No Greater Pleasure (29 page)

“But can he hear the shouting and what’s going on?”

This time, the look said they didn’t know. Quilla put her book aside. “No matter what the woman has done, she is the lad’s mother. And no matter what the rest of the household is doing, that little boy should be sheltered from such goings-on. Doesn’t anyone in this house have the sense in their heads to behave in front of children?”

Disgust colored her voice and made the maids look shamefaced. Quilla shook her head at them. “His father?”

“Busy in his workshop, him.”

“And Uncle Jericho locked away.” Quilla sighed, but there could be no getting up with the housemaids staring at her. Her heart panged for Dane, who might be spoiled and ill-behaved, but was still just a lad for all that.

They fussed over her a bit more until Bertram rapped on the door and said in an apologetic voice, “Begging your pardon, mistress, but Florentine is requiring the use of these three.”

So at last, they left her, and Quilla got out of bed and moved around the room, touching each object in wonder and shaking her head at some of the choices. A lamp in the shape of a lady’s shoe? A stone bust of some unidentified man wearing a hunting cap?

When she got to the polished wooden bookshelf, she stopped, her throat closed with an uncommon rush of emotion. He’d given her books. Volume upon volume, some bound in cheap paper with letters that smudged, and she’d have expected nothing of better quality. But some were hide-bound, pages printed with better ink and illustrations.

It wasn’t the expense of the gift, which, really, was nothing since he’d given her items he already owned. But the thought behind the gift . . . that was something else entirely.

There was no way she could sit in her room all day now, though he’d provided for her entertainment. She had to go thank him. Quilla put on her stockings and slippers and left the room, walking with care to make certain she suffered no ill effects, but making no hesitation in her route.

The door swung open on oiled hinges and she entered. He stood at his table, lifting a beaker of some amber-colored liquid up to the shaft of early morning sunlight streaming in the window. The ray caught the liquid and suffused it with a warm glow that oozed over his face, casting it with honeyed shadows.

She entered the room on soft feet, but without turning to look at her he said, “You’re supposed to be in bed.”

Quilla went to him and stood in front of him, waiting until he’d put down the beaker. “Thank you.”

“It pleases you?”

She nodded, looking into his dark gray blue eyes. “It pleases me very much.”

A smile tugged the corners of his lips. “Would you like to tell me what pleased you the best?”

“I can put my vote to no one thing, my lord.”

He settled the beaker onto the table and moved a step closer to her. “But if it pleased me for you to choose?”

Whatever he’d been working with had given the room a scent like fruit gone overripe, but this close to him she could also smell his own scent. Something a bit spicier.

“The books,” she answered without hesitation. “I would choose the books.”

His smile widened. “I thought as much. The care you took with mine showed me you value them.”

“I came to thank you.”

“Even though you knew it was my wish for you to remain abed today?” He tilted his head to look at her, but didn’t seem angry. Instead, his gaze wandered over her face before returning to her eyes.

“I wanted to thank you for the gifts.”
And I didn’t think I could stand to go a day without seeing you.

The realization surprised her with its sudden implications. Sudden, dangerous implications. Even so, her gaze didn’t drop from his.

“It was very kind of you,” she said.

His hand came up to stroke the length of her braid from the nape of her neck to where it fell over her shoulder, and when his fingers reached the curve of her jaw, they lingered to caress her cheek. “I’m not kind.”

She nodded, her gesture at odds with her words. “No.”

His hand moved back to cup the nape of her neck beneath the thickness of her braid. His fingers curled around her, warm on her skin. He pulled, and she followed, stepping forward until she had to tilt her head back to continue looking into his face.

“How fares your arm today?”

His fingers moved, gently caressing the sensitive skin at her nape.

“It will heal.”

“You must take care not to open the wound.”

He pulled her closer. Now her body brushed his. The hand at her nape slid slower, to the spot between her shoulder blades while his other went to her waist. Quilla put her hands on his chest, against the white front of his jacket, the material scratchy on her fingertips.

“I would be sorely discomposed if I should find myself without your services for yet another day.”

“And I sadly disappointed should I find myself unable to provide them.”

His arm tightened around her, and he tilted his head, leaning closer, his gaze on hers, dipping briefly lower to caress her mouth before returning to her eyes.

“That would not please me at all, Handmaiden.”

“And I am here to please you, my lord.”

But he did not kiss her. Instead, the hand at her hip came up to smooth the hair off her forehead and with a gentle but firm touch, he stepped away from her. “It would also please me to have some tea, if you feel capable of making it.”

She blinked and had to swallow hard before she could answer. “Of course, my lord.”

He turned back to his beakers and tubes, and Quilla made his tea, which he drank with perfunctory speed as though he had not, perhaps, truly wanted it at all.

 

 

 

I
t was her least favorite part of the day, late afternoon. The light began to fail and the lamps were lit, bringing with them the smell of fuel that sometimes made her head ache. But more than that, late afternoon, when the light began to fail, was the time when Gabriel dismissed her.

Sometimes, he did it with words. “You can go,” and on those days she went and unbuttoned and helped him out of his stained lab coat, brushed off his clothes, served him tea and cake or simplebread.

Other times he shrugged out of his coat and tossed it on the back of the chair, leaving the room without giving her so much as a glance. The problem was, she could never tell which sort of day it would be, not from one to the other, and she could not seem to tie her actions to his reactions, only that the days he did not speak to her were rapidly beginning to outnumber the days he did.

The house seemed quite empty without the bustle and chatter of guests, and though Quilla did not miss any of them, she found she missed the air of activity their presence had provided.

Gabriel had not touched her since the day she’d thanked him for the gifts. If their hands brushed while she passed him a vial, or while she passed him tea, he made obvious care to move away from her. He did not ask for aid in buttoning his coat, nor in unbuttoning, nor in any action for which he had previously allowed her assistance.

The dismissal stung more than it ought. He had needed solace. She had given it. It had meant no more than that. And yet . . . it had. And she could not look at him without remembering the touch of his hands upon her, or the sweetness of his breath in her face.

It distracted her. Made her numb-fingered and clumsy, caused her to drop things.

“Go,” he told her, frustrated, one day when she had spilled a beaker of solution for the second time in a row. “Get you gone! You are more trouble than you are worth, today!”

And, fighting unaccustomed tears, she had gone. She avoided the kitchen, where Florentine would surely sniff out her distress with the same alacrity she discovered soured milk amongst the pitchers. Quilla was in no mood to listen to the cook’s mocking commentary. Instead, Quilla made her way to the third floor, to the long, bright gallery that stretched all the way across the top of the house.

The windows brought in light, but also cold, for the glass was not much insulation against the winter outside. The bare wooden floors might have been well improved by carpets, but Quilla could only guess that, as the room was not often used, Gabriel had ordered them put elsewhere. The same for the furnishings, which were rather more threadbare than any in the rest of the house. Slightly mismatched as well, as though nobody expected this space to impress.

Which was a shame, she thought, walking the length of the room. It was an impressive room. Floor-to-ceiling windows dominated the outside wall, while portraits of every size and artistic skill decorated the one opposite. Fireplaces trisected the space, and each of the three sections boasted its own sofa and grouping of chairs. A pianoforte at one end of the gallery would have provided music, should any care to play it, but when she touched it with one fingertip the note which sounded was discordant and sour.

The room was, at least, clean and without dust, though the dangling pendants on the hanging lamps could have used a wash. The gallery had been meant to show off family portraits and provide a place for large gatherings, but Quilla found the long room good for something else, too. Walking.

She walked from one end to the other, moving fast to fend off the chill hanging in the air. The activity took her mind off the melancholy. It gave her something to do so she didn’t dwell on her patron.

She had reached the end of the gallery when the sound of shuffling reached her ears from the door set into the wall at the other end of the room. Without thinking much of it, she ducked into an alcove that had perhaps been meant to showcase a statue or potted plant. The door opened, and Dane tumbled through the doorway, giggling.

The boy bore no sign of the incident with the eel. His plump cheeks were pink and blond hair tousled as he turned to face his companion.

“Come, Uncle!” he cried. “I can’t wait!”

“Patience, Nephew.” Jericho entered the room after Dane, something metal and shiny glinting in his hand.

Dane danced, holding up his arms to grab at whatever Jericho held. “Give them to me! Give them to me!”

“Give them to me . . .” Jericho paused, clearly expecting Dane to finish his sentence.

“Please!”

Jericho lowered his hand, and Quilla saw a pair of roller skates. Dane grabbed them up with a squeal of delight and sat in one of the chairs to put them on. In moments, he was up and off, sturdy legs pumping as he sped along the polished wood. Arms flailing, he swerved as he reached the end of the room and grabbed hold of a pedestal to keep from falling. The bust of a stern-looking man atop the pedestal teetered. A vision of it falling to the floor and smashing to bits made Quilla step out of her hiding place to grab it up with one hand while she hooked her fingers into the back of Dane’s jacket with the other.

“Keep your feet, laddie,” she said with a laugh, steadying him before settling the bust back in its place.

“Quilla Caden!” Dane’s obvious joy at seeing her made Quilla’s throat close with emotion. The boy threw his arms around her, squeezing, before setting off on another sprint down the length of the gallery.

“Tranquilla Caden,” greeted Jericho as he walked toward her. “You are looking well.”

“Jericho Delessan,” Quilla replied with a small curtsy and slight incline of her head. “Good day to you.”

“Made better by your presence.”

She raised a brow at the flattery, but did not otherwise respond to it. Instead, she tilted her chin toward the boy, who’d reached the gallery’s far end and had turned to make his flailing, rumbling way back. “We’d best get out of the way, lest we find ourselves victim to those wheels.”

Jericho laughed and stepped back, closer to the grouping of chairs and settee in front of the windows. He reached for her elbow as he did, to guide her, and she followed him forward. Just in time, because a moment later Dane flew past them, arms akimbo and face lit with laughter.

The boy made a high-pitched “Wheee!” and kept going, turning at the end to do it all over again.

“Those skates might scuff the floor.”

“It can be waxed,” Jericho said. “And he’s making most merry.”

“He is, indeed.” Quilla turned to watch Dane, now attempting to spin. “He’ll make himself sick if he keeps that up.”

Jericho laughed and sat on the settee. “He’ll be fine.”

Quilla looked down at him. “You’re very kind to him.”

“How could I be anything less?”

She nodded. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Before she had even half turned, his quiet voice, much unlike his usual boasting tone, stopped her. “You needn’t. Unless he wants you.”

She turned her head to look at him. “As a matter of fact, I don’t believe he does.”

“My brother is an arrogant fool.”

That prompted a thin smile from her. “And you merely arrogant?”

Jericho shook his head, laughing. “Nay, I think I am both arrogant and a fool, as well. But at least I admit my failings, while my brother continues to believe himself perfection.”

Dane rolled by again, this time belting out a song with somewhat racy lyrics that made her raise a brow again. “Your doing, I suppose? The song?”

“Bertram and Billy, I believe,” replied Jericho with a hurt look upon his face. “How could you suggest I would ever teach my nephew such a tune?”

She laughed, arms crossed. “Because I believe you’d do it, if for no other reason than to ruffle your brother’s feathers.”

“His feathers need a good ruffling now and again. He’s entirely too complacent and smug in his perfection.”

Quilla sat in the chair across from him, shaking the hem of her gown to allow it to puddle around her ankles. “He is not perfect. Nor do I believe he thinks himself so. In fact, I think your brother chastises himself overharshly for sins that are not his to claim.”