No Greater Pleasure Read online

  Saradin stood in front of the door, Dane hiding behind her. Tears had streaked his face. His clothes were stained. From her place in the front room arch, Quilla could see his hands were black, as though from soot, or ink.

  “I will shield him as I wish!” Saradin cried.

  “He has been warned to stay out of my workspace time and again, and he ignored it yet again! He has gone and made a ruin of it, not to mention how much he has set back my work!”

  Quilla had thought she’d seen Gabriel angry, but no harsh words could compare to the fury on his face as he paced back and forth. If Gabriel had been a storm, he’d have had lightning sparking from his every step and thunder booming with his words.

  Saradin sneered. “Your work. Oh, yes. Your precious work.”

  “My work that provides you with those pretty dresses you wear, and the food you eat.”

  His voice dipped low. Dangerous. Shouting would have been less ominous, but Saradin either did not notice or did not care.

  Dane peeked around from behind his mother, though she tried to push him back. His bravery touched Quilla’s heart, for facing his father’s wrath had to be daunting.

  “I wanted to see the animals,” he said. “I’m sorry, Papa. I wanted to see the animals you keep in cages.”

  “And you needed to stop and mess with the soot bucket on the way?” Gabriel fixed his gaze on the little boy’s. “I found ash strewn all over my floor. Black handprints on my walls and on my chair. I found ink spilled on my desk, Dane! My notes have been ruined!”

  Dane’s lower lip quivered. “I’m sorry, Papa.”

  “My workshop is not a playground.”

  Quilla watched Gabriel interacting with his son, and something else became clear to her. He meant to forgive the boy.

  Saradin ruined it in the next moment. “You leave him alone, Gabriel. He’s a lad!”

  Gabriel looked at her. “He has done wrong and needs to be punished.”

  “No! You will not! I will not allow it!”

  Dane seemed better able to accept his fate than his mother, for the lad stepped forward, only to be yanked back by her hand.

  “Mama—”

  “No.” Saradin tossed her head and fixed Gabriel with a glare of contempt. “He won’t touch you.”

  The woman played a game. A power game. For what prize?

  “Dane, come here.”

  Saradin kept her grip on him, tight. Quilla felt someone brush against her, and she turned to find Florentine watching also from the shadow of the arch. The chatelaine shook her head.

  “Such drama.”

  “The boy made a mess in his father’s workspace, so I gather.”

  “And the mother will not hear of him being taken to task for it.” Florentine shook her head again.

  “You have seen this played before?”

  “Oh, and aye.” Florentine shrugged. “Watch her.”

  “He will be punished, Saradin. Do not defy me on this.”

  “You won’t touch him!”

  “And here it comes,” murmured Florentine.

  Saradin put a hand over her heart and staggered, eyes fluttering. The performance smacked of exaggeration to Quilla, but Dane reacted as any small boy would at the sight of his mother seemingly in pain. He cried out and ran to put an arm around her waist.

  “Now they ring for Allora Walles.”

  “I need Allora,” gasped Mistress Delessan, sinking onto the bench along the wall.

  Whatever else one might say about Allora, Quilla thought, she knew her mistress, for she appeared almost before the words had left Saradin’s lips. The maid put her arm around Saradin’s other side.

  Gabriel watched the scene without expression, and Quilla watched Gabriel. Guilt made him indulgent, she had seen that already. Now she saw something else. Love made him tolerant. Guilt and love, all tied together so he likely knew not the difference between them any longer.

  And she understood him a bit better.

  He turned on his heel and went up the stairs, leaving his weeping son and prevaricating wife behind. Quilla followed, reaching his rooms mere seconds after he did. The sound of crashing and cursing reached her before she got through the door.

  She found him standing in the middle of the room, fists clenched, staring at the destruction one small boy had made and which had been made just a bit worse by his father.

  “ ’Tis not so terrible,” Quilla said as she came up behind him. “Nothing a bucket and mop can’t fix.”

  He didn’t look at her. He kicked an overturned basket, sending it flying. He swept the rest of the glass from a table, and it shattered. “He has been warned, repeatedly, not to come in here!”

  “And so he should listen,” she said. “But small ears have a way of not hearing what they ought, and small minds not retaining.”

  “You would excuse him, too?” He turned on her, as though she had accused him of a crime. “You would think me overharsh to punish him?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “No?” He calmed at last, running a hand through his hair and seeming to take forcible control of himself.

  She shook her head. “The lad needs structure and boundaries. Needs to learn respect. Aside from that, your workspace is dangerous. He could have been hurt.”

  “And yet my lady wife—”

  “Your lady wife loves her son as much as you do. She simply does not love him in the same manner. Your son does need chastisement, my lord. But might I suggest an alternative?”

  He had seen Waiting, Readiness and Waiting, Remorse. Now she turned her back to him and went to her knees, not sinking back on her heels and resting her hands on her lap, but linking the fingers together behind her neck. This was called Waiting, Submission.

  His boot heels thudded as he stepped back, and his voice rasped. “What are you doing?”

  “My back is strong. If you should feel the need to beat someone—”

  “Sinder’s Arrow, no!”

  He sounded so appalled she turned her head to look at him. His eyes had gone wide, his cheeks paled from their normal tawny glow to the color of white cheese. “My lord?”

  His expression had turned so disgusted she put down her hands and got to her feet. “I plead your mercy, my lord.”

  He shook his head. “What do you think of me, that I would take a strap to your back because my wife refuses to allow me to punish my son?”

  She had truly distressed him, and his caused her own. She went to him and took him by the sleeve, leading him toward his chair in front of the fire. A sign of his consternation was that he allowed her to lead him, and to push him gently into the seat, and to Wait at his feet with her head against his thigh. He was shaking.

  “My lord, I plead your mercy. I did not know ’twould upset you so.”

  “Is that what you think of me? That I am a violent man? That I gain pleasure from hurting others? Have you had other patrons who took their enjoyment at the expense of your back?”

  She put her arms around his calves and held him tight. “I have had some, yes, who have needed the release of giving pain.”

  “My father used to use a strap on me when I stepped out of line. My father seemed to think I often stepped out of line.”

  She looked up at him, but he was not looking at her. His eyes stayed locked on the fire, and the flames danced in the dark depths, creating the illusion of fire in his eyes.

  “And you think beating your son with a strap is your duty as a father? Or do you believe a beating would hasten a change in his behavior?”

  His head snapped around to glare at her. “And what if my answer is both? Will you judge me overharsh then?”

  “Perhaps your father felt ’twas the only way to be a father.”

  “To create fear in one who has never done aught but love him?” Gabriel sneered. “I vowed I would never be like him. A stupid, blind fool. Blind to the fact his wife had made him a cuckold, blind to the fact that his son did not need the back of his fist to love him. I vowed I