Pleasure and Purpose Read online

  The men waiting to speak with him were impatient, but he made them wait as he took his seat at the table on the dais where they would come to plead for what they wanted. As head of the Council of Fashion, he didn't have much of import or interest to decide. Setting the length of trousers and dip of decolletage, determining which jewels were in style and which wouldn't be seen on any noble of worth had little value to him other than it gave him control over those who sneered behind their hands at him. More than once Cillian had deliberately set a style that wouldn't flatter someone who'd irritated him, which had been most of his father's court at one time or another.

  Now he listened to all those who'd come to make requests. Velvet merchants, gemists, leather makers. And through every boon granted and every one turned away, Cillian watched Devain court his father.

  Devain saw him watching, even if the king didn't, and when the last merchant had gone, he left Allwyn's side and made his way toward Cillian. "Is now the time?"

  "I've just finished." Cillian affected a disinterested tone that fooled neither of them. Devain put a foot on the dais and an elbow on his knee, his chin in his hand, to stare upward. He flicked a glance toward the king Cillian couldn't miss. "I think you'll have time to listen to me. Won't you? It's about a new shipment of Alyrian lace I'm expecting."

  "Alyrian lace is heavily taxed." By long custom, not Cillian's choice, but one he'd never changed.

  "That's what I want to speak to you about."

  Cillian had imagined as much. It was impossible to keep the curl from his lip. "I'm in no mood to favor changing a long-structured tax, Devain. That tax provides a tidy source of income."

  Devain raised a brow. "Indeed I know it, for I've paid it often enough. But surely you can see the . . . advantages ... to granting an exemption."

  "To you? And not to anyone else?"

  Devain inclined his head in a manner meant to be graceful. "There would be advantages, as I said, in your granting exemptions for certain businesses. There would be disadvantages to denying them, I think."

  Cillian's stomach churned. Devain had never asked him for a boon. His dabbling in the fashion industry had begun only recently. Rumor had it his home estates had been mismanaged. Some said it was because Devain's wife had let the field manager she was fucking woo her into making bad decisions with the crops. Rumor had it Devain was more inflamed by her lack of judgment in the management of their finances than in who she let into their marriage bed, and Cillian had no trouble believing this was true. Even so, until now Devain had kept his financial interests far from anything to which Cillian could provide benefit. His courting of the king had been a subtle insult all noted but none spoke on, unless the rumors had been so well kept from Cillian he'd not heard them, and he had no trouble believing that to be true, as well.

  "Why not ask my father? You've become quite the chums." He couldn't quite manage to keep the derision from his tone, but if it offended Devain, he didn't show it.

  "Your lord father," the man said smoothly, "has made it clear he wishes to have naught to do with your business. He feels, and rightly so, his son and heir should have at least one responsibility for which the king himself is not held accountable." Perhaps Devain wasn't as close to the king as he'd hoped. Gillian smiled and leaned back in his chair, though the seat of it had long grown uncomfortable and he longed to rise and stretch his legs. "What sort of prince would I be, to take the interests of one over many?" Devain looked toward the king, who'd moved on from the pastries to the plate of candied fruits. When he looked back at Gillian, his smile was a snake on his lips. "One who remains in line for a throne instead of a set of shackles and a binding jacket, perhaps?" Cillian bit down on his tongue hard enough to taste bitter blood. Deep in Devain's gaze writhed a threat belied by the smile he showed the rest of the world. "Do you threaten me?"

  "You? My lord prince, never." Devain's half bow was clumsily executed, and when he rose his gaze went past Cillian's shoulder to something beyond it. "Never." Cillian turned to see what had so captured Devain's attention. His heart leaped at the sight of a familiar dark head, hair clubbed at the neck with a bit of bright ribbon. Edward would never have worn blue in his hair before taking a wife who made sure to dress him top to toe. And there she was beside him, the front of her gown tenting over the belly swelled with Edward's child.

  Cillian's breath left him, making it impossible to speak. It had been too long since Edward had deigned visit court, and he'd never brought Stillness with him. She looked different, clothed in the dress of a lady wife and not a Handmaiden. Envy slanted over him at the way Edward's hand rested so solicitously on the small of her back as he guided her through the maze of lords toward the king.

  Too late, Devain had seen the look on Cillian's face. "As I said, my prince. Advantages and disadvantages."

  Cillian said nothing. Devain made a leg and turned. He left the room, and if he paused to speak with anyone else Cillian didn't notice, so caught was his attention by his friend. Honesty's presence beside him didn't turn his gaze from the sight of Edward approaching the king and introducing Stillness to him.

  "Who's that?"

  "That," Cillian said in a voice steadier than he'd believed possible, "is my dear friend Edward Delaw. And his wife, Stillness."

  "What are they doing?"

  "He's introducing her to my father."

  "They haven't met?"

  "No." Cillian swallowed against the pain like shards of glass. "Edward was granted permission to wed at his home and had no court wedding. This is the first time he's brought her here."

  She couldn't know how seeing Edward, his dear one no longer so dear, affected him, but Honesty nonetheless kept her hand tight in his. She moved closer, naught improper about her stance, but he felt it all along him just the same. She knew him better than she had even a few days ago.

  "Why do you suppose he's done so, now?"

  Cillian watched as Edward laughed at something the king said, and as Stillness made the most graceful of curtsies. He could too well remember the taste of her, and wished he hadn't been such a fool to insist on finding out. He'd thought it would bring them closer, he and Edward. Instead it had only cleaved the final thread between them. "He is presenting her to my father because she's going to have a child, and Edward would like it to carry his title."

  "Would the babe not automatically carry the title of the father?"

  "Edward's father was a spice merchant who worked his way into my grandfather's favor and gained a title. They're not blood nobility. Edward took the title his father earned, but since Edward himself has done naught to earn such a boon title for himself, he must petition the king for the right to grant his son the same privilege. Or maybe he's going to start pandering in order to be given his own boon title," Cillian added with a small shake of his head. "But knowing Edward, he cares much for the fate of his child and little enough for his own."

  They both watched, silent, until Honesty said, "He was your friend." She hadn't made it a question. "Yes. He was, once."

  From anyone else the sympathetic noise would have earned a scornful glare, but Gillian only gave her a smile and brought her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. The business of the court finished for the day and the entertainments begun, the noises of the dancers and musicians made their conversation private. Honesty smiled into his eyes. Cillian kissed her hand again, for no other reason than it pleased him.

  "That man Devain," she said quietly. "He was threatening Edward to get to you?"

  "Devain was unwise to speak so freely in front of you."

  "Men like Devain never see women like me unless seeking to use us for their own purposes."

  "Devain would see himself set in my place, I think," Cillian said.

  "And your father doesn't care?"

  "My father." He had to stop and swallow again against the rise of sharp pain in his throat.

  "My father sees what he wishes, and most often it's not me."

  "You're his son."