No Greater Pleasure Read online

  Quilla sat on the bed, her arm aching. “I’ve had worse.”

  He crossed to stand over her. “I plead your mercy. I didn’t realize. I had Florentine make the arrangements.”

  Quilla shook her head. “All you are required to provide is a place for me to sleep and bathe, clothes sufficient for the climate and my duties, and nourishment. You’ve done all that.”

  Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest, his frown deepening. “And yet you’ve taken it upon yourself to clean my rooms, provide me with a new teakettle, organize my books . . . polish and scrub and turn what used to be a cold and uncomfortable place into something warm and welcoming.”

  She nodded. “All part of what I do.”

  “And yet you don’t wish for the same? This room doesn’t even have a carpet!”

  She lay back against the pillows and pulled the covers up around her with a sigh. “Of course I would like a carpet. The floor is cold. But if you do not see fit to provide me—”

  “Think you I am so ungenerous as to deny you a carpet to protect your feet from the cold stones?” He seemed outraged, but something else, too. He seemed . . . hurt.

  Quilla settled against the pillows, her former weariness coming back, exacerbated by the attack in the kitchen. She stifled a yawn. “It’s not my place to ask of you, remember?”

  His eyes narrowed. “How can you be so complacent?”

  She sighed. “It’s what I am. That’s part of being a Handmaiden, but more importantly, it’s part of being me. If you wish to provide me with a carpet, I shall be glad to have one.”

  “Of course I want you to have a carpet! I am not a monster!”

  “I would not think so.”

  He made a noise that was almost a growl. “And anything else you need, you shall have. I’m not a miser.”

  “I would not think that, either.”

  He glowered, arms crossed, and sat down in the small wooden chair next to the bed. “Are you afraid of me?”

  She shook her head, turning on her side a bit to look at him. “No.”

  That seemed to mollify him. “And yet you truly would not ask me for something so simple as a rug to keep your feet from the cold?”

  “I have stockings which can do the same, and which you have already provided,” she pointed out.

  “You should rest now. I don’t expect you to be there when I wake tomorrow, do you understand?”

  She nodded with a small smile. “But you understand I will be, anyway?”

  He sighed as though her answer pained him. “If I told you it would please me for you to stay abed tomorrow, to not wait on me at all, would that keep you here?”

  “I suppose it would.” Quilla snuggled down farther into the blankets. “But I would find my day overwhelmingly dull if I had nothing to do but stay here.”

  He nodded, as though thinking. “And yet I would not have you risk your health by using that arm for at least a day.”

  “My lord, you are kind.” The compliment was sincere, and for a moment something flashed in his eyes. Pleasure, perhaps. Or surprise. It faded into a scowl.

  “I don’t want to have to explain to the Order how I damaged one of their Handmaidens.”

  He got up and moved toward the door, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll send some things to you tomorrow to make this less of a cell.”

  “You did not damage me, Gabriel,” Quilla said quietly to his back.

  He paused in the doorway. “You are my Handmaiden. You are my responsibility. If it’s your duty to care for me, then it’s as much my duty to care for you in return. To provide you with what you need to be able to give me what you do. Allowing my lady wife to attack you . . . was unthinkable.”

  “You did not allow it. It happened beyond your control.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. “There is nothing in this house which is beyond my control, Handmaiden. I make certain of that.”

  He closed the door with a click behind him.

  Chapter 11

  The next day, Quilla was grateful Gabriel had told her to stay abed, for when she opened her eyes it was to a rap on the door and the sun streaming through the window. She’d slept, actually slept, and much better than she’d expected to. She sat up to the sound of the gentle knocking.

  “Come in.”

  Bertram peeked his head around the door, a grin on his freckled face. “Delivery for you, mistress.”

  Quilla sat up, expecting her arm to be stiff but finding it more pliable than she’d thought. It twinged when she bent it, but the bandages weren’t any further stained and she had a good range of motion. She wouldn’t need to stay in bed the entire day, after all.

  “Hello, Bertram. What did you bring me?”

  “Bring it in,” he said to someone behind him.

  The door opened and Bertram entered, followed by the stable hands Luke and Perrin, carrying a rolled-up carpet. Behind them were Pipp and Took, all carrying crates and boxes. And yet behind them were Lolly, Kirie, and Rossi, also loaded with packages and boxes.

  “What’s all this?”

  “My lord Delessan sent it. Says he wants this room to look like a palace and not a prison!” Bertram motioned to the men to put the rug down.

  They unrolled it, and Quilla gasped, sitting up higher in bed. The colors were gorgeous: purples, greens, reds, and golds, with threads of deep blue around the border. She’d been in enough fine homes to know the quality of this rug meant it was expensive. Far too costly to be shoved into a garret room like this.

  “There must be some mistake.”

  Bertram tugged at his cap. “No mistake, miss. Lord Delessan had it tooken out of his own chambers, he did. The one he doesn’t use no more.”

  For a moment, Bertram shared a glance with the clearly disapproving housemaids, and his freckled cheeks blushed pink. “Not that I’m in any place to be saying, you understand. He just told us to bring it up here, and so we did.”

  Lolly held up a basket full of what looked to be wall hangings. “Should we go to put thesen up, mistress?”

  Quilla looked at the fabrics, then at the bare stone walls. The hangings matched the rug. “Did these also come from his chamber?”

  “Ahyuh.” Lolly nodded.

  “Did he order you to strip the place bare?”

  Lolly giggled. “Ahyuh. If the furniture’d fit up here, he’d have had us bring that, too.”

  Quilla felt a little overwhelmed with his generosity. She’d been given many gifts, but no patron had stripped his own quarters, even ones he no longer used, to provide her with comfort. She swung her legs out over the edge of the bed, but Rossi waved her back.

  The tall girl was imposing enough to keep Quilla in her place. “You sit back, mistress. The master, him gave orders, us. You weren’t to help us a lick.”

  “I need to use the necessary,” Quilla said with a smile. “Am I allowed to do that, at least?”

  For one moment, she was certain Rossi, intent on keeping the master’s order intact, would deny her the privilege. That could have been awkward, indeed. But the housemaid nodded and stepped out of the way so Quilla could get out of bed.

  In the tiny washroom, Quilla stripped out of the nightgown and ran some water in the basin, splashing her face and rinsing her body. She took off the crusted bandage, and though it pulled a bit at the wound, the few drops of blood that leaked out were negligible. She looked at the cut. It would leave a scar. She redressed it, tying a fresh cloth around it and tying it tight to prevent the ends from unraveling. Then she brushed and braided her hair, tucking the end close to the nape of her neck to keep it from getting in the way. Pulling a gown from the back of the door, she slipped it and some fresh undergarments on, then went back out into her bedroom.

  It had been transformed. The floor, now covered by the exquisite rug. The walls, draped with fabric. Baskets had been stacked in the corners to create shelves, upon which more cloths had been draped. Even a few plants had been hung from the ceiling, pretty green things wit