Pleasure and Purpose Read online

  Nothing so bold as a signpost marked her leaving one province and entering another, but nevertheless Honesty drew in a deep, slow breath of the sea-scented air and slowed her horse. Ahead of her she could see the mountains overlooking the Belloran Sea. Her father's house was a hard two hours' ride in that direction, and though they'd been riding for the past two weeks, Honesty didn't at once set her heels to the horse's side. She reined it short and stared down the road, neatly lined though unpaved this far out into the country. At this time of year her parents would be in their country manor, not in the seat of state, in the city. She was glad of that, at least. The chance to meet them once more amongst the orchards rather than buildings and noise. She'd been glad for the excuse to ride instead of taking the train so she might return the way she'd left, bearing nothing but herself and a desire for change.

  "My lady?"

  The Order had given her Gilbert to attend her, for she no longer wore the gown of a Handmaiden and couldn't expect its protection. He'd been the perfect traveling companion, saying little but making the way as easy for her as possible. She might have made her own arrangements, bartered at inns and found her own supplies, but she would be infinitely grateful she'd had Gilbert to do it for her.

  "In a moment or two, Gilbert, please. We're almost there." Gilbert looked past her to the mountains beyond. "The sea is past them, isn't it? I've never seen the sea."

  "Perhaps you should go the long way home," she offered. "It would be a shame to miss it, since you're so close."

  He laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I might, at that." They rode in silence after that, keeping the horses to a steady pace that wouldn't wear them out, and though she'd estimated the journey's final length as two hours, it took them four. They rode into the courtyard in the purple hues of twilight. Gilbert took the horses to the stables.

  Honesty went toward the manor.

  Her hair was longer than it had been when she left, her waist narrower. Her eyes, like Gilbert's, bore the lines of her experience. She was no longer a fresh-faced girl. She wasn't a child.

  Yet her knees quaked like a child's when she pushed at the front door, unguarded though her father's men would be close by him and her mother at all times. The great open entryway was unchanged. She hadn't thought beyond this point, where she'd go and what she'd say. With nobody to greet her, Honesty wasn't sure what to do. So she did what she'd have done in any patron's house had she arrived with no one to welcome—she went to the kitchen.

  "Dina."

  The older woman looked up from the pan of rolls she was buttering for baking. Her brow furrowed. She stepped back, a white-floured hand over her heart, leaving the imprint on her black dress.

  "Holy Mother. Erista?" Its me.

  "Erista. . ." Dina's head went side to side in her amazement. "By the Quiver, child, what are you doing here?"

  Erista. The name felt strange in her mind, the same number of syllables, even sounding somewhat like the name she'd worn for the past many years but strange all the same. She wasn't sure she felt like an Erista any longer, even as she was certain she no longer could answer to the name Honesty.

  "I came home." She gave a simple answer to what had been a simple question, but Dina again shook her head and proved there could be no such thing.

  "Ah, lass." Dina wiped her hands on her apron and came forward to clutch at Erista's shoulders and pull her close. "Ah, lass, you've grown so. And so much has changed since you've been gone."

  A small thread of alarm wove its way through her innards and tangled up into a knot greater than the one that had been there already. "What do you mean? Are my parents well?"

  Surely she'd have heard if they'd taken ill or died. Dina sighed, her shoulders lifting, and went back to the pan of rolls as though Erista had only been there yesterday, despite what the older woman had said. But then conversation could wait, and the rolls could not. Erista wouldn't have known that before leaving, but her time in the Order had taught her how to discover that which needed the most attention at the moment.

  "They're as well as they've been, lass, at least in the times I see them. They don't oft come here any longer. Your lady mother prefers the entertainments in Bellora City and your lord father wishes to please her. This place is more oft used for guests who've come to view the seaside than anything else any longer." Dina looked up, her mouth working on words that wanted to come but would insist on being bitten back.

  "And the boy?"

  "And . . . the boy," Dina said. "He comes here with his father." Erista's heart failed in its rhythm for a moment before starting violently in her chest.

  "Yes. I imagine he does."

  "You'll not know him," Dina said. "He's near a man, now." He would be ten and four, near a man as Dina had said, but Erista wouldn't have known him had he still been an infant. She'd left him while he was still at suck. "And the Lady Bevins?"

  Dina looked confused. "Oh, Caspar Bevins never married." Erista's heart skipped another beat. "He's never had a mother? But. . . they told me . . . they assured me . . ."

  They'd told her if she left, gave up her place, Bevins would raise the boy as his own son and as her father's heir after her two older brothers. Bevins would marry some hand-picked noblewoman somewhere in the line of succession, so Erista's son would have two parents and be raised a nobleman, regardless of his bastard's birth. They'd told her to leave him if she wanted him to have the best life he could have, and she'd done what they told her to do.

  "They did raise him a nobleman, did they not? They did that, at least?"

  "Oh, aye. Gave him your father's name and everything a boy could wish for."

  "Wait. . . my fathers name?"

  Dina looked sad, though with a grief long put aside. "He's been made your father's heir, lass."

  "What of Eynan and Egart?" Her brothers, both so much older they'd been more like uncles. Erista's heart pounded. "Both . . . goner

  "A fever took Eynan. Egart fell in a hunting accident. Your father had nobody, lass. He gave the boy his name, as I said. And everything a lad could ever need."

  "Except a mother. By the Void." Erista knotted her fingers into the length of her gown, the one Cillian had given her. The finest she'd owned since leaving this place. Dina again looked confused. "He has a mother, of course he does."

  "But you said Bevins never wed . . ." Her mind reeled, focusing more on her brothers'

  deaths than anything else. "Nobody told me. I didn't know." Of course they hadn't. She'd been sent away, dead to her parents, who'd had two sons more important than a daughter they were unable to wed to their advantage. They'd told her she was doing the best thing, and she'd believed them.

  "And here you came back. I can't say as I'm sad to see you, lass, but I'll admit I'm surprised. I thought for sure you'd never come back. I don't know many who would." Erista looked around the kitchen, smaller than she remembered it but as impressive as any she'd seen in her travels. She looked at Dina. "The worst they can do is put me in gaol, yes^ They've not named me a traitor while I was gone? I've not been tried in my absence for treason?"

  "No, I don't think so!" Dina looked shocked and then busied herself with the pan of rolls, putting them into the oven. "By the Arrow, I should think not."

  "I think I'll see my father and mother now. Do you know where they might be?"

  "They might be in the gardens," Dina said reluctantly. "You're just going to jump in on them without warning, the way you did me?"

  "I came home," Erista repeated. "There's no sense in skulking in corners or waiting to be called to an audience. So far as I recall I'm no longer their daughter, so I suppose I'll be considered a guest. It would be rude not to introduce myself to my hosts." Dina had no reply for that, not that Erista thought she would. Dina was a talented cook and ran the manor as strictly as any general, but she was a simple woman for all that. Erista left her there and went to the garden to find her parents.

  They were old.

  They'd been old for a number o