The Claiming (9 page)

“Surely you don’t mean to leave us all in suspense?”

Blane tried to look blank.

“Something odd?” Alain prompted.

To save his life, Blane could not think of anything he could substitute with the truth. “Uh … well I can’t recall exactly what it said now. That’s why I was going to go look for it.”

“The gist of it will suffice, I think,” Alain said, smiling, though Blane couldn’t help but notice the smile didn’t quite reach his hooded eyes.

“Oh … well it was something about an escaped slave.”

Jana turned the color of the table cloth.

Katryn laughed. “What in the world seemed strange about that? Why there are advertisements most every day about runaways!”

Alain said nothing at all. In fact, Blane could not help but notice that Alain was watching Jana with a sudden intensity that she might have found very disconcerting if she’d been in any condition to notice.

Blane forced a laugh. “Now that you mention it, it wasn’t the advertisement that seemed so odd. I just thought it was odd because it wasn’t in the advertisement section. It was in the personal section.”

Worse and worse! His tongue was going to dig his grave one of these days! He rose abruptly. “Well, if you’ll excuse me,” he muttered. Ignoring Alain’s glare at his rudeness, he strode from the room—and out the front door.

It was a cowardly retreat, but on the other hand he did not seem to be helping Jana a great deal by staying.

***

Jana was relieved beyond belief when Mrs. Knight and Katryn at last took their leave. They’d scarcely left when she excused herself on the grounds of having a headache. She'd very nearly made her escape when Alain detained her at the foot of the stairs and suggested they retire to his study to talk.

Jana hesitated, one foot poised on the first stair, more than half tempted to race to her room and bolt the door.

"Don't," Alain said warningly, almost as if he had read her mind.

Jana glanced quickly at him, startled.

"Shall we?" He offered his arm.

Chapter Five

Alain indicated the chair before his desk once they'd reached the study. Jana stared at it a moment, glanced rather wistfully towards the door and finally perched on the edge of the seat as if poised for flight.... Which she was.

Alain propped one hip on the edge of his desk and studied her, trying to organize his thoughts. He'd arrived home in a state of supreme irritation ... and been thrown completely off his stride.

Dees had met him with the intelligence that his companion had arrived by hauler and without baggage—implying that he, Alain, was so tightfisted that he had not provided for his companion’s comfort or dignity, which put him in the position of being judged and condemned without having had the opportunity even to defend himself. He’d been snubbed by the local society tyrants, which he’d found incomprehensible until he’d been scolded by one grandmotherly matron who’d felt duty bound to shame him about flouting acceptable behavior by choosing another companion when his first was hardly cold in the ground—and then topping it off by entertaining so lavishly.

Up until the point that he’d run into a group of Blane’s cronies, however, he had been more irritated than anything else, as irritated with the town busybodies as he was with Jana. Ten minutes in their company, though, had been sufficient to convince him that a major scandal was looming on his horizon. They were too obviously smitten with her charms, to his mind, for comfort, which had raised some rather ugly doubts about her virtuousness.

Under the circumstances—as there was no binding of affection on either side—he would’ve been willing to turn a blind eye to an occasional affair, so long as she used discretion, but discretion did not seem to be one of her virtues.

Still, he’d been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until he had the opportunity to judge for himself ... which was why he’d been enraged upon reaching the plantation to discover his brother, and his new companion, rolling about on the ground as if they could not contain themselves long enough to find a dark corner.

The scene he'd witnessed was harmless enough when viewed with a little objectivity … which had eluded him until he’d had time to speak to Blane, and allow his temper to cool.

He didn't think, deep down, that he'd truly believed, even for a moment, that Blane was philandering with his woman. Nor, once he accepted that fact, could he really say that there was anything about Jana's behavior that could be condemned. They'd behaved with the friendly intimacy of long standing friends, not lovers, teasing and squabbling very like fond siblings.

He still didn't like it.

He still didn't completely understand why he didn't like it.

But, most disturbing in a day of disturbing discoveries, was the fact that he was convinced that the woman sitting nervously before him was not the one he had contracted with and he no longer particularly cared that she wasn’t. One look at her had been like being struck by lightening, and he’d found himself well on the road to being as smitten with her as every other male in the county.

He found that he was far more interested in making certain his claim upon her was irrefutable and that she would not disappear as abruptly as she’d appeared. He just wasn’t certain how he might go about discovering who she really was and making sure his claim stuck.

Dragging his watch from the pocket of his vest, he flipped it open to glance absently at the time, then shut it with a snap and began to swing it idly by the chain.

"I heard some rather disquieting rumors when I returned to Savana," he began, studying her reaction from beneath hooded eyes. "Can you guess what they might be?"

Jana, who'd been examining her hands studiously, glanced up quickly.

"Rumors?" she asked cautiously, wondering how there could possibly be rumors about her circulating in town when she hadn't been there since she'd come.

Alain regarded her in silence for several moments and decided on a different tact. "You are aware, of course, that I contracted with you before my year of mourning was up," he began again.

Jana stared at him unblinkingly for a full minute while her thoughts darted off in a dozen different directions like a covey of startled birds. Dimly, she remembered Blane had mentioned something about this when he’d been trying to explain the rules of acceptable behavior in Orleans society. She nodded.

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Under the circumstances, don't you feel that your socializing … the little parties you've spent so much of your time organizing ... is a little premature?"

Jana’s eyes widened in surprise. "But I haven't been," she objected.

"There would hardly have been rumors to the contrary if you were living quietly."

"Well, I didn't say that ... precisely," Jana said cautiously, trying to decide how best to handle what was certain to be a delicate situation. She'd prepared herself to deal with another issue entirely, after all. She hadn't gotten around to preparing her defense for this offense yet.

"What, precisely, are you trying to get at in your very direct way?"

"It’s true that there have been a few little gatherings, but I had nothing to do with it."

Alain’s brows rose. “You’re saying Blane arranged these … little gatherings?”

“Uh … no.”

“So, you’re not guilty and Blane is not guilty, but there were ‘little gatherings’?”

Jana nodded.

“The just happened?” he asked dryly.

"They just came! Blane said you wouldn't like it at all, but he also said I couldn’t tell them not to come, or pretend I wasn’t home, and … they came."

Alain studied her for a long moment. “And you have no idea how all this came about?”

Jana thought it over. “Katryn and Judeau came first. They said that Dees had mentioned that you had … uh … a new compan—spouse. And then, a few days later, Katryn dropped by with a group of friends.”

Alain held up his hand. “Never mind. I get the picture,” Alain said grimly, realizing that his mistress, Judeau, and Katryn, whom he had never seriously courted, but who apparently had been under the impression that she would take his former companion’s place after a suitable period, had decided on stirring up a little mischief.

"And the young men?"

Her brows knit in puzzlement. "The young men?"

"Never mind," he said tiredly.

"Blane's friends? Do you mean they weren't supposed to visit here?"

"Never mind," he repeated. "I suppose I shall have to go elsewhere for my answers," he added thoughtfully, though he studied Jana in a way that made her feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Jana studied her hands, unable to meet his eyes, which had a disconcerting way of seeming to see right through to her thoughts.

She tried to decide whether it would be acceptable if she left now or not. He hadn't said she might go however, and she was loath to incur his wrath once more.

She was in no doubt that she had, despite the fact that he hadn’t stormed at her and cursed as Marty would have. Finally, she decided that she might just as well find out if he was still angry about the episode when he’d arrived. "I suppose you're still angry about the disagreement we had earlier?" she began questioningly.

"Which disagreement?" he asked dryly.

"The one about Blane and the bicycle."

"Ah," Alain said, allowing his watch to begin its swinging once more. "Tell me, Jana, do you have a penchant for trouble or does it simply follow you about?"

That was grossly unjust and Jana felt a surge of anger. "It follows me about," she said tightly.

"Somehow I had the feeling it did," he said pensively, though his eyes were hard with anger. "You will, however, see that it does not lead you in the direction of my brother again."

"It didn't lead me to your brother in the first place," Jana said stiffly, standing abruptly as she realized, finally, what had angered him about the incident. There was a great deal that she still did not understand, but she had firmly grasped the principle of a contracted companion. She was not to share herself with anyone else. Contrary to what he apparently thought, that was one of the rules of the contract that appealed to her … the fact that she would not have to.

Alain rose also, discovering in the process that he towered over her. He sat down once more and glared at her. "Anyone seeing the two of you rolling around on the ground might doubt that.”

“You mean you!”

“I mean anyone who happened to chance by!” Alain snapped. “You are not from a world where you are under constant scrutiny, and where misconceptions about your behavior can effect the way you are treated. I understand that. However, this is Orleans. You will be expected to behave according to local customs. The penalty for not doing so is that you are shunned … and believe me that can make life very uncomfortable!”

“If it takes no more than that for them to begin to imagine I am sharing myself, then they are bound to think so whatever I do … or don’t do.”

Alain stood up, towering over her again. "I want a straight answer from you! Will you cease pursuing my brother?"

Jana gaped up at him, paralyzed for several moments as much by her own rash behavior as she was intimidated by the threat inherent in his demeanor. It occurred to her, forcefully, that after her behavior earlier, it was unlikely he would believe any disclaimer she could make now, regardless of his demand to have it.

Retreat seemed wise. She whirled and would've fled except that Alain seized her wrist as she passed him, hauling her back.

“You are my companion. I do not find it acceptable for you to … flirt with other men and I find it particularly unacceptable when that includes my brother!”

Jana gaped at him. It was absolutely amazing that in only a few short weeks she had grown so accustomed to freedom that she resented being ordered around. Truthfully, she supposed she had always resented it—one of the surest signs her conditioning had failed. Regardless, she would never have dared to openly challenge Marty. The fact that she had done so with Alain, who, really, was far more intimidating, stunned her.

She stared at him in consternation, trying to think what she could say that might assuage his anger.

Somehow, she thought an attempt to seduce him at this point probably wouldn’t go over very well. He was not likely to be susceptible for one thing. For another, he might well interpret it as just the sort of behavior that had angered him to start with.

Trying to placate him had seemed to work—right up to the point when she had decided they might as well clear the air regarding Blane.

It occurred to her finally that, in her experience, tears were more likely to put a man off than anything else. They couldn’t seem to get away fast enough.

She summoned tears. Her vision blurred as they filled her eyes before slowly marking trails along her cheeks. Alain stared at her suspiciously for several moments, but he quickly began to look far more appalled than angry.

Alain was deeply suspicious that he was being played. Unfortunately, no matter how deeply suspicious he was, he found that he could not maintain his anger when faced with two huge blue eyes awash with tears. If she had wailed, he would simply have retreated from the racket. The fact that she seemed to be striving to keep from crying made it difficult to banish the rapidly growing sense that he was guilty of—something.

It also made him feel uncomfortably awkward.

He was tempted to just show her the door and close it behind her.

He cleared his throat. “I collect this means that you feel that I’ve misjudged you?”

Jana tried to respond, but her chin wobbled.

Alain looked as if he might bolt from the room. After a moment, he patted her shoulder awkwardly.

Relieved that he seemed to be responding as expected, Jana thought it safe enough to move into his embrace. She snuggled against him, wrapping her arms around him.

He stiffened. For a moment, she thought he would thrust her away, but finally he settled his arms around her—cautiously. Jana sniffed, hiding a smile of triumph against his chest.