Pleasure and Purpose (15 page)

"I love you," he gasped as their bodies joined their release. Stillness looked down at him, her dark eyes wide and her lips curved in joy. "I love you, too."

And there it was. The moment of utter, perfect solace. He had found it with her, and he cried her name as she answered with his, and together they found a place where the thorns of grief had no room to prick them.

She didn't have much to pack. A small case of clothes and personal items. The letters of finance that would assure the transfer of her personal monies to her new residence. It took her only moments to gather it all, and Stillness looked around the room that had been her home with a small sigh at the thought of the journey ahead.

"Are you ready?"

The voice from the doorway made her turn, and she smiled. "Yes, Edward. I'm ready." The man she loved smiled, too, and held out a hand. "The carriage is waiting." She went to him and took the hand he offered, laughing when it pulled her close for a kiss.

"Will you regret leaving?" he asked her, pulling away to gaze at her with serious eyes. Stillness looked once more around the room the Order had assigned her. She turned back to kiss him again. "No," she said when she pulled away. "No, my love, I don't regret leaving here. Not when it means going home with you."

"Come then," said Edward. "Let's go home."

"If it pleases you," Stillness said.

Edward reached to cup her cheek. "It pleases me greatly." Indeed, it pleased them both, she thought as they left the room without bothering to close the door behind them. And that was the best sort of solace to be had at any time.

The lamps had been lit, the fire stoked, the wine poured. Cillian had tied fresh lace at his wrists and throat and worn his finest waistcoat. Now all he had to do was wait.

"Sinder's Blessed Balls," Cillian gritted out, pacing. "Where is she?" Alaric looked up from the chair in which he lounged, wine in hand and feet propped carelessly on the ottoman. "I'm sure she's on her way. Perhaps a delay at the station—"

"I had my man posted at the bedamned station. If there was a delay with any of the trains, I'd have been informed as swift as that." Cillian snapped his fingers to demonstrate his utter power.

Alaric raised a brow, too foolish even to make a pretense of being impressed. That was, Cillian reflected sourly, the bane of having a bosom companion who knew you too well. Alaric thought he didn't need to fawn. Thank the Holy Family, Cillian had plenty who did, else he'd have been put even more sorely out of sorts.

Alaric got up, set his wine aside, and embraced Cillian to rub the back of his neck beneath the clubbed braid. "Hush. She'll be here."

Cillian relaxed only a moment into the touch before shrugging it off. Every muscle tensed, every inch of his skin prickled with the thorns of his anticipation. It had been weeks already since he'd been granted the word his application for a Handmaiden had been approved. A full fortnight since he'd had the letter stating she'd arrive on this evening's last train to Pevensie Station. He should've ordered another train. He would've, had he the power to do so, but even his father the king would've been hard-pressed to change the running of the trains.

"She's late," he said flatly. "I'm most displeased." Alaric, for all he was a fool, was also a very good friend. He crept close again, this time to rub Cillian's shoulders. Cillian allowed Alaric to push him into a chair and hand him a glass of sweet red wine before he dug again into the knots in Cillian's neck and back.

"She'll be here. The Order said she'd come. They don't lie." Cillian groaned, tilting his head to allow Alaric to get at the sorest spots. "By the Void, Alaric, I'm half mad with the waiting."

Alaric chuckled low, and bent to kiss the top of Cillian's head before taking his own chair and cup again. "You're half mad from many things, my prince. You can't blame the waiting."

"I could have you thrown in gaol for saying so."

Alaric's eyes gleamed, and Cillian's jaw tightened again at the sight of his friend's unflappable good humor. But he couldn't stay angry with Alaric for long, not when the fool was Cillian's dear friend. His only dear friend, since Edward had refused even the king's command to come to court. He'd abandoned Cillian entirely this past sixmonth.

"She'll be here, Cilly."

"Don't call me that. That prat Persis thought to make a pet of me with that name." Alaric understood him only half as well as Edward ever had, but it proved to be enough.

"And you are nobody's pet."

"Indeed. More wine."

Cillian held out his cup, and Alaric filled it, and together they drank in silence, each taken up with the importance of his own thoughts until Cillian could take it no longer and leaped to his feet once more. He drained his glass, and in a fit, tossed it into the fire where it didn't have the grace to shatter nicely but cracked and scattered the drops to make the fire sizzle. Even that would insist on balking him?

"My lord prince." Bertram, Cillian's man, shifted from foot to foot in the doorway.

"Pleading your mercy, m'lord, but I've been to the train, wot she weren't on it." Cillian meant to fair rend the air with his curses, but naught would come from his lips. Instead, he found himself on his knees on the cold, hard floor, face cradled in his hands. She had not come. Again, she had not come.

"Go back and wait for her, idiot," Alaric said quietly to Bertram before kneeling by Cillian's side. "Let me put you to bed."

"No." Cillian shook his head. "I'm not overdrunk on wine, Alaric. I'm merely . . . I . . ."

"I know." Alaric put a strong hand around his shoulders and gave a squeeze. "You want. I know."

Cillian raised his head and gave his friend a steady glare. "You presume to know what I want?"

"I presume to know you." Alaric let go and got to his feet, offering Cillian a hand he took to get up. "And I know a bit about wanting."

"But you have what you want. I lack for nothing, and yet I remain unsatisfied." Cillian swallowed against the dreadful lump in his throat and tried in vain to shake off his disappointment.

Weeks and days he'd been waiting, certain his torment would ease as soon as his Handmaiden arrived. He'd forgone his daily visits to the playroom in anticipation of her. And yet, though he'd been promised her solace, he had yet another day to wait for it. It was not to be borne!

"Go away, Alaric. Go seek your lady's bed, lest she find it cold and choose to warm it with another. Leave me alone."

Alaric sighed and gave Cillian a half bow that wasn't even mocking. "My lady has bid me leave to stay until you have no more need of me."

This raised Cillian's brow. Lady Larissa did not grant her favors easily, but once granted, she did not release them. "Larissa has bid you serve me instead of her?" Alaric, with his fair hair and coloring, could do little to hide the heat in his cheeks. "Not... to serve you, Cillian. Not that way."

Cillian's brow inched higher and he crossed his arms over his chest. "Indeed? And what if that's the sort of service I should require?"

Alaric blushed, but now recovering quickly, he gave Cillian a shameless, provoking grin.

"I'm not your flavor, and you know it."

Cillian sniffed. "You have no rein to poke at me just because you're my boon companion."

"I'm not poking, truly." Alaric looked contrite. "It's only that. . . well. Since Edward has taken his leave—"

"Speak not his name to me." Cillian put a hand over his heart, where the pain sliced deepest. "I am the Prince of Firth. I command whom I please. It's not my pleasure to force Lord Delaw into my presence if he wishes not to be in it." Alaric nodded and made another half bow. "I know."

"You claim to know too much!" Cillian snapped and turned on his heel, already unbuttoning his wasted waistcoat and ringing for his fetchencarry. "Go home to your mistress or to your own hand for all I care, Alaric. Just go." Alaric left without another word.

Cillian paced, muttering curses for every moment it took Renzell to arrive. The man would insist upon taking his bedamned time, no matter the consequences. It came from being too soft on him, Cillian thought with a curl of his lip. Mayhaps the man would leap more quickly to his master's command if he'd felt the strap once or twice. Even the prospect of that didn't please him, and Cillian satisfied himself with breaking glass after glass in the fire, where the shards glittered and gleamed and refused to melt. He'd raised the last glass when Renzell at last bustled in.

"M'lord," Renzell said. "She's not arrived yet, eh? Late? Would m'lord like me to lay out his nightclothes, then, m'lord?"

At the man's inane and cheerful rush of words, Cillian drew in a breath, and then another, and put aside further thoughts of beating the idiot into some semblance of submission. He would own being irritable, tempestuous. Even difficult. But he refused to become the monster Edward accused him of being.

"Lay out my oxenhide trousers. I'll be in my playroom for the next few hours." Renzell nodded and bustled around while Cillian resisted pacing in front of the fire. The man was fast but not efficient, taking many steps when one would suffice, but at last he'd laid out the clothes Cillian required and helped him out of the ones he'd worn to greet the Handmaiden.

"Would m'lord like the maids to draw a bath for him, later?" Cillian closed his eyes, briefly, and bit back a harsh reply. "Of course." What he wanted more than anything was not to need to tell anyone what he wanted. To come back from taking his pleasure in the playroom and find all he wanted in readiness for him. What he yearned for, indeed, what he craved, was to have someone who knew his every wish before he made it, and one who'd do her best to grant it.

"And a meal, m'lord?"

Renzell was not the brightest burning taper in the candelabra, but again, Cillian forced back a sharp retort. Edward was not there to see his efforts or appreciate them, but. . . Cillian tried anyway. "Yes, Renzell. A meal. I'm sure I'll be fair famished." Renzell offered a bright, cheery, and utterly loathsome grin. "Anything else, m'lord prince?"

Cillian remained stripped to the waist but pulled on his black trousers. Velvet-soft oxenhide, treated against moisture and stains, they were one of the few garments he owned for practicality, he thought, for once not overproud of his frivolity, but half disgusted with his own excess.

"That will be sufficient, Renzell."

He didn't wait for more inane babbling. The fetchencarry would go on, if allowed. No matter how many times Cillian had screamed at him or threatened to take a crop to his back, the man simply never broke. It would have been more inconvenient if Cillian hadn't been too lazy to train a new body servant every other fortnight. As it was, he'd had to holler himself hoarse enough to need honeyed tea at least thrice a week, and Renzell continued his service without changing the manner in which he provided it. The playroom would have to soothe him, since there was no Handmaiden to do it, and after so many days without that release, his blood thrummed in fierce anticipation. Cillian took the back stairs, bare and wooden and without decoration. A servant's staircase, meant for the passage of staff to keep them from the eyes of nobles who wished not to be bothered with mundanities such as who did their laundry and emptied their chamber pots. These stairs weren't meant for princely feet, and Cillian took great pleasure in using them. The old man would have a fit should he learn his only son was traipsing about the servants' corridor, but then again, he pretended he didn't know about the playroom. Both facts would cancel out the other.

The door flung open on well-greased hinges, and inside, the women Cillian had procured looked up from their various activities. He gave them anything they needed to occupy themselves whilst he was not here. Embroidery, cards, paper-folding. Ladies' pastimes with which most of them had never occupied themselves before his employ. Female all of them, but ladies none.

A sweet, chirping chorus of "my lord prince" greeted him and sought to tug a smile to his lips. The door closed behind him, and Cillian breathed in deep and long. The scents of ironwood, rose oil, and the salves his women used mingled with the odor of desire created a pungent miasma he lifted his head to capture as deeply as he could. Here he was the master, and not for the crown upon his head but for the rod he wielded. Here he was given everything without being asked for anything in return. Here, in this place, with these women, Cillian need not curb his temper, bite his tongue, rein his hand. Every one of them had been chosen not for their physical perfections, for indeed many of Cillian's hareem women wore the evidence of hard living on their faces and bodies, but for something more lovely to him. Their desire to serve him in any way he deemed fit, and their utter and unrelenting pleasure in doing so.

Here he need be nothing more than a man, no matter how much a prince they made him with their obedience.

"Beauties," Cillian said and opened his arms to embrace them all at once. "Who is first?" he train was more than late, it did not arrive at all. Ten miles out of Pevensie station, the cars shuddered to a halt, the metal wheels shrieking. The scent of burning hair filled the cabin in which

Honesty had been riding, and the people around her shook their heads, muttering when she covered her nose with her sleeve.

"It's an odenbeast," said one elderly gentleman with a sigh and a shake of his newsprint.

"They've gone wild in this part of Firth since the prince declared their hides are no longer in fashion. Nobody hunts them any longer. They get on the tracks, the bloody great stupid things. The train's hit it."

Honesty had never heard of such a thing, even from the most backward of provinces. In her home province of Bellora the train system had been elevated, in fact, to prevent such mishaps, but she didn't point that out. She hadn't been to Bellora in a long time. The odenbeast on the tracks had necessitated an entire removal crew to come out from the station, and they seemed in no rush. Nobody on the train seemed to find this a matter of consequence. Honesty, however, had been traveling for several days nonstop. She hadn't eaten a full meal since luncheon the day before and that had been a pocket tart grabbed hastily as she ran from one train to the next.