Soul of the Fire (27 page)

The magistrate in Fairfield, the one for whom Dalton had once worked, was an admirer of the Minister of Culture, serving as he did at the Minister’s pleasure, and of course did not take lightly the theft from the Anderith Library of Culture. He recognized the theft for what it was: sedition. The researcher who had been caught with the book was swiftly put to death for cultural crimes against the Anderith people.

Far from quelling the scandal, this caused the air to become rampant with ugly rumors of a confession, taken before the man was put to death—a confession, it was said, that implicated others. The Director who had sent the man to the estate to do “research,” rather than be associated with a cultural crime, as a point of honor and in order to end speculation and innuendo, had resigned. Dalton, as the Minister’s official representative looking into the whole affair, after reluctantly taking the Director’s resignation, issued a statement discrediting the rumors of a confession, and officially closed the entire matter.

An old friend of Dalton’s had been fortunate enough to earn the appointment to the suddenly vacant seat for which he had been working nearly his whole life. Dalton had been the first to shake his hand, the hand of a new Director. A more grateful and joyous man Dalton had never met. Dalton was pleased by that, by seeing deserving people, people he loved and trusted, happy.

After the incident, Bertrand Chanboor decided his responsibilities required a closer working relationship with his aide, and designated Dalton as chief of staff as well as aide to the Minister, thus giving him authority over the entire household. Dalton now reported only to the Minister. The position had also accorded them their latest quarters—the finest on the estate other than those of the Minister himself.

Dalton thought Teresa had been even more pleased about it than he—if that was possible. She was in love with the apartment that came with the elevated authority. She was captivated by the people of noble standing among whom she now mingled. She was intoxicated with meeting important and powerful people who came to the estate.

Those guests, as well as people of the estate, treated Teresa with the deference due one of her high standing, despite the fact that most of them were nobly born and she, like Dalton, was well born but not noble. Dalton had always found matters of birth to be petty, and less consequential than some people thought, once they understood how auspicious allegiances could be considerably more significant to a providential life.

Across the room, Teresa cleared her throat. When Dalton turned from the desk, she lifted her nose and with noble grace and stepped out into the sitting room to display herself in her new dress.

His eyes widened. Displaying herself was exactly what she was doing.

The fabric glimmered dreamlike in the light from lamps, candles, and the low fire. Golden patterns of leafy designs swirled across a dark background. Gold-colored piping trimmed seams and edges, drawing attention to her narrow waist and voluptuous curves. The silk fabric of the skirt, like new wheat hugging every nuance of the rolling lowland hills, betrayed the shape of her curvaceous legs beneath.

But it was the neckline that had him speechless. Sweeping down from the ends of her shoulders, it plunged to an outrageous depth. The sight of her sensuous breasts so exposed had a profound effect on him, as a rousing as it was unsettling.

Teresa twirled around, showing off the dress, the deeply cut back, the way it sparkled in the light. With long strides Dalton crossed the room to catch her in his arms as she came back around the second time. She giggled to find herself trapped in his embrace. He bent to kiss her, but she pushed his face away.

“
Careful. I’ve spent hours painting my face. Don’t muss it, Dalton.”

She moaned helplessly against his mouth as he kissed her anyway. She seemed pleased with the effect she was having on him. He was pleased with the effect she was having on him.

Teresa pulled back. She reached up and tugged the sequined gold ribbons tied to her hair.

“
Sweetheart, does it look any longer yet?” she asked in a pleading voice. “It’s pure misery waiting for it to grow.”

With his new post and attendant new apartments, he was moving up in the world, becoming a man of power. With that new authority came the privileges of rank: his wife was allowed to wear longer hair to reflect her status.

Other wives in the household wore hair nearly to their shoulders; his wife would be no different, except perhaps that her hair would be just a little longer than all but a few other women in the house, or in the whole land of Anderith—for that matter, in the whole of the Midlands. She was married to an important man.

The thought washed through him with icy excitement, as it did from time to time when it really sank in just how far he had risen, and what he had attained.

Dalton Campbell intended this to be only the beginning. He intended to go further. He had plans. And he had the ear of a man with a lust for plans.

Among other things. But, no matter; Dalton could handle such petty matters. The Minister was simply taking the perks of his position.

“
Tess, darling, your hair is growing beautifully. If any woman looks down her nose at you for it not yet being longer, you just remember her name, for your hair in the end will be longer than any of theirs. When it finally grows, you can then revisit that name for recompense.”

Teresa bounced on the balls of her feet as she threw her arms around his neck. She squealed in giddy delight.

Intertwining her fingers behind his back, she peeked up at him with a coquettish look. “Do you like my dress?” To make her point, she pressed up against him while gazing into his eyes, watching deliberately as his gaze roamed lower.

In answer, he bent to her, and in one swift motion slipped his hand up under her silky skirt, along the inside of her leg, up to the bare flesh above her stockings. She gasped in mock surprise as his hand reached her private places.

Dalton kissed her again as he groped her. He was no longer thinking about taking her to the feast. He wanted to take her to the bed.

As he pushed her toward the bedroom, she squirmed out of his lustful grip. “Dalton! Don’t muss me, sweetheart. Everyone will see the wrinkles in my dress.”

“
I don’t think anyone will be looking at the wrinkles in the dress. I think they will be looking at what is spilling out of it.

“
Teresa, I don’t want you to wear such a thing anywhere but to greet your husband at the door upon his return home to you.”

She playfully swatted his shoulder. “Dalton, stop.”

“
I mean it.” He looked down her cleavage again. “Teresa, this dress is … it shows too much.”

She turned away. “Oh, Dalton, stop. You’re being silly. All the women are wearing such dresses nowadays.” She twirled to him, the flirt back on her face. “You aren’t jealous, are you? Having other men admire your wife?”

She was the one thing he had wanted more than power. Unlike everything else in his life, he entertained no invitations for understandings where Teresa was concerned. The spirits knew there were enough men at the estate who were admired, even envied, because they gained for themselves the courtesy of influence, inasmuch as their wives made themselves available to Minister Chanboor. Dalton Campbell was not one of them. He used his talent and wits to get where he was, not his wife’s body. That, too, gave him an edge over the others.

His forbearance was rapidly evaporating, leaving his tone less than indulgent. “And how will they know it to be my wife? Their eyes will never make it up to your face.”

“
Dalton, stop. You’re being insufferably stodgy. All the other women will be wearing dresses similar to this. It’s the style. You’re always so busy with your new job you don’t know anything about prevailing custom. I do.

“
Believe it or not, this dress is conservative compared to what others will be wearing. I wouldn’t wear a dress as revealing as theirs—I know how you get—but I don’t want to look out of place, either. No one will think anything of it, except that perhaps the wife of the Minister’s right-hand man is a tad prissy.”

No one was going to think her “prissy.” They were going to think she was proclaiming herself available to invitation.

“
Teresa, you can wear another. The red one with the V neck. You can still see … see enough of your cleavage. The red one is hardly prissy.”

She showed him her back, folding her arms in a pout. “I suppose you will be happy to have me to wear a homely dress, and have every other woman there whispering behind my back at how I dress like the wife of a lowly assistant to a magistrate. The red dress was what I wore when you were a nobody. I thought you would be happy to see me in my new dress, to see how your wife can fit in with the fashion of the important women here.

“
But now I’ll never fit in around here. I’ll be the stuffy wife of the Minister’s aide. No one will even want to talk to me. I’ll never have any friends.”

Dalton drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He watched her dab a knuckle at her nose. “Tess, is this really what the other women will be wearing at the feast?”

She spun around, beaming up at him. It occurred to him that it was not so unlike the way the Haken girl, down in the kitchen, had beamed at his invitation to meet the Minister of Culture.

“
Of course it’s like what the other women are wearing. Except that I’m not as bold as they, so it shows less. Oh, Dalton, you’ll see. You’ll be proud of me. I want to be a proper wife of the Minister’s aide. I want you to be proud. I’m proud of you. Only you, Dalton.

“
A wife is crucial to a man as important as you. I protect your station when you aren’t there. You don’t know what women can be like—petty, jealous, ambitious, scheming, treacherous, traitorous. One clever nasty word to their husband, and soon it’s on every tongue. I make sure that if there is a nasty word, it dies quickly, that none dare repeat it.”

He nodded; he knew full well that women brought their husbands information and gossip. “I suppose.”

“
You always said we were partners. You know how I protect you. You know how hard I work to make sure you fit in at each new place we go. You know I would never do anything to jeopardize what you’ve worked so hard to gain for us. You always told me how you would take me to the best places, and I would be accepted as the equal of any woman.

“
You’ve done as you promised, my husband. I always knew you would; that was why I agreed to marry you. Even though I always loved you, I would never have married you had I not believed in your future. We have only each other, Dalton.

“
Have I ever made a misstep when we went to a new place?”

“
No, Tess, you never have.”

“
Do you think I would recklessly do so, now, at a place as important as this? When you stand on the brink of true greatness?”

Teresa was the only one in whom he confided his audacious ambitions, his boldest plans. She knew what he intended, and she never derided him for it. She believed him.

“
No, Tess, you wouldn’t jeopardize all that. I know you wouldn’t.” He wiped a hand over his face as he sighed. “Wear the dress, if you think it proper. I will trust your judgment.”

The matter settled, she shoved him toward the dressing room. “Come on, now, change your clothes. Get ready. You will be the most handsome one there, I just know it. If there is any cause for jealously, it is I who will have it, for all the other wives will be green with envy that I have the prize of the household, and it is you who will get the whispered invitations.”

He turned her around and grasped her by the shoulders, waiting until she looked up into his eyes. “You just stay away from a man named Stein—Bertrand’s guest of honor. Keep your … your new dress out of his face. Understand?”

She nodded. “How will I know him?”

He released her shoulders and straightened. “It won’t be hard. He wears a cape of human scalps.”

Teresa gasped. “No.” She leaned closer. “The one you told me about, come from beyond the wilds to the south? From the Old World? Come to discuss our future allegiance?”

“
Yes. Stay away from him.”

She blinked again at such startling news. “How stimulating. I don’t know that anyone here has ever met such an interesting foreigner. He must be very important.”

“
He is an important man, a man with whom we will be discussing business, so I’d like not to have to slice him into little pieces for trying to force you to his bed. It would waste valuable time, waiting for the emperor to send another representative from the Old World.”

It was no idle boast, and she knew it. He studied the sword as intently as he studied the law. Dalton could behead a flea on a peach without disturbing the fuzz.

Teresa smirked. “He need not look my way, and he’ll not sleep alone tonight, either. There will be women fighting over the chance to be with so outrageous a man. Human scalps …” She shook her head at so astounding a notion. “The woman who wins his bed will be at the head of every invitation for months to come.”

“
Maybe they would like to invite a Haken girl to tell them how exciting and grand it was,” Dalton snapped.

“
Haken girl?” Teresa grunted dismissively at such whimsy. “I think not. Haken girls don’t count to those women.”

She turned once more to the important part of his news. “So, no decision has yet been made? We still don’t know if Anderith will stick with the Midlands, or if we will break and join with Emperor Jagang from the Old World?”