Pleasure and Purpose (38 page)

Mina drew it out, that sweet, slow twist of time before she touched him again. This time, she grasped him harder, and instead of applying only pressure to the tight ring of muscles, she entered him. He thought for sure he'd cry out, there seemed no other way for the force of his reaction to be expressed, but all that slipped from his lips was a sigh.

"I will never do anything to cause you harm, Alaric. You must tell me if there is anything I do you cannot stand. I am not much interested in pain for its own sake, but there is much some call pleasure and others cannot abide." Her finger slid deeper inside him to stroke a hidden place that sent lightning shocks of desire exploding inside him. "You must tell me if anything I require is too much."

He'd never been fucked this way; never fucked another that way either though amongst the group of young lords Cillian had ever kept 'round him this sort of play was common enough. He'd taken his pleasure with men more than once, but this . . . this was something so different and unexpected he could only bite the sheet beneath him and thrust forward into her hand.

Alaric closed his eyes and gave up to her touch. Mina used both her hands in tandem, and the bed dipped as she moved behind him. With every thrust, he felt the press of her belly against his buttocks as she moved inside and around him. She'd taken the man's place in the bed, but nothing she did made him feel less masculine. He'd never felt more a man than at this moment, giving up everything because she asked it of him. Alaric was fair certain he'd spill into her grip as quickly as a boy with his first woman, but Mina knew how to stretch out his pleasure, to keep him on the edge of desire for so long he lost track of all time. The world narrowed to her murmuring voice and her touch. His body became her instrument and she played him with infinite skill. She made him senseless with desire. Words fell from his mouth, one not matching the next. Compliments, then curses, and finally, pleas for release. Each time he felt he could hold back no longer, she changed her stroke to keep him from it.

"Please," he panted, finally, hoarsely, gasping in a breath. It took only two strokes after that for her to finish him. He spurted violently into her hand as his body convulsed. Behind his closed eyes bright sparks flashed and universes were created. He lost his breath and found it. He collapsed onto his belly on the bed, spent. Some moments later her touch on his shoulder turned him onto his back. Mina, smiling, had brought a cloth and basin of warm water. She cleaned him thoroughly and set the cloth and basin aside, then stretched out beside him, naked.

He thought he should speak but had used his words too freely before. Now only silence left his lips. Mina hushed him once more as though she knew he meant to speak, and Alaric stopped trying for a while.

"Is this absolute solace?" he asked at last when sense returned. Mina laughed into his ear. "If sexual release was all it took to provide it, do you not think I'd have provided it and been gone already?"

He tried to rouse himself to sit but, boneless and sated, could only pull her closer to press a kiss to her temple. "How can you be so certain? Maybe I'm such a simpleton that's all it takes."

"The next time you refer to yourself as a simpleton, Alaric, I will punish you, and I assure you it will not be in a manner you'll enjoy."

He had no doubts she would. "But. . . how do you know, really? When it happens?"

"Absolute solace is not some magical, mystical event," Mina told him. "There's no sudden spark or divination that determines it. The fact you're asking me if you've achieved it means you haven't, that's all. When it happens, you'll know. And I'll know."

"Have you ever been wrong?"

"No."

"Not once?"

He wouldn't have blamed her had his questions put a frown on her lips, but Mina only stroked his hair back from his face. "No, Alaric."

"Have you ever . . . failed?" He'd failed at much in life and wouldn't judge her for it.

"Not often. But yes. Of course. There are some who sought my services for the wrong reasons. They'd lied to themselves, so it was impossible for them not to lie to me. And I'm neither mystical nor magical myself. Nor perfect."

"You are as close to perfection as any lady I've ever met," he said sincerely, and she touched his face again.

"Since I find false modesty offensive, I will not disagree except to say I will accept being practically perfect, if not ultimately."

His cock lay soft on his thigh and he touched it briefly. "Still, it had to be a start."

"Mmmm," Mina said, which he couldn't tell was concurrence or dissent.

"Thank you for it, at any rate."

She laughed again and kissed his shoulder. "Did you think I would keep on allowing you to bring me such pleasure without ever returning the favor?"

"You could have," he said, thinking of Larissa.

Mina's laugh became a sigh. "It was time."

Sleep tempted him but didn't overtake him at once. He managed to pull a blanket over them both to ward off the chill. With

Mina in his arms he thought he might sleep well for the first time in months.

"Tomorrow, you shall go to court and attend your king so that you might present him with the results of your efforts."

He sat, refusal on his tongue. At the sight of her expression, he stilled it. It had been overlong since he'd gone to court, since he'd performed the duties of his position, few as they might be.

"If for no other reason than to prove the king's enemies wrong about his choices," she continued.

"Who speaks out against Cillian?" Alaric thought he must know already. Devain had ever been against the prince before he took his father's place, and though the man had been tossed into prison for his attempts to overthrow the succession, he'd had many supporters.

"And how do you . . . never mind."

He should know better than to ask how Mina knew anything,

"He shouldn't have given me the position of minister."

"Since there have been kings there have been men put into positions because of friendship and not value, Alaric."

A flash of irritation bent his mouth. "You agree? And yet you tell me not to call myself simpleton."

"Because you're not," Mina said. "And I didn't say I agreed with you. I'm saying you must attend court so that you might prove wrong those who speak against your friend. After what he's done for you, it's the least you can do."

Nothing she'd done so far had shamed him, but these words did. "Has he suffered because of me?"

"Suffered? Your friend seems fair immune to suffering such minor stings as snide remarks, but I daresay your persistent absence has hurt him. He's worried about you, as is Edward, whom you've also been ignoring. And him with a new son to coo over." She'd given him no new truths, but having her say them meant he couldn't easily continue to ignore them. "You're right."

"Of course I am."

He lay down again and she tucked herself up close beside him. The slowing pattern of his breath soon matched hers. Sleep was not so tempting this time.

He thought of the man with the jeweled case and for the first time in days the craving woke inside him. "If I attend court, I'll be expected to appear at evening entertainments, as well."

"And what a merry time we shall have," she murmured sleepily.

"There will be people there I don't wish to see."

Mina slung a leg over his and kissed his shoulder. "I'll be with you. Knowing it did ease some of his worry. What she said next took away the rest.

"It pleased me to have you call me your lady," Mina said. And then at last, Alaric was able to find sleep.

There would always be those who stared, Mina thought without a blink to betray she was even paying attention to the way heads turned as she passed. Her high-necked, long-sleeved gown, with its buttons from throat to floor, stood out amongst the dresses of sateen and frothing lace. Add to it the fact that her attire was more than merely out of fashion but marked her profession, and she couldn't be surprised at the attention being paid to her.

There would also, she mused, ever be those who chose to be unkind rather than silent. For them, however, she had even less interest in response. She didn't need a title or a family line to outrank all of them. She was a Handmaiden and above their petty comments.

Alaric had called her bolder than the Sisters he'd previously met, but Mina wasn't particularly bold in public. She drew enough attention simply walking into a room; she'd gain nothing by behaving in any manner designed to create more. And it wouldn't serve her patron to cause a scene, no matter how many insults came to her ears in voices making mockery of whispers.

Alaric had performed superbly earlier at court. Any who found fault with his discussions on the current import and export laws being written would have done so only from spite, for his every suggestion had made sense and been backed by scads of documentation. Even Cillian had been fair impressed, clapping Alaric's shoulder and grinning with bared teeth at the lords who made to oppose them.

Mina hadn't, of course, taken part in any of the work, but had been there for every glance Alaric gave her. There'd been fewer as the hours wore on. He'd needed her less. And such was how it was meant to go, she thought now as court dispersed and the lords and ladies who'd lingered with nothing to do but gossip made to leave. She was meant to bolster him so he could stand on his own. No matter how much they both enjoyed each other's company, it wasn't meant to be forever.

Alaric, flushed and laughing, was bent in conversation with Cillian. The men drew envious glances and she heard mutters of favoritism from a few, but there were many who'd left the room praising the work done that day.

There'd be more to do, of course, more than Mina cared to think on, for politics and the working of government held little appeal for her. She learned what was necessary, and that was all. Still, it satisfied her to watch the pair of them, golden head and amber, talking with such affection. It would do Alaric more good than anything to be back in the bosom of his friends again. Better even than the release of climax, she thought with a small smile.

"Look at him prattle on as though anyone but his school chum could bear to pay attention."

Mina didn't turn her head at the snide, feminine tone. She didn't have to see the speaker's face to guess the look of it. A pinch-mouthed, narrow-eyed huss, no doubt. Too bitter and too convinced of her own worth to keep her meanness to herself.

"One might become convinced he's actually managed to teach himself somewhat of business," continued the voice.

Mina turned. She knew the Lady Larissa not from her portrait, which in truth had been painted with a more favorable hand than she deserved. In reality the cut of the lady's lips and ridge of her nose created a much sharper-edged beauty. Her hairstyle belonged on a much younger woman and her clothes, though costly and well-tailored, also hinted at pretentiousness.

Or else, Mina admitted to herself, she could simply not form a decent opinion of the lady, knowing what she knew.

"I don't believe we've met." Women didn't shake hands as men did, so Larissa flicked her fan in Mina's direction. "You're the Handmaiden."

Woman I begin and woman I shall end, Mina thought. It was never truer when facing another woman over a man. "I am. And you are?"

There must have been too few who dared put Larissa in her place, for that lady blinked rapidly as color stole into her fashionably powdered cheeks. She flicked her fan again. Ridiculous, Mina thought. Fans are meant for heat and evenings, and we are having neither.

"I am Larissa Darshan."

Mina said nothing.

Over Larissa's shoulder she saw Alaric, stopped by the same weasel-faced man who'd accosted him in the gardens a fortnight before. They'd bent their heads together over something Mina couldn't see. Larissa shifted to block Mina's view of anything but herself.

"You think you have him," Larissa sniffed, "but you don't. Not if I want him back." Mina had ever faced jealous lovers with compassion, for it couldn't be easy knowing they'd failed the person they claimed to

love. For Larissa she had only contempt and didn't bother to hide it. Apparently the woman was unused to seeing it, for she actually took a step back and closed her fan with a snap.

"I am a Handmaiden," Mina said. "I need not squabble over the favors of my patron with the likes of you."

Larissa staggered as though she'd been struck. She put a hand to her heart, and her cheeks flamed like fire. Mina took a dangerous amount of enjoyment from the sight.

"And even if you want him back," Mina said, "you can't have him." The metal box rested against the skin of Alaric's belly. It scratched with every movement. He couldn't stop thinking about it.

He'd not been sick in days, too busy with the tasks set him first by Mina and then by Cillian. He'd discovered much about himself, as well: for example, that he wasn't as dense with numbers as he'd always imagined. He'd taken to his work as Minister of Fashion and he'd taken to his private life as Mina's patron, which was far different from being anything he'd ever been to anyone.

"Just a hit," the stranger had said and offered the box. "You needn't overindulge. You can hold back. Can't you?"

And he could, indeed. Herb, worm, wine . . . these were the indulgences of gentlemen and not considered vices. He'd spent hours in the pleasant haze of intoxication. He could handle one, small dose of oblivion.

It would be sweet, he knew that. First the taste would flood his tongue, then heat would flood his veins. In another heartbeat, no more than two, he'd stand taller, walk a straighter line, pontificate with a brilliance that failed his normal mind.

With just one hit.

And then, after, when he came down, the sickness would come back twice as fiercely as it had before. The only way to stop that from happening would be to take another dose. And another.

For now, he satisfied himself with a glass of Cillian's fine wine. He took another to Mina, who'd declared she didn't dance, at least not in public and not unless it was necessary for her patron. He'd been unable to convince her a turn in the reel would benefit him, and she'd sent him to fetch her a full glass, instead.