Selfish Is the Heart Read online

  When Annalise caught up to her, the girl’s cheeks had gone a painful shade of pink. “Tansy, if others have accused you of it unfairly, I won’t be one to join them. But if it’s true, it might be best to own the fact rather than pretend it’s false. You needn’t brag on a truth to admit it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tansy whispered after a moment, her head bent before she looked up more fiercely than Annalise expected. “If it’s so, it’s not because I’ve wished for it. My papa granted the Order money toward my room and board, for the cost of keeping me. It could be years before I’m deemed suitable to serve a patron—”

  “Or never,” Annalise added in a murmur. “That’s always a possibility.”

  Tansy nodded. “Yes. Or never. But I won’t let it be never. My parents would be so saddened, and I couldn’t bear to disappoint them so. But I know it could be a long time before my patron fees would begin to cover the cost of my time here. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my papa giving the Order a contribution to its coffers.”

  That was interesting, that Tansy would be saddened to disappoint her parents should she never become a Handmaiden. “What of your own sadness should you never be determined ready to take a patron?”

  Tansy blinked rapidly. “Of course I would be so saddened. It’s just that my papa has made a great effort for my keeping here . . .”

  “There are those who believe they can buy their way into the Land Above with boons to the Temple.” Annalise shrugged, unconcerned. “Or upon the backs of others.”

  Tansy whirled, blue eyes wide, mouth open. “No! That is not my papa!”

  Annalise held up her hands to counter the girl’s alarm. “Your mercy, Tansy. I meant no disrespect to your father.”

  Tansy shook her head, her shoulders hunching. “The others . . . there are others here who do. They say I am treated especial because of Papa’s gift, and I know they have reason to think so, but they never see what I’ve earned on my own merit.”

  “Perhaps you should be less concerned with what others think of your merit, then.”

  Tansy looked over her shoulder, red lips parted. “Mother Consolata said the very same thing to me!”

  Consolata, Deliberata. Annalise knew Handmaidens were given new names upon taking their vows, but these were not names. They were characteristics. If chosen for their reference to the personality of the bearer, what name would she be given? She quirked her mouth at the corners.

  “Do you mock me?” Tansy stopped in the hall, lined with more doors, these mostly half open with the murmur of voices coming from inside.

  “Not at all,” Annalise assured her. “I’m simply finding all of this rather . . . unexpected.”

  “There was a Seeker who came here last year. She claimed she had a Calling. She started the training. And yet all she ever did, day start to day end, was poke fun at what we do here.” Tansy’s bright expression dimmed. “She made a mockery of what we do. She was most particularly unpleasant.”

  “Did she become a Handmaiden?”

  “She was not sent away,” Tansy said with a sniff, but before she could continue, a door at the end of the hall flung open and a trio of young women spilled out.

  “The color of this suits my eyes ever so much better,” said the tallest, smoothing the skirt of her dress. “And that gray does bring out the pink of your cheeks, Helena.”

  The three paused when they spotted Tansy and Annalise. Helena, clad in gray, nudged the side of her partner wearing dark blue. The tall girl who’d spoken, her gown a deep plum and her hair a rich copper, lifted a brow.

  “Tansy.”

  “Hello, Perdita. Helena. Wandalette.”

  Perdita gave Annalise an up-and-down appraisal. “And you are?”

  “New,” Annalise said. This girl was easily six years younger than she. Annalise could have consumed her for breakfast.

  Perdita blinked rapidly, but if there was confrontation to be had, it was not going to happen then. Instead she gave Tansy a sly, sideways glance and smoothed her skirts. “I’ve a new gown, Tansy. One provided me by the Order.”

  Tansy looked at her own hem. “It’s pretty on you.”

  Perdita shrugged as though the compliment, though deserved, was unnecessary. “We’re off to our afternoon faith instruction.”

  Tansy snorted softly. “I’m fair certain you’ll enjoy your class, Perdita.”

  Helena snickered while the still-silent Wandalette hid a grin behind her hand. Perdita’s mouth twitched, but not kindly. She looked Annalise over again, then bowed her head in a gesture that might have been respectful had it at all smacked of sincerity.

  Then the trio set off in a swirl of skirts and giggles.

  “Allow me to hasten a guess. Those are the girls who give you difficulty over your father’s generosity?”

  Tansy sighed. “They share a room. Helena and Perdita can be . . .”

  “Vile?”

  “Irritating,” Tansy said. “But Wandalette can be very kind.”

  Annalise looked back at them as the young women rounded the corner and disappeared. “I’ve grown beyond the age of posturing. But I suppose some never do.”

  Tansy giggled. “Perdita never will. If you ask me, I don’t think she’ll ever be assigned a patron. But I didn’t say that aloud.”

  A halo of gray hair above a round, wrinkled face peered around the doorway through which Perdita and her companions had come moments before. “Tansy! Is that the new girl?”

  “Yes’m. Come,” she gestured to Annalise. “If we don’t hurry, we won’t have time to put away your things before the evening service.”

  “Good day, girl.” The woman in the room put her hands on stout hips. She stood only as high as Annalise’s chest and had to tip her head back to catch a glimpse at her face. “Step you up and let me take your measure.”

  Crates and racks all over the room teemed with bolts of fabric and gowns in all shades. Some hung haphazardly over the backs of chairs while others looped on hooks set into the wall. It was as though a dressmaker’s cabinet had exploded. Other tables held jars of buttons, and pincushions bristled with needles adangle with thread.

  “Sister Precision,” Tansy said by way of introduction. “This is Annalise.”

  “No need for names, girl, just step up on the stool so I might figure your size.”

  Annalise did as she was told, but with a laugh. “I’m hardly a girl, Sister.”

  Precision snorted. “Anyone is a girl to me any longer. I passed my sixtieth year last month. I’ll not be long denied the Land Above.”

  Tansy bit down on her lower lip as though to hold back words, while Annalise looked at the old woman. “My mother’s mother lived until her ninetieth year. You could have a lifetime left on this plane, Sister.”

  Precision, who’d been reaching for a pincushion to strap to her wrist, now gave Annalise a lifted brow stare. “Bite your tongue!”

  “Your mercy,” Annalise said. “I meant no offense.”

  Precision wrinkled her mouth, which set the crevasses deeper against the sides of her nose and between her brows. “Sweet Invisible Mother, girl. Think you I wish to dawdle around forever here when I could be drinking the delights of the Land Above?”

  The older woman snapped at Tansy to bring an armful of gowns from the rack behind her. Precision plucked the first and held it up to Annalise, then tossed it aside to take the next. This one made her cluck and tilt her head back and forth.

  “Take off your dress.”

  “What?”

  “Strip. There’s no room for modesty here, girl. A Handmaiden must feel as comfortable in her own skin as in a gown of gold.” Precision stared at Annalise. “Might as well get used to it now. Besides, it’s not as though I’ve never seen a pair of plumpenpillows before.”

  Annalise couldn’t hold back her laugh at the term for breasts she’d never heard before. She put her fingers to the buttons at the throat of her gown and swiftly undid them all the way to her waist. Beneath she w