Pleasure and Purpose (24 page)

"I don't disagree with you." She settled against the edge of the window seat and watched him. "But you've fumble fingers, and I was only trying to help."

'Will helping me with my clothes get another Arrow in the Quiver?" He sounded snide and had meant to, but if Honesty took umbrage she showed no sign.

"It might help us get to dinner sooner rather than later, and since my stomach is empty, that's more important at the moment."

She had such a way of diffusing him. The only thing that had done so previously was time spent in his playroom with a flogger in his fist and a sweet, honey-skinned cunna begging for its kiss. He hadn't been there in weeks, though even now the thought of a sweat-slick leather handle in his palm had his cock to twitching. He'd spent longer periods of time away from the pleasures of his hareem, but not in recent memory. Cillian fussed with the soft fabric and jerked it free, then tossed it to the floor. He'd go without. Likewise with the lace at his cuffs, which bound them too much like shackles for his taste tonight.

"Cillian, you're as skittish as a colt. Stop and take a breath. Surely you're not overanxious about taking dinner with your friend?

No matter what might have happened in the past, it must be time to put that all aside." He wouldn't take a breath, if only because she'd said to do so. He stared at his face in the mirror and wondered if the man he saw there would ever be the one he'd imagined himself as becoming when he was a lad.

"Cillian. A disagreement is nothing to friends such as yourselves." He wasn't the one who'd held on to the past as an excuse to keep Edward distant from him. He'd clung to it as proof of his love, and look what it had gained him. Naught but a cold cell and his father's disdain and the taint of madness overhanging him. And yet he still loved Edward for the boy he'd been and the man he'd become, even if Cillian hadn't joined him.

He looked again into the mirror and gestured at the fallen lace for her to aid him. She fussed with it, arranging the fall at his throat with expert fingers and stepping back to admire her work. At her low murmur of approval, he looked at her face.

"I love him. I have ever loved him, from the first moment he thrashed me for picking on Alaric."

She nodded. "Sometimes our best friends are the ones we meet as children."

"We weren't children."

"Boys, then." She stepped back to look him over. "There. Lovely. You are fair gorgeous, Cillian, but you know that."

"The mirror has said so as well as many others." There was no sense in denying it. He'd been patched together of his parents' best features and had had the benefit of good food and a medicus on call for any ailment. Not even a pit marked any of his teeth.

"Well, I say it now." Honesty turned him to face her and smoothed the fabric at his throat once more.

She stood on her toes to reach his mouth. Her kiss barely brushed him, but he pulled her closer. Her warmth filled his arms. He traced the outline of her breast through her gown. She shuddered, eyes fluttering closed again, and he smiled. "You don't lie."

"No." She shook her head.

The door opened to admit Bertram. "My lord. The carriage is ready." Cillian looked down at the woman in his arms and released her to offer her an elbow.

"Lady? Might I escort you to dinner?"

Her smile gave him the answer.

Edward Delaw served the meal in low style, which meant they didn't need to keep court manners, and that was fine with Honesty. The meal was casual but delicious and served intimately in the parlor rather than a formal room, and the wine flowed freely. Cillian had given Edward the head of the table, which seemed to surprise the other man though he'd made no comment.

Edward's wife had been the one to start and keep the conversation moving with gentle anecdotes about life on their estate and the weather as well as commentary on the recipes the cook had used. All soft topics. Honesty knew at once what her Sister-in-Service was doing, for she'd have done the same had she been the mistress of the table and not a guest. The men, for their part, kept tight mouths at first, each speaking to the women and ignoring the other until at last Stillness pushed back from the table with sigh and patted her rounded belly.

"My goodness, if I eat another bite, I fear I'll explode." Edward frowned and leaned toward his wife. "Do you need to lay down, sweetness?"

Stillness threw him a fond glance but gave Honesty a knowing look. "No, husband. I'm merely overfull and would seek something entertaining to keep me from forcing another bite of this delicious dessert. I want more, you know."

He laughed, though the crease in his brow didn't ease. He would be an interesting man to serve, Honesty thought, watching him get up from the table. Different from Cillian and yet very much alike, though she doubted either would admit to it.

Well, perhaps Cillian would, she amended, seeing the way her patron watched Edward with a burning gaze when he thought the other man couldn't see. Cillian would have them be as brothers, she thought, not even mere brothers of the heart but as close as brothers of blood. The prince blinked and studied his glass of wine when Edward looked up. Emotion twinged deep inside her at the sight of her patron's thinned mouth and clenched fingers. Cillian was hurting, and for this she had no solace.

"My wife needs to leave the table. Thank you for coming," Edward said stiffly to Cillian. To Honesty he gave a softer smile. "And you, lady."

"Edward!" Stillness looked stunned. "Surely you're not sending our guests away now?"

"I'd thought—"

"We can go, if Edward wishes." Cillian spoke quietly, his eyes lifting now to seek Edward's own. "We don't wish to overstay our welcome."

For the first time since their arrival, Edward really looked at Cillian. For the span of several heartbeats the men stared at one another until Edward nodded once, stiffly. His gaze went from Cillian to Stillness and back again, then briefly to Honesty, where it hung for another long moment before returning to his old friend.

"If my lady wife wishes you to stay on for some after dinner en-tertainment, far be it from me to counter her desires. Stay, Cillian. If you like." Honesty had watched the silent exchange and now listened to Edward's tone. She, too, looked at Stillness who, despite her earlier nonchalance, had sat on the edge of her chair with her back stiff as though she expected her husband to do just as he'd said he would not. Honesty, watching them all, understood what they all had known and she hadn't. Cillian had been with Stillness.

"My love, I've had Margera lay in a supply of that fine Alyrian brandy you so enjoy. Take our prince to the library and lay out the cards. I would speak to my Sister-in-Service alone for a bit." Stillness tempered the words, which could easily have been read as a command, with a gentle smile that had Edward fair twitching to leap to do her bidding. He shot Cillian an assessing glance but gestured. "C'mon then. My lady wife wishes to be alone with your Handmaiden. We'll let the women talk. And ... I think we have much to speak on, ourselves."

Relief skittered swiftly across Cillian's face, so swift any who didn't know him well might have mistaken it for something else. Edward saw it, Honesty could tell. Stillness saw it, too. For the first time, Honesty wondered if what she thought she knew about Edward's reasons for abandoning his friend was the entire reason behind their falling out. Stillness waited until the men had left before sitting back again in her chair with a heavy sigh. She reached for the laces at the front of her gown and tugged them open until the bounty of her breasts and belly, still covered by the shift beneath her gown, surged forth. She ran her hands over them and sighed again.

"My husband would be certain I remain modestly covered in front of our guests, but I swear I'm fair to bursting in this gown. This babes not due to arrive for another few months but I swear soon I'll be forced to go 'round in naught but my shift the whole day." She laughed.

Honesty sipped a final mouthful of dessert wine and sat back herself. "He fears for your health."

Stillness's smile faded. "Aye. He does."

"While you fear for the babe itself and care less for your own well-being." Honesty ran a fork through the remains of the fruit crumble, decided she couldn't resist the last bite, and took it.

Stillness nodded. "You are well named."

Honesty shrugged. "Have you ever known one of us to be anything less?" The women stared at each other in silence that needed no words. No matter how long out of service a Handmaiden might be, or how short a time she served, nobody else could understand what it was like to be bound to the Order except another who'd done the same.

"I would have news, if you have it. I haven't been to the Motherhouse in a long time."

"Nor I." Honesty described her last assignment and the swift rush to place her with the Prince of Firth.

Stillness looked surprised. "Unusual but not unheard of, I suppose. To place you so quickly into another's service means the patron is in great need."

"Or has great wealth," Honesty said.

"The Order has threads in many tapestries," Stillness replied after a moment. She looked toward the double sliding doors through which the men had gone, her head tilted as if to listen for laughter . . . or shouts. "Our prince is not part of an intrigue, as best I know. He's ever avoided such pastimes, so far as Edward has ever said." Honesty had heard tales of the Order's political influence, but they'd been rumors and whispers only. She'd never had reason to believe the Order of Solace had any intentions beyond the faith. "I haven't been with him long enough to know, but I've seen no evidence of his interest in politics beyond what his position requires." Stillness sighed and leaned forward over the mound of her stomach to scrape the plate clean of syrup with her spoon. She tucked it into her mouth with a happy sound. "Even so, you've done him good."

"You know him well enough to see a difference?" Her answer came sharper than she'd meant it, but Stillness didn't seem to take offense.

Stillness licked her spoon and contemplated it a minute before setting it down. "I don't. But I know Edward, and he's seen a change. He wouldn't have agreed to this dinner otherwise. He wouldn't be in that room with Cillian now if he hadn't." Still no sound of male voices raised in laughter came from the library, but at least neither had they erupted into a fight—unless it was the silent sort, and Honesty didn't imagine either of them to be the kind to argue in whispers.

"What happened between them?"

The other woman's brow furrowed briefly. "You don't know?"

"I know he and Edward were schoolmates. I know they were great friends. I know Cillian loved him. Did . . . was it improper in Edward's eyes? Did Cillian make an offer to him that Edward couldn't accept?"

Stillness laughed softly. "Do you mean did our prince try to make love to my husband and was rejected?"

"It's ruined friendships aplenty," Honesty said.

Stillness looked at her plate and traced a design in the remains of her dessert with her fork before looking up at Honesty again. "Were you not informed of your patron's history before being sent to him? I can't imagine the Order sending you to him without some sort of. . . warning."

That sounded more ominous than she'd expected. Unusual heat crept up the column of Honesty's throat to warm her face as she thought of her hand-trunk and the sheaf of documents, ignored, within. "I was given only the barest information by the Mother-in-Service who told me of the assignment. I was given his materials, but. . ." There was no sense in lying. "I didn't read them."

Stillness's jaw dropped, just a fraction, before she recovered. "Oh. Well. Sister, I would like to share with you all I know but it's not my place to tell his tale. You must ask Cillian himself. Or read what you were given. I can't think . . . Sister, how did you hope to grant him solace if you didn't know about his reasons for needing your

Honesty sighed. "I didn't want to. I'm tired. I wanted simply to . . . go home. And when I decided to stay, it seemed I already knew him well enough without a bunch of papers that could tell me his every visit to the medicus and nothing about who he really is." Stillness nodded after a moment, as though she understood. "Even so, you haven't left him. And you've been good for him. You changed your mind, at least enough."

"I did." At last from inside the library came a burst of laughter, muted and hesitant, but more reassuring than the silence had been. Honesty looked at Stillness. "So their estrangement had nothing to do with you?"

Stillness laughed again with a duck of her head. "Oh, my. Well, I suppose that might have been part of it. Edward and Cillian had long been parted, though Edward had taken on an assignment from the king to watch over him."

"As though he were a child?" Honesty frowned. "Cillian is willful, but he's never seemed to need taking care of, to me."

There'd been a man in her father's house who'd been kicked in the head by a horse. Though his body had aged, his mind never had, and though to anyone who didn't know him he seemed fine,

the briefest conversation revealed him to be damaged. "Was he in an accident? Is that the reason for his mood swings and the anger?"

"Sister," Stillness said after a pause, "you should read what the Order gave you or ask him yourself."

Of course she must, and it was long overdue. Honesty nodded and got up from the table.

"I thank you for your hospitality. Your home is lovely. Best wishes on the child." Stillness sighed, her hands on her belly. "Thank you. There are days the birth can't come soon enough. And others I wish to stay this way forever, if only so that I need not worry about what might happen after the babe is born."

Honesty had often wondered what had become of her own child, raised as another mans son and never as her own. "I'm going to see what's happening in the library. Will you come?"

"In a moment. I need to relace." Stillness indicated the front of her gown. "And it will take me long enough to heave my weight from the chair. You go. I'm sure all is well, Honesty. They only needed a reason to forgive one another."