No Greater Pleasure (21 page)

“I did not think it of import.” Gabriel’s gaze held Quilla’s for the span of a heartbeat. He did not look pleased to see her.

“She has been helping my lord husband in his work,” put in Saradin almost too quickly. She nodded and smiled at the other ladies at the table. “With his records.”

Madame Somerholde smiled and nodded, looking at Quilla with a smirk. “Ah, yes, my dear Saradin. I see that by the ink stains on her fingers.”

Saradin laughed prettily, perhaps encouraged by the snipe of her friend. “Come closer, dear Tranquilla. Let us take a look at you.”

“She’s not a display,” Jericho told Saradin.

And again, it wasn’t Gabriel who had come to her defense. Quilla looked at her patron, whose face was implacable and bore no expression she could discern beyond ennui.

“Oh, Jericho.” Another pretty trill burbled from Saradin’s throat. She tossed her head to make the feathers in her hair dance. “You’re such a treat.”

“Yes, Handmaiden,” Gabriel said at last. “Do come closer. Let us have a look at you.”

Quilla looked at him but answered in the way she knew he was expecting. “If it pleases you.”

She heard the titters and murmurs as she walked toward the table, but she kept her gaze on her patron’s until she reached the end of the table.

“I thought Handmaidens were . . . more . . . exotic,” she heard Genevieve Somerholde whisper to her brother.

“I certainly thought they were better dressed,” spoke up Madame Somerholde to Saradin. “Sara, dear, you should tell Gabriel to give the poor girl a decent gown.”

“She has been working in the kitchen, I believe.” Gabriel’s gaze did not waver.

“The kitchen?” Madame Fiene’s giggle was echoed by her two indistinguishable daughters. “Oh, my.”

Quilla would have placed any amount of wager that Madame Fiene had never set foot in a kitchen, much less worked in one. “Indeed, my lord Delessan, I was.”

Saradin’s laughter was as glittery as the crystal glassware, and as brittle. “Imagine that.”

Gabriel cut his eyes to his wife for one moment before looking back at Quilla. “I daresay nobody at this table has ever seen a Handmaiden before.”

“I know I have not,” said the elder Somerholde through his bush of a mustache. He stared at Quilla with unequivocal delight. “I daresay I also thought them to be more exotic.”

Quilla caught sight of Jericho’s expression, which could have been carved from stone. Again, she noted how much the brothers looked alike, though one fair and one dark. Jericho looked angry at the treatment of her. Gabriel, however, only looked . . . intrigued.

“She will be whatever I wish her to be,” said Gabriel calmly.

Saradin’s pretty face went dark before she lightened it with a practiced smile. The ladies at the table exchanged glances, putting gloved hands to rouged mouths, affecting surprise. The gentlemen’s eyes all brightened at his words.

“Anything, my good man?” This from Persis, who sat up straighter in his chair.

“Anything it pleases me for her to do.”

Quilla had not spoken, had allowed them to talk around her as though she did not exist as anything more than a garden statue to be gawked at and commented upon. She wore her dignity like a cloak, better dressed in it than any of the more fashionably attired ladies seated in front of her. She watched Gabriel watch her, but could not judge his intent. Once again, he had gone dark to her.

“Turn around, Handmaiden. Let them take a look at you.”

Quilla did, one slow rotation, returning to her spot to see every pair of eyes riveted upon her.
No greater pleasure
, she repeated in her mind. Serene. Calm. Whatever he was about, it was nothing she had not been through before.

Some people would not be satisfied until they saw the extent to which she would go.

“And you say she helps you with your records?” asked Boone Somerholde suddenly. “Can’t you just get an assistant?”

Gabriel stood, his gaze locked on Quilla’s. “I could, young master Somerholde, and I’ve had them. Chambermaids as well, to clean up after me. Secretaries to keep my records and make my correspondences. But you see,” he said, walking around the end of the table and coming close enough to reach out and touch her, if he wanted, “a Handmaiden is so much more than that.”

“Really?” Master Fiene sounded doubtful and gleeful at the same time. “How so, old man?”

“I think we’ve—” began Saradin, as though at last realizing that in her attempt to shame Quilla for her own gain she’d begun to bite her own tail.

“Yes.” Gabriel’s answer cut off his wife as though he’d put a hand over her mouth. “Much more.”

Gabriel looked at his guests, all of whom were staring, eyes wide. Jericho alone refused to look. His gaze was narrowed and stormy, and kept fixed on the table in front of him. Small spots of color had risen on his cheeks. He clutched his napkin in front of him.

“Tell me, Handmaiden, what is it you do for me?”

“I am your solace and your comfort,” she replied easily. “I am what you need before you know you need it. I am your Handmaiden.”

“And if I tell you to write a letter for me?”

“If it pleases you for me to write it, I shall do so, my lord.”

A murmur went around the table.

“And if I tell you serve me something to drink?”

“’Tis unlikely you’d need to tell me of your thirst before I’d guess, but I would serve you.”

Her answer made the ladies at the table frown. The gentlemen, on the other hand, looked envious. Saradin’s face had gone pale but for twin spots of color high on her cheeks.

Quilla looked down the table at the staring faces, then back into Gabriel’s eyes, which had remained implacable, though a smirk teased the edges of his mouth.

“What else does she do?”

Quilla thought the voice belonged to Boone Somerholde, but she didn’t take her gaze away from Gabriel’s long enough to notice.

“Should I tell her to sing, she would do it for my pleasure. Or dance. Should I tell her to read to me, or recite poetry, or paint a portrait, she would do it.” He paused, his smile creeping a bit further into his eyes. “Though there is no guarantee that it would look like me.”

“She will do anything you tell her?” She was fair certain it was Persis who’d asked that question.

“Anything I tell her,” said Gabriel softly. “And much I don’t.”

A stunned silence seemed to have pervaded the table, unbroken even by snide whispers. Gabriel seemed amused, but Quilla had learned one thing, at least, about her patron. It was most often when he seemed amused that he was ready to become angry.

“It would please me to have you attend me at dinner, Handmaiden.”

She nodded, though the acquiescence was unnecessary. She followed him as he turned on his heel and went back to his seat.

“So, Somerholde,” Gabriel said as though the entire event had not happened, “you were telling us about the expansion you’re planning to your estate.”

“Well, my good man . . .” Somerholde launched into a long-winded description of his plans.

Quilla took the flagon of wine from its place on the table and filled Gabriel’s glass. From her place at the other end of the long table, Saradin lifted hers and beckoned. Quilla took a step toward her, but without breaking the conversation with Somerholde, without saying a word, Gabriel put a hand on her sleeve to stop her. Quilla understood at once. She was not to serve the mistress, and it was to be quite obvious her place was not as serving maid.

But as Handmaiden.

After a moment, in which Saradin’s face grew dark and darker, pale eyes becoming the color of an angry sea, Kirie stepped up to take the flagon from Quilla’s hand and hurried down to fill Saradin’s glass.

Gabriel kept his attention on Somerholde’s blustering and his hand on Quilla’s sleeve for a moment more before letting go.

He was making a point, but what it was, Quilla had yet to determine. He was angry. And he was punishing someone for it . . . but was it her? Or was it his lady wife?

“It sounds lovely,” broke in Saradin, waving the maid away with an impatient hand. “Madame Somerholde, you will have the delight of furnishing your new rooms, will you not?”

Madame Somerholde stuttered an answer, her eyes going back and forth between Saradin and Gabriel, whose expression had become charming and pleasant, his attention on his guests and not on Quilla at all.

“Yes, I have already planned a buying trip,” continued Madame Somerholde uneasily, pinned as she was between two such fierce gazes.

Gabriel flicked his eyes toward the platter of swan, which had now been cut into steaming, savory slices glistening with gravy. Quilla took his plate and filled it for him, then set it in front of him again.

“Saradin would love for me to take her on such a trip, I am certain,” said Gabriel. He made no move to slice the meat in front of him, and though it was not an act he’d expected or allowed before, Quilla took up his knife and fork and began to cut it for him. “But, alas, my work prevents me from being the conciliatory husband she would like.”

Saradin’s eyes had fixed on the motion of Quilla’s hands cutting the fowl, drawn the way a hound will eye an unattended plate. “Don’t be silly, Gabriel. You are . . .” She hesitated briefly, barely, as Quilla finished with Gabriel’s plate and again stepped back to his shoulder. “You are the most gracious and considerate of husbands.”

“Mama said she’s going to take me this time,” Genevieve spoke up, apparently immune to the tension circulating the table at the silent battle between husband and wife. “She said she’s going to pick out some furniture for my dowry.”

The word made all the girls giggle. Saradin’s lips thinned in an attempt at a smile.

“What a fortunate girl you are, to have such a mother.”

“We will also be taking a trip to Alyria,” put in Madame Fiene, as though not wishing to be outdone. “Isn’t that so, my darling?”

Her husband, who had been staring with unabashed admiration at Quilla, nodded. “Yes, my dear. Quite right. We shall. Next summer, exactly so.”

This caught Saradin’s attention, and she looked away from Quilla for a moment to address Madame Fiene. “I’ve heard there are women there who still choose to wear the veil, though they needn’t. Do you suppose that’s true?”

“Oh, I do think so, yes.” Madame Fiene took a large sip from her goblet, heedless of the way the wine dripped on her powdered décolletage.

Saradin looked back at Quilla. “Why a woman would choose such subservience is beyond my ken. Why choose to kneel at a man’s feet when your proper place is at his side?”

Again, the weight of many eyes burdened Quilla’s shoulders, but she showed no sign of noticing. She kept her attention upon her patron. A perfect Handmaiden, putting on a show because he wished it. A show that was also her reality, no game. This was her purpose and her place, and though there were those who would seek to shame her for it, she would not be shamed.

“A woman who knows her place is to be greatly valued,” said Gabriel to Saradin. “And one who repeatedly oversteps her place shames herself. And her husband.”

Ouch.

“Even the great Sinder did not require his Kedalya to serve him on her knees,” said Saradin. “Sinder allowed Kedalya was his equal, if not his better, for she had the gift of bearing children, and he did not.”

Gabriel looked around the table at the other men, and gave a sharp chuckle. “Well, ’tis a fine thing, then, that I sit at the head of this table, and not the great Sinder.”

“I heard Alyrian silk is the finest available,” cut in Madame Somerholde, and the tension eased a bit.

Quilla buttered a roll and put it on Gabriel’s plate. When he took a bite of it and butter glistened on his lips, she took up the napkin from his lap and wiped them clean. She did nothing she hadn’t done before, or wouldn’t have done had they been alone in his chambers, but having an audience to her work pricked at her serenity. She was not ashamed of what she was, but neither did she appreciate being made sport of. She didn’t care to be used to put another in her place . . . except that in this case, perhaps, she did.

“My brother should be able to tell you that,” said Gabriel. “As ’tis his business to know of such matters.”

Quilla happened to be glancing up as Jericho answered, and she found him staring at her. His blue eyes had gone dark in the lamp-light, liquid pools of blackness surrounded by a thin rim of blue. His gaze lured her, but his words snared her.

“Alyrian silk is the finest, indeed, and should be worn only by those women who have beauty enough to compare to it.”

“Then you shall be certain to buy some, Carmelia,” Saradin said.

Jericho, still staring at Quilla, said nothing. After a moment, he bent back to his food, making a great show of cutting it and moving it around his plate, but eating very little. The conversation turned to furniture and textiles, and the places one went to find the best quality. Jericho kept silent except when pressed directly by one of the Fiene girls.

“A woman’s best asset is not her wardrobe but her spirit,” he answered to her question about what sort of fabric was most flattering. Everyone turned to look at him; he kept his eyes fixed on the table.

“Indeed?” replied Saradin. “And what, then, is a man’s?”

Jericho looked up at his brother. “His honor.”

“Particularly as regards a woman’s spirit, I suppose?” Gabriel’s reply sounded casual, but was not.

Jericho’s stony expression flushed, and his eyes flicked down the table at Saradin, then up to Quilla before meeting his brother’s again. “Among other things, yes.”

Solid, uncomfortable silence hovered over the table, broken then by Genevieve’s light trickle of laughter. “Shall I tell you of the most interesting book I’ve read?”

Quilla smiled slightly. She had thought the Somerholde girl to be as dim as winter sky, but she’d been wrong. The girl was apt . . . for though she made the shift in conversation seem wind-headed, it worked.