The Claiming (22 page)

He rolled over her then, and climbed from the bed on the other side. Striding toward the door, he opened it. “Sam?”

“Yes, sir?”

“A bath. And then we’ll need someone to clean up. Jana dropped the tray. We’ll need another tray, as well.”

Jana was glaring at him indignantly when he turned around.

He chuckled.

“I did not drop the tray.”

He moved back to the bed, stretching out beside her, propping his head on one hand. “It’s a progression of logic,” he said smoothly, his features serious, although amusement lit his golden eyes.

Jana felt her lips curl despite her best efforts. “And you arrived at this how?”

“You tempted me, demanded my complete attention, even though I was selflessly attempting to feed you. Then, when I tried to remove the barrier between us so that I could accommodate you, you distracted me.”

Jana chuckled, reaching up to caress his cheek with her fingers. A dark stubble of whiskers covered his cheeks and chin now. His eyes were tired from little sleep, reddened from the Brie he’d drunk the night before, but, somehow, he looked younger than he had ever seemed to her before, more relaxed. She liked his face; rugged and slightly unkempt as it was now, flawlessly groomed, taut with desire, relaxed with amusement--enjoyed the stark beauty of it even when he was angry with her. Each time she beheld it, even when he seemed completely unaware of her, she felt gladness fill her whole being.

He placed his hand over hers for a moment, squeezing gently, then pulled her hand away, studying her fingers. After a moment, he lifted her hand again, turning it palm upward and placed a kiss in the center.

When he released her, he ran his hand over the stubble on his cheeks and gave her a rueful look. “I’m surprised you didn’t faint when you woke beside me. Bath!” He got up but grasped her hand, tugging, urging her to follow him. “You can watch me shave.”

Jana had no clear idea of what he meant by shaving, but she followed him willingly enough to the small room where the bathing tub was set up. He climbed into the tub, dragging her in with him. Water surged to the top, crested, moved outward from the tub in a wave.

Ignoring it, he lathered a cloth, soaped himself down, and then spent thirty minutes bathing her. His thoroughness almost led to another bout of love making, but he resolutely turned her away from him and began to lather her hair.

Jana was accustomed to being bathed. At the House, the handlers had often done so. But this experience differed as night to day. “Why will you not tell me the meaning of wooing?”

He hesitated. “You are tenacious,” he murmured dryly.

“This is bad?”

“Sometimes.”

She fell silent. He finished washing her hair and carefully rinsed the soap from it. When she would have risen from the tub, however, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back against his chest. “It pertains to love,” he said quietly.

Jana digested that. “Like making love?”

“Sometimes.”

She frowned. “But sometimes not?”

“Many people refer to sharing their bodies as making love, but they don’t necessarily love each other.”

“Oh.”

“You understand now?”

“No.”

He sighed in exasperation. “I’m not at all certain I can explain it to your satisfaction.”

Jana shrugged. “It does not matter.”

He pulled her around until she was facing him, studying her. She forced a smile. “I think our breakfast is getting cold.”

He ran a hand over his whiskers. “It’ll have to wait until I’ve shaved. You, go.”

When Jana had dried herself, she debated briefly about whether or not to dress. Alain had said the previous night that they would stay in her room for days, but he had been drinking very heavily. He surely had not meant it.

She dressed.

He frowned when he saw that she was fully dressed, but said nothing, moving instead to pull on his breeches before he approached the tray of food. They ate in silence.

When they’d finished, Jana placed the tray outside the door, but Alain did not seem inclined to leave so she shut the door again. “You are not going out?” she asked finally.

Alain studied her a long moment. “We are not going out.”

Jana moved to the bench and sat down, wondering what he meant to do now.

Alain bunched pillows against the headboard and sprawled on the bed, watching her. “Bored with me already?” he asked coolly.

Jana blinked, cocking her head curiously.

“Restless? Eager to rush out and be about your business?”

She thought about it and was surprised to realize that she wasn’t. It might have been because, before she had come to Orleans, she had been expected to spend most of her time in her suite and was, therefore, accustomed to having time weigh on her hands. But, she had been bored then, restless, desperate to be freed from her golden cage, if only for a short while. “No. It’s just … I did not realize that you were serious when you said that about staying in my room.”

“But, I am. Deadly serious.”

Jana thought about it for several moments. “Is this a custom?”

“Come here.”

She looked at him doubtfully a moment, but rose and moved to the bed, sitting on the edge beside him. He was not satisfied with that. He pulled her onto the bed so that she was lying against him, her head resting on his chest. He said nothing for several minutes. “I realize the life you had before you came to Orleans was vastly different. If you had been the woman I had made arrangements with, there would still have been adjustments, but I felt that I understood her background and what would be required. I do not understand yours. I need to if I am to protect you. Most specifically what you understand about the virgin gene.”

Jana stiffened, but Alain would not allow her to pull away. She looked up at him, realizing this must be why he’d seemed to become so coolly distant when he’d returned from the creek. “Marty…?”

He nodded. “Yes. I was … not pleased, but not so angry that I couldn’t see that it was not a subterfuge of your making.”

Jana relaxed fractionally. “I was afraid to tell you.”

“And afraid to allow me to touch you, because then I would know,” he said, but he could not, as much as he would have liked to, completely convince himself that that was the only reason she seemed to keep a wall of resistance between them from the beginning.

She frowned. “Not at first. In the beginning, I did not realize that it would matter, but later, yes. Then I became worried that you did not seem to want me and was afraid that if you didn’t then you would give me back to Marty if he found me.”

“I see your difficulties. Unfortunately, I knew you were hiding something, that you were not who you were supposed to be. I knew if I consummated the agreement it would be final and I could not break it without a great deal of time and expense. As it happens, it probably turned out for the best. If I had consummated the match earlier--if I had not realized you and I had been together before and that you were a virgin still, when you should not have been, then I might well have been caught off guard. Marty might have been able to ‘prove’ the contract unconsummated, would have been able to take you back.

We will not leave this room until I am certain he can not find grounds to dissolve our contract. So, if you will, explain.”

Jana frowned, surprised to discover he had remembered her when he had shown no indication that he did, uncertain whether to be pleased that he had, or disconcerted that she had been unaware of the fact that she’d felt safe from discovery when in fact, her subterfuge had already been detected. She dismissed it, deciding it didn’t matter now, and turned her attention to his question. “I’m not entirely sure I understand it myself. All I know is that, given time, it heals and it will always heal intact.”

“How much time?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Marty always said I must wait a week, just in case.”

“He said it in those words?”

She thought about it a moment. “Not exactly in those words.”

“Then tell me the precise words he used.”

It was difficult to remember the specific words he’d used. He’d threatened her, or beat her, or both. She’d been afraid and hurt, but she finally remembered what he’d said the last time he’d berated her. “He said, ‘I should have made my money back ten times over and you have not even earned back your price! You only need a few days, a week at the very most, which means you should be able to service a bare minimum of 52 customers a year. Instead of which, I can count them on one hand!’”

Alain said nothing for so long that she looked up at him. His expression was stony. Her heart skipped a beat. Belatedly, she realized that she probably should not have told him everything, for now he knew that she had given herself to several men before him. She’d thought he must understand that since he knew where she had come from. She thought that he had decided it didn’t matter when he decided to keep her anyway, but it was also possible that he had simply ignored the probability that he had not been the first she had shared her body with. “You’re angry?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Not with you.”

She wasn’t certain she believed him. He guarded his thoughts, and the emotions they engendered, so well most of the time that she was rarely certain of where she stood. “What do we do now?”

He smiled faintly and turned, pushing her to her back. “Get to know each other … intimately. I think there might be one or two tiny little spots that I have not thoroughly explored.”

***

Midday on their third day of discovery, the servant who brought their lunch informed Alain that ‘that man’ and a Doctor Mansil were downstairs. Alain rose, dressed and went downstairs. Jana waited, expecting that she was to be examined again. Instead, Alain returned. He had not seemed inclined to talk, but he had assured her that Marty would not be returning.

Jana wasn’t convinced. Marty, to use the word Alain had given her, was tenacious. To her surprise, however, days passed and Marty did not return. They resumed their routine of before, except that Alain now spent his nights in her bed. To her distress, he’d become withdrawn, remote, cool after Marty’s second visit, but never when he came to her at night. Then, at least, she was allowed to enjoy more than just his passion.

When a week passed, and then another with no sign of Marty, Jana began to feel that Alain must have been right.

A letter arrived for her from her friend Val-risa. Jana could not read it, but she was fairly certain she knew what the letter was about. Val-risa had either been unable to arrange passage for her, or she had arranged it. Jana was no longer interested in leaving. As doubtful as she had been at first that Alain truly meant to keep her, it seemed that he did and her first impulse was to simply tear the message up and destroy it. However, she couldn’t entirely dismiss her fears regarding Marty and finally decided she should at least discover, if she could, what the message said.

That presented a problem. Blane and Alain were the only people she knew who could read and she did not dare ask either of them to read the message to her. She might, she finally decided, be able to figure out a way to ask for Blane’s help, but she didn’t think it would be safe to simply give him the message, or even copy large parts of it. After a while, she hit on the idea of asking him to teach her how to read and write, then she could ask him about one word at the time until she understood the message.

To be completely safe, she chose words at random and asked Blane what each was. It took her a little over a week to understand the entire message and by that time she was beginning to have second thoughts about staying on Orleans.

Chapter Twelve

Between her anxiety about Marty and her enjoyment of Alain’s attention, at least at night in her room, Jana didn’t notice a change to her body until she realized that she was two weeks past the time for her female cycle to begin. At first she was only puzzled, certain she had miscounted. When another week passed, and then another, she realized she had not miscounted. Something was not right.

Since she had never had anything wrong with her body, she wasn’t certain whom to ask about it. She didn’t feel comfortable discussing it with Alain, and, at any rate, he was not a woman. She doubted, somehow, that he would know.

Finally, she decided to ask Lill. Lill did not seem to be a terribly intelligent being, but she was a female, and it was at least possible she would have some idea of what Jana should do.

When Jana asked Lill what might be wrong with her when her female cycle had stopped, Lill grinned broadly. “You’re pregnant!”

Jana stared at her uncertainly. Lill obviously did not seem to think it would be anything terrible or she would not seem so pleased to hear it. On the other hand, Jana found it difficult to figure out why Lill would be pleased about it at all. Perhaps the grin did not denote pleasure, but something else? The word was not in her vocabulary. It seemed, though, that Lill was certain she knew what the problem was. “What is pregnant?”

Lill looked taken aback. “You got Master Camar’s seed growing in your belly.”

“Seed?” Jana said faintly, but there was a rushing sound in her ears that made it difficult to hear. She kept thinking about Marty’s gloating words in the clearing near the creek.

“Baby—infant … like little Mr. Behn here and Miss Marly.”

Jana felt for several moments that her lunch was going to erupt from her stomach. Instead, everything around her went black. She was dimly aware of the rush of the ceiling past her vision, and then nothing.

Something cold and wet touched her face. Jana gasped, opening her eyes. She saw Alain’s face above hers, his skin almost colorless. The tremors she felt were coming, she finally realized, from him, from the arms he’d wrapped around her.

“What happened?”

“You fainted.”

Jana tried to get up, but Alain wouldn’t allow it. “Be still. You shouldn’t get up just yet.”

Jana subsided, glancing around, then frowned when she realized she was lying on the bed in her room. “How did I get in here? I was in the nursery with Lill.”