Pleasure and Purpose (35 page)

She Waited.

Most often Handmaidens Waited in a variety of kneeling positions, but Mina had never been the sort to kneel for any reason other than her own comfort. She drew in a breath and let one out and counted the stars of infinity in her mind. She opened her mind to emptiness and floated on it. Her body had been sated, which helped. She gave him the comfort of her silence and embrace.

"I know it's wrong to be so grateful for you," he whispered at last. "I know a man must needs stand on his feet and determine what path is best for him to take. I know this. And I have ever done so. But. . ."

Mina turned her face to press her lips to his shoulder. He tasted of sweat and the faintest residual tang of oblivion still rising from his pores. She gave a low, wordless hum. He buried his face deeper against her.

"Sometimes, it is of great relief to need not guess what is required of you. Yes?" He nodded then, and got to his feet to pace in front of her. Mina pushed her gown down to her ankles and watched him. The front of his trousers still bulged, but she didn't think he was thinking of his prick. Alaric ran a hand over his hair and his fingers caught, tangling.

"Yes. Yes, it is a relief. There is much expected of a man. Learn in school, gain a position. Take a wife." He laughed, bitterly, and didn't look at her. "Yet I've never had a head for schooling and my position in this court is because of the benevolence of my friend, not any skills I've ever had. And I can accept that, for it makes my parents happy to know their son has risen beyond what they could provide. What they still provide, as a matter of fact, with my yearly income."

He went to the window and looked out, one long arm stretched out above his head. "And I don't care, as others might, that I'm not smart or skilled or that I'll never gain great wealth from either."

She would've refuted his lack of intelligence or skill, but Mina only listened. Alaric turned, one hand splayed on his belly. "I will only ever be what I am."

"As will any of us," Mina told him.

"I have been so very, very stupid," Alaric said.

Mina got to her feet and offered her hand for his kiss. "Shhh. There are few mistakes that cannot be repaired."

He needn't, if he's not able." Cillian shook his head with a frown. "If he's not well."

"Alaric isn't ill," Mina said.

Edward shifted in his chair, one long leg crossing over the other. Shadows dusked his eyes and he hid more than one yawn behind his hand, the consequences, perhaps, of the child his wife had so recently borne. "Perhaps he's not suited for it, then." Mina lifted a brow to show him what she thought of that, and Edward shrugged. Cillian tapped the table with his pen, spattering ink over his clothes, his hands, the paper. Mina sighed and got up to hand him a blotting cloth, which he took with a startled glance.

"He's not ill, and he's suited to any task you should provide him, I think. He's certainly capable of it, at any rate. You did it, after all." Mina let her judgment rest on Cillian's shoulders.

The king, who had the far-reaching reputation of temper, didn't rise to her bait. His brow furrowed and he chewed at his lower lip. "I hated being the Minister of Fashion. I thought it a position my father fobbed off on me to keep me out of the way."

"Is that why you granted it to Alaric?"

Cillian and Edward exchanged looks, and Cillian nodded. "He wasn't. . . well. But I wanted him in my cabinet. You understand."

She didn't, not beyond the most limited knowledge of how such matters worked. Mina shrugged and fixed him with a steady gaze she wasn't surprised to note he ducked. "You gave him the position but allowed him to lie fallow in it. He's not done a lick of work on it, based on the papers I saw on his desk. He's done naught but wallow in his grief and self-indulgence. How could you, his friends, allow him to sink so low?" They shared another glance, those two men who fancied themselves lords but who were acting like lads. Mina bit back a smile at their shamed faces. These were men who ruled their households— one of them ruled a country, for Sinder's sake! And yet neither could look her in the eye.

"You must have thought it would be so simple," she mused aloud. "Having me come to clean him up, yes? It would be so much easier, and would set your minds at ease, to know you'd done whatever you could for him."

Edward, no longer yawning, frowned. "You should watch your tone.

"Should I?" Mina stood taller, lifted her chin, let her hands hang open at her sides. She didn't miss the way they both looked her over from neck to hem, how the severe lines of her costume impressed them no matter how they tried to hide it. She was far from their ideal woman, she had no trouble seeing that, but they respected her.

"You should, for no other reason than mercy." Cillian's quiet tone turned her toward him.

"I should grant you mercy from what? The knowledge you behaved badly, or that you were so caught up in your own lives you neglected a friend?" Mina's lip curled, just enough.

"We didn't mean for it to be that way. Have you never focused on yourself to the exclusion of others?" Edward leaned forward in his chair.

"I'm a Handmaiden. I do not exclude others in favor of myself." Cillian nodded. "And you're here to help him, yes? So help him. We want our friend back, that's all. The way he was."

"Not the way he was," Edward contradicted quietly. "None of us are the way we were. But yes, we'd like him back. He's been too long lost. And before you judge us again, I can tell you I do take responsibility for it. I know the part I played. But I feel helpless to do more than I've done."

Mina believed him. Both of them, actually, for both were sincere in their expressions of love for their friend. "If you love him, as you say, then you must insist he again take up his work. Give him an assignment as simple as balancing the accounts if you don't feel he's ready to leap into responsibility for writing new taxes. There are others in the Ministry of Fashion, yes? Working while he doesn't?"

"Alaric is my minister and as such has the right to appoint others to serve under him in the council, but he hasn't. All those who served me continue their work," Cillian said.

"Without the minister at work, how much has been accomplished?" Cillian gave her a rueful grin. "Not as much as needs finishing. I thought of the job as near to useless, but now I know better."

"So you do need him at work, then. It's not simply a throwaway job you granted him as your friend."

"Some would say so," Edward muttered, and Cillian shot him a look. Mina didn't know Edward's position in Cillian's cabinet, or if he had one beyond councilor and friend. Whatever he'd been assigned, however, it seemed assured he was competent enough at it. As Alaric would be, she knew, if only he found it necessary to be.

"I can do much with him, my lords, but I can't force him to attend to his duties to you."

"No?" Cillian arched a brow. "I would think you could force him to attend to anything you wished."

She smiled. "You know that's not true."

Edward smiled, too. "Perhaps Cillian only wishes to imagine it for his own pleasure." Cillian made a rude gesture, but Edward only smiled fondly. Watching them, Mina was struck by their closeness. Edward had a wife and Cillian was in the midst of the drawn-out dance surrounding a political engagement, but to look at them one might never know they were married. Not that she believed either to be unfaithful, merely that together, the pair had a closeness not all men shared.

"You three," she said, watching yet more closely. "You were close friends, yes?"

"The best," Cillian said stoutly, and at once.

"Not were. Are," Edward replied as firmly.

"But something happened. You're not as close as once you were." She pressed an unseen wound, and both men stole their glances from hers. "Think you Alaric's problems are not only because his mistress put him so cruelly from her?"

"Perhaps it could be said Alaric did ever wish for something . . . more," Edward allowed, grudgingly and without looking at her.

From Edward, then. Not from Cillian, who scowled and tapped his foot in its pretty shoe. Mina studied the dark-haired man thoroughly, not seeing what was so splendid it could command such love and loyalty from not just one man, but two . . . and from a former Sister, besides! He was handsome enough, and perhaps could be cordial, but so far as she was concerned his value had been vastly inflated.

"And did you tell him it couldn't be?"

Edward shook his head slowly and met her gaze. "I thought he understood."

"I'm sure he did. But that doesn't mean it felt any better to him. And then to give himself wholeheartedly to that woman, as you say he did. No wonder he despaired." Mina didn't quite shake her finger at die two of them, knowing they were men and only so much could be expected of them. "This is not solely for me to repair. I will do my best, but. . . woman I begin and woman I shall end. I'm not a magicreator."

"Nobody expects you to be!" Cillian cried, affronted.

Mina stared at him long and hard until high color crept into his cheeks. "You'd be surprised at how many people do."

Alaric looked up when Edward entered the room and his hand arrested itself at once in its journey across the top of the desk.

His fingers clenched hard on the cleaning rag. He wanted to toss it aside but kept it clutched tight. His chin lifted, waiting for Edward to take note.

Edward looked tired . . . and mussed. "Alaric." Alaric put down the cleaning cloth and dusted his hands. "Where's Mina?"

Edward had lied too few times to him for Alaric to be certain he was doing it now, but he thought his friend might be. "I don't know. I thought she'd be here with you?"

"No, she . . . left me here." She'd left him with strict instructions about what he must do while she was gone, but no mention of where she was going or when she'd return. He knew that game for what it was, and it had still lifted his cock with every passing minute, wondering if she'd be pleased when she came back.

Edward looked uncomfortable, as though he'd come upon Alaric in some sort of compromising position instead of polishing the wood of a desk. He shifted from foot to foot and looked every place but at his friend until finally, Alaric moved round the edge of the desk to stand directly in front of him.

"What fly's gotten into your guts?"

Edward still looked everywhere but at him. "I came to see how you were feeling." Alaric looked around the room, tidied and organized by his own hands to Mina's exacting specifications. He'd lived in these rooms long enough for them to become familiar, but he'd never quite come to feel they were his alone. Larissa had chosen them and encouraged him to petition the king for them, and she'd been the one to furnish them to her taste. Edward had rarely visited Alaric there, and seeing him now only accentuated Alaric's lack of attachment to them.

"Better. Thank you." He knew Edward couldn't ignore his friend's loose trousers or the lack of shirt.

Was that the reason for Edward's hot cheeks? His shifty gaze and shiftier stance? Alaric shifted his own gaze to try and catch Edward's but it eluded him.

"Good. That's good. Cillian sends his regards."

Alaric waited for more, but Edward went to the window and looked out, seemingly satisfied with silence. "You look tired. I'd think your lady wife would take better care of you than that. At least, she used to."

Edward's laugh was muffled. "She's been rather more busy taking care of our son, a more demanding man than I dare to be right now."

Alaric hadn't forgotten about Edward's son, but it had slipped his mind. "Your mercy, Edward. I should've sent my regards. I should've come to see you. Cillian said you'd had an open house to welcome the babe."

Edward turned, frowning. "You weren't well. I hold no grudge on it. You'll come see him as soon as you're . . . able."

Edward's hesitation and the dance of his words hurt worse than the craving for oblivion. Once, and not so long ago, he and Edward had been able to share anything and everything, had even been able to share thoughts without the need for words. By Sinder's Blue Balls, they'd even shared more than one woman, the last being the one now become Edward's wife.

Was that Edward's concern? That Alaric should visit them to pay his respects to Edward's wife and child but overstep his welcome with improper advances? That Edward might think such a thing churned Alaric's guts and angered him, as well. He joined Edward at the windowsill, leaning with one arm up to stare through the glass at the night falling beyond. Edward didn't inch away from him, but his body tensed. He kept his gaze on the scene outside, even when Alaric leaned closer.

"Edward, what by the Void is wrong with you?"

Edward kissed him.

Hard, and long, and unexpected, the kiss stole Alaric's breath and threatened to strangle him. In all the years he'd dreamed of such a thing, it had never felt like this. He must have gasped in shock, because in the next moment he tasted Edward's tongue, felt Edward's hand on the back of his neck as his friend pulled him closer. Stunned, Alaric couldn't even protest. His eyes fluttered closed and his hand came up to press on Edward's chest. Sanity returned with his next breath, and he pushed Edward away. "What the . . . why . . . what are you doing?"

Alaric touched his mouth, which felt bruised. Edward, breathing hard, tried to kiss him again. Alaric shoved him back and looked automatically toward the door, hoping he wouldn't see Mina watching.

Edward let out a slow, strangled sigh. "Alaric. I have ever been ... we have ever ... I am . .

."

It was so rare a thing to see Edward struggle so for words, Alaric could only watch for too long before he took pity on his friend. He put a hand over Edward's mouth, hushing him. Edward quieted, then put his hand over Alaric's and took it away but didn't let go.

"I plead your mercy, Alaric."

"For what?" His heart had beat in a thunder a few breaths before but now settled like stone inside his chest.

Edward blew out a ragged breath. "For never admitting I knew how you felt about me." A sudden, horrendous memory of school ripped through Alaric's mind, and he took a half-staggering step back. He'd been hiding beneath his covers, prick in his fist and breath coming fast, eyes closed, imagination filled with thoughts of Edward as he'd seen him only moments before, bare-chested and wet from the baths. Laughing. Hair falling too long over his eyes and being flung back with one hand while Cillian slapped at his arse with the edge of a towel. In his mind Edward had reached a hand to pull him close. In his mind, Edward's kiss had never made Alaric feel like this.