No Greater Pleasure Read online

  Quilla bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. “I plead your mercy, madame. Please, go on.”

  “Like I was saying,” continued Florentine with an exaggerated sniff. “Before the boy was born, Mistress Saradin found the responsibilities of marriage somewhat more trying than she’d imagined. Also, the master’s work keeps him secluded and distracted. Not the way you’d like to be when you have a pretty young wife who’s used to your attention. Oh, he doted on her, sure enough, no question. But his work, you see. ’Tis all about his work.”

  Quilla could imagine the end to this tale. “She had an affair.”

  “Oh, not just one, my know-it-all miss. Many. Seems the Mistress Saradin wasn’t happy without a slew of beaux dancing attendance upon her, especially when she could nary seem to keep her husband’s focus. He gave her whatever she wanted, but not enough of it. Naught was ever enough for her.”

  “She sounds perfectly lovely,” said Quilla wryly.

  “Lovely she was in face and form, but she was also young. Too young for the master, who’s been old since he was born, I believe.” Florentine dropped a handful of herbs and spices into the stew, tasted it, then smacked her lips. “So it came to pass that the master discovered his wife in the arms of another man. His assistant, as a matter of fact, a young bloke by the name of Ravine. Turns out Ravine had been working for another alchemist before he come to apprentice himself to the master, and was intending to take away what he learned here back to his old master. I’m not sure which hurt the master more greatly, the betrayal of his wife or of his ’prentice. At any rate, he threatened to turn them both out, and when it came to be told that Ravine had no money of his own to provide the mistress a place in keeping with her standards, she left off with him and tried to woo herself back into the master’s good graces by telling him she was going to have his child.”

  “Sweet Invisible Mother,” Quilla murmured. “No wonder he’s such a curmudgeon.”

  Florentine snorted. “He was always like that. Dark, like. Kind beneath it, but dark all the same. Of course, after she poisoned herself he lost much of the kindness.”

  “Poisoned!”

  Florentine gave Quilla a shrewd look. “Oh, aye. Found out the master had been slipping it to the housemaid assigned to clean his rooms, and her belly was sprouting, too. When Mistress Saradin found out, she wrecked his studio and took a draught of sommat meant to kill herself. Well, she didn’t do her studying, because what she took didn’t kill her, only sent her mad, like. Didn’t hurt the boy, thank Sinder, though she might have killed him. Came out fine, the spitting image of his mother, fair-haired but blue-eyed. Not a speck of his father in him, that one, aside from his smarts. Dane’s smart as Sinder, he is.”

  “Why does he not make a dissolution?”

  Florentine looked at her as though Quilla were an idiot. “Because of the boy, of course. He sends the mother away, he must needs send away the lad, too. No man has the right to keep his own child iffen he sends away the mother. Not here in Gahun, at least, and I don’t think ’tis any righter than making it go the other way, mind, but ’tis the way it is.”

  “But surely, if she’s mad—”

  “Mad when she wants it,” said Florentine dismissively. “Mad when ’tis convenient. Mad when ’twill get her sympathy.”

  The entire story had left Quilla almost breathless. “And the housemaid?”

  “Took the money the master give her, conveniently ‘lost’ the child, and disappeared.”

  “You don’t believe she was pregnant.”

  Florentine rolled her eyes. “Not my place to say who or what the master does, my uppity miss, but seems far likelier to me he couldn’t be bothered with the girl and she took advantage of his situation to push her luck. But he never denied her claim, not to anyone I know of, and he took care of her. So did he, or didn’t he? ’Tis not my place to judge.”

  “That’s possibly the most horrible story I’ve ever heard.”

  “ ’Ware it don’t make you all gooey with compassion for him,” Florentine muttered, adding more vegetables to the stew. “There’ve been those who’ve tried that route afore, and failed mightily.”

  “I’m not here to fall in love with him, Florentine. I’m here to be his Handmaiden. Nothing more. And it seems I’m not even to do that, unless he calls me, which is beginning to seem unlikely from the stubborn, spiteful git.”

  Florentine’s face had been red from her exertion, but now her cheeks flushed deeper and her eyes widened. A smirk stretched her lips, her gaze went over Quilla’s shoulder, and Quilla’s stomach sank.

  She turned, knowing before she did what she was going to see.

  “The stubborn, spiteful git requires your presence in the studio.” Delessan’s face was impassive, his voice cold. “Immediately.”

  He turned on his heel and left the kitchen, and Quilla got up to follow him.

  “Good mazel,” called Florentine after her. “You’ll need it.”

  Quilla didn’t bother to answer. She knew Florentine was right.

  The door still squealed on its hinges, and again, Quilla made a note to fix it. It was easier to focus on that than what lay ahead of her. Delessan slammed through the door ahead of her, not even pausing to be certain she’d followed. Quilla made sure to close the door behind them.

  He stood at the mantel, his hand upon it not as though for balance, but as though by clinging to it he might prevent himself from making a fist. Quilla watched him carefully, using all of her training to try and judge him. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak for so long she did the only thing she knew to do.

  She Waited, this time not in Readiness but in Remorse, her palms not folded in her lap but flat on the floor in front of her, and her head bowed. The subtle shift in position was as much mental as physical, an outward representation of her inner regret at having displeased him.

  After some long moments, he looked down at her. The firelight cast his face in shadows tinged with red and gold, and lit his dark eyes with dancing flames.

  “It’s not your purpose and place to discuss me.”

  “I plead your mercy. I was wrong to talk about you. I wanted to learn more about you, the better to serve you. I should have waited to speak to you in person.”

  “Florentine is an abominable old gossip.”

  Quilla kept her expression neutral and her voice calm. “I plead your mercy.”

  “You want to know why I waited four days before calling you.”

  “If it pleases you to tell me, yes.” She lifted her head and returned to Waiting, Readiness.

  He cast her a suspicious gaze. “I was seriously considering whether or not to keep you or send you back to the Order for someone more suitable.”

  His admission stung her more than she’d have suspected. Pride, one of Quilla’s thorns, lifted her chin. “You haven’t even given me a chance.”

  Delessan frowned, looking into the fire. “Florentine doesn’t know as much as she thinks.”

  Quilla rose gracefully and stood in front of him, pausing until he’d looked at her face before speaking. “It will be easier for both of us if you start by telling me what you’d like from me.”

  “I told you what I wanted.”

  Quilla suppressed a sigh, then glanced around the room before looking back at his face. “More specifically.”

  Delessan frowned. “I want you to come here, every day, while I’m working. If I need refreshment, or something fetched, or if I need—”

  “Solace?”

  “I don’t need solace,” he retorted.

  “Everyone needs solace.”

  “What I need is someone who will fetch and carry and provide me with the things I need without my having to ask. Isn’t that what you’re trained for?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Part of it.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “Good.”

  Quilla smiled. “Tell me what time you rise and I will be here, Waiting.”

  “Sunrise.”