voice, “And you of all people should understand, mistress, that ’tis our purpose and we enjoy it.”

  “This I do know,” she said with a smile. “I’ll be in the kitchen with Florentine, should you need something run out.”

  “I’ll ring for you if I do.”

  She nodded and watched him push the cart into the main area where the table had been set up. She heard the oohs and ahs of the guests as he revealed Florentine’s masterpiece. And then, foolishly, she thought to take a peek at it herself, because she knew Florentine would want a firsthand account of how the guests had reacted to her creation.

  Tall potted trees shielded the conservatory door from the hall entrance, and Quilla moved behind them. Through the break in the leaves she glimpsed the table, glowing with its display of crystal and silver.

  The guests were as decorative as the table, glittering with fine fabrics and jewelry, their smiles shining with white teeth, faces gleaming with bright eyes. They all looked with impressed joy at the center of the table where the swan, gloriously browned and smelling delicious, had been revealed.

  Florentine will be so pleased.

  All of them, except for Mistress Saradin, whose voice suddenly rang out with false good humor: “And what lovely bird is this that lurks within the branches of yonder tree?”

  All eyes turned at once to Quilla, who felt the weight of each individual gaze, but none heavier than Gabriel’s.

  “Come out of there, my dear girl.” Saradin’s tone was unctuous, and she gave a light trill of laughter to cover it up. “Look, everyone, ’tis my husband’s chambermaid.”

  “Handmaiden,” corrected Jericho without making it seem as though he were correcting her—but firmly enough that his words couldn’t be ignored.

  Jericho had done it, but not Gabriel. Quilla lifted her chin a bit and glided on silent feet from her place behind the tree. She gave a slight curtsy, aware her dress was not of appropriate design or quality and had been smudged with flour, but also aware that a woman’s demeanor will always make up for her lack of dress.

  “Handmaiden?” This made one of the Fiene daughters, Lavender or Marzipan, Quilla couldn’t tell the difference, giggle. “Oh, my lord Delessan, how . . . how . . .”

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