by Megan Hart
"Regret doesn't give me solace." Cillian's voice edged along her skin, rough as brambles.
"No, I daresay it doesn't." She tilted her head to offer him a smile he didn't return.
"You're not what I was expecting."
"I rarely am." Honesty's smile gave away none of her desire to turn his face with a slap at his tone. Once she'd been in his place. It
had taken her years of training to learn her craft. "But since no matter what the Order tells anyone in advance, they never know what to expect, I'm used to that." This raised his eyebrow, and he put his hands on his hips to rake her with his gaze. He would say he thought she'd be prettier, Honesty thought, and braced herself not to react. With no food in her belly and not enough sleep to gentle her emotions, it would be harder for her to play at sweetness. It had been difficult for a long time.
"That seems ridiculous and inefficient. They told you all about me, did they not?" She nodded. Pages and pages of documents she'd meant to read on the train but which had remained in the bottom of her hand-trunk. "Of course."
"Am I what you expected?"
"Yes," Honesty answered at once, though truth be told, she hadn't thought of him at all beyond the fact he'd been born to a crown and depended on someone else for his happiness.
"What's your name?"
"Honesty."
The corner of his mouth quirked. "You only have the one?" She had another name, but didn't use it with her patrons. It raised too many questions about her ancestry. "Honesty is all you need."
Her empty stomach had been only partially satisfied with the drink. Now it rumbled and she put a hand over it to quell the noise. "Might I beg something to eat? I've come a long way in the past few days, and while I do plead your mercy for not being ready to serve you at once, I'll be far better able to begin once I'm fed."
His pale cheeks colored. "It's not enough for me to nurse you, now I'm to be your kitchen drab, as well?"
Honesty bit back the retort threatening to spill from her lips and offered a gentle smile and inclination of her head. "I would imagine a man of your stature would hardly need to serve. Surely you could ring for someone to bring me some fruit and cheese, perhaps a biscuit?"
He stared for so long she thought he would refuse, which would I make this the shortest assignment she'd ever taken. She hadn't arrived quite ready to serve, that was true, but he was still required to provide her with food, shelter, and clothing appropriate for the seasons and activities. If he refused to feed her, she would walk out without another look behind her. She tensed, half hoping he'd give her reason to do just that. Cillian nodded sharply, instead. "Indeed. The hour grows late, nearly the first chime. Fare will be limited."
Honesty looked at him through lowered lashes. Deference was simple to feign and always well received. "Whatever your kitchen can provide its prince at this late hour will certainly suffice."
She waited the span of four, five, six heartbeats before he began to laugh. He'd been gorgeous in disapproval, but in mirth his face lit up from within and turned his countenance into a sun from which she had to avert her eyes.
"You are clever," he said. "I do like that."
"I'm happy to please you," Honesty said, and if her response was made with less than what her name claimed her to be, nobody knew it but herself. he'd made use of his bath chamber while they waited for the food and now sat before him with her hair damp and skin gleaming. She smelled of his soap, a scent that had never aroused him on his own flesh but clung to hers in such a manner he fought the urge to lean forward and sniff her as though he were a hound. She wore one of the simple linen gowns he'd given her, cut in the same style as the one she'd worn upon her arrival but in sheer rose instead of dark blue. The material clung to every curve and showed the dusky circles of her aureoles and the triangle between her legs, but Honesty didn't seem to notice she was as good as naked before him. Or perhaps she didn't care.
She had the manners of a noblewoman, Cillian noted as Honesty used her knife to push a mouthful of tumbleberry jam onto her spoon before she tucked it between her lips. And yet in the next moment she used her fingers like a peasant to lift a slice of cold duck. She ate swiftly, efficiently, without lingering or sighing over the food, which was the best his cook could prepare at this hour. Cillian had taken her comment about his kitchen to heart, and though he rarely called for a meal past the ten chime, he'd wanted to see just what would happen if he did.
Consequently, the table in his chambers had been set with fine linens and porcelain and silver utensils. Wine poured, butter served in its own small crock, platters of artfully arranged delicacies provided. The effort deserved to make an impression. The Handmaiden sipped once more from her wine and wiped her mouth with a napkin made of finer lace than graced most of his courtiers' cuffs. "Delicious."
"You ate it like a peasant in the field." It wasn't true. She'd eaten with gusto, but daintily. Emotion flashed in her dark eyes. "I was hungry."
Such a simple statement, devoid of pretense, but it set him back more surely than if she'd woven an elaborate tale that failed to convince him. "You were . . . hungry."
"Oh, certainly." She gave him that bedamned smile again, and again he caught a flash of something in her gaze. "I thank you for the meal. If you could show me to where I might sleep, I'm certain we'd both like to go to bed. The hour, as you said, is late." The chit knocked him fair to speechless. Show her to her bed? As though she were a common houseguest, a visitor? And he the chambermaid?
"Madame," Cillian said as he rose from the table to tower over her, "I believe you overstep."
And did the woman cower in front of him? Did she drop to her knees? She did not, but instead merely stared up at him with another of those half smiles that quirked a dimple in her cheek.
"I plead your mercy," she said calmly. "It will take me some time to learn what you like and how best to serve you. I thought it might be best to start in the morn, when we've both had time to rest.
Cillian had taken his hand to many women before this one, though never in anger. Others might believe it of him, might accuse him of being quick with his fists, and he didn't disabuse them. People believed what they would. But now, watching her small smile, Cillian wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled.
"Is this a Handmaiden's task? To put me off with request after bedamned request and provide me with nothing? I thought your purpose was to provide me with solace," Cillian bit out. "And I am not soothed!"
Honesty had risen and taken his hand with her soft and warm fingers before he knew to pull it away. "Then please, sir, allow me to assist you." She drew him from the table toward an upholstered chair. With those small, soft hands she urged him to sit, and to his surprise but not, perhaps, to hers, Cillian did.
"Your hair," Honesty murmured, "is in atrocious condition." Her words, each a thorn, pricked him. "There are perhaps three men who could say such a thing to me with immunity, and not a woman alive who would dare."
"Apparently there is at least one, for I've just said it." Her nimble fingers ran through the length of his hair and snagged in it, pulling.
Cillian had neither Edward's bulk nor Alaric's height, and it had deceived many into thinking him weak. When his fingers clamped onto her wrist, Honesty could have no such misconception. His squeeze arrested her hand, and yet she didn't flinch.
"Your hair," she murmured, "is tangled and doesn't befit you. Let me brush it." Cillian caught his reflection in a looking glass across the room, and his lip curled. He'd allowed his hair to grow overlong in a direct thumb-bite at the Council of Fashion, over which his father insisted he preside. The length made it more difficult to manage, and the time in his playroom had worked it through with sweat. He'd pushed most of it off his face, but tendrils had escape and floated, careless. He looked disheveled, at the least. Atrocious, as she'd said.
Honesty had already gone to his dressing table and found the brush. "See how much nicer this will be, and then you'll sleep."
She took a
handful of his hair and brushed it, working slowly from the ends to the roots. Only when she could run the brush through the entire length did she move to the next section. She worked as efficiently at his hair as she had her dinner. By the fourth section, Cillian had begun to lean into her touch. He'd had lovers aplenty over the past few years, between his hareem and those who sought favor in his bed. But none had touched him this way. He wouldn't have allowed it.
He closed his eyes as she worked and lost himself in the tenderness of her care.
"There," Honesty said at last and patted his shoulder. "Much better." Cillian opened his eyes and ran his hand over his hair, now smooth and free of knots. She'd braided it and tied it at his nape with a length of soft cord. Her hand still rested on his shoulder. She was smiling.
"Now," she said. "To bed."
Chapter 10
It could take her an hour to know a patron. It could take her a day, a week, a month. Never longer than that. Honesty didn't know Cillian yet, but she had no doubts she would. He didn't impress her as being difficult to know.
Blaming her weariness, she gave in to foolishness for a moment and passed her hand down the beautiful fall of his hair. Even tangled and dirty it was like spidersilk between her fingers. How would it feel against her face, over her body?
"Bed," he said in a thick voice, the sound of which she knew well. If the gown he'd provided hadn't shown her at least part of what he expected her to be, the look in his eyes did. Surprising heat flared in her belly, and Honesty embraced it. Its source might well be that gorgeous hair, those eyes, his firm, lithe body. She hadn't made love in over a year. If the prince required service in his bed to bring him solace, at least he was physically appealing, and at least it was an act she knew well how to perform without any necessary thought.
"Where would you have me sleep?" she asked.
He didn't stand so much as he unfolded himself from the chair. "I thought you might anticipate my every need."
True patience, she reminded herself. True patience is its own reward.
"In time, my lord. I'll do my best, at least. But in order to know you, I need to ask. I can't read your mind."
Cillian reached for the braid hanging over her shoulder and wrapped his fist in it to pull her closer. His breath, sweeter than she expected, caressed her face. His heat pressed her through the thin fabric of the gown he'd given her.
"I'd thought you'd share my bed."
"If it pleases you."
Cillian didn't tower over her. If he pulled her closer, her cheek would fit just right against the curve of his neck. "I suppose we'll find out, won't we?" She ought to offer him a bath before bed, but by now all Honesty could think of was sleep. The meal had replenished her, but she still needed to rest. He did, too, by the looks of him, gray shadows under his eyes. When she yawned, so did he.
"Come, then." She put her hand over the one tangled in her braid and loosed it gently.
"To bed, before we both fall asleep on our feet. Have you a night rail?"
"I sleep in my skin."
Then she would, too. Honesty stripped out of her gown and put it aside neatly on the chair, then unlaced his trousers with swift fingers as she bit back another yawn. The prince didn't help her, but he didn't resist, either. She helped him out of the trousers and found him bare beneath. His cock, surrounded by a thick nest of curls slightly darker than on his head, stirred at her touch, but Honesty pretended not to notice. When she looked up at him, his look of undisguised confusion set her back a step. It passed in a moment, replaced by the look of discontent she'd already grown used to. She waited for him to comment on her lack of attention to his prick, but when he didn't, Honesty took him by the hand and led him to the bed, where she slid between the sheets first with a sigh of irrepressible relief.
"The bed pleases you?" There was no hint of irony in his question. Honesty reached out a hand to him. "In my last house I was given a straw pallet to sleep on, and I've spent the last two days sleeping upright on a train. This bed is like the Land Above. Come to bed, and let us both find pleasure in it."
She watched the flicker of contrasting emotions cross his face. Then he took her outstretched hand and slid into bed next to her. She arranged the covers over both of them and turned on her side to allow him to seek whatever position he found most comfortable.
"Sleep right," she murmured, already dozing.
The bed shifted as he moved and she waited for him to nestle against her backside, the cup of his hand on her breast. Though she felt the warmth of his body close to hers, Cillian didn't touch her. Yawning into the pillow, Honesty could wait no longer. She fell asleep.
Cillian did not sleep.
The low, soft breathing of the woman beside him should've soothed him toward dreams, but it had been so long since he'd shared a bed with anyone, the presence of another body beside his kept him staring at the ceiling long after she'd fallen asleep. She didn't roll around or snore. She lay silent as a stone beside him. She slept, and he did not. None of this had gone as expected. She hadn't arrived when anticipated. She hadn't seen him in his finery, or the proof of his generosity laid out for her in the clothes and jewels he'd intended to give her. No, she'd met him in his playroom, stinking of sweat and other women, and she'd fainted dead away at the sight of it.
She was nothing like Edward's Handmaiden Stillness, who craved the kiss of the lash as fiercely as his friend yearned to wield it. Cillian had expected . . . well, by the Blessed Balls, what had he expected?
In his mind his Handmaiden would arrive and within an hour strip herself bare and take the flogger until she screamed in ecstasy. Then he'd fuck her until they both spent themselves, and then . . . and then, by the Void, she would love him. The way Stillness loved Edward.
And then what?
Cillian, scowling, got out of bed and paced the length of the room. It was cold, the fire gone out, and strewn with clothes and books and packages of trinkets sent by the fabric merchants seeking to gain his favor so that he might promote one over the other. Thinking of how it would be with his Handmaiden, he'd sent away the maids weeks ago. The room was a mess, and he stubbed his toe and set to hopping with a curse. This was nothing like Edward's immaculate rooms with the scent of good tea and quickbread, a crackling fire, and a woman on her knees, ready to serve his every whim. She hadn't even bathed him, by the Void!
He went himself to the bathing chamber and sponged himself clean with cold water, too impatient to wait for it to heat. He threw on a robe of soft, thick fleece. She still slept when he came out of the bath chamber. Slept when he knelt in the ashes himself to raise the fire. Slept as he served himself a plate of her leftovers and ate them without joy. And she slept when he arranged himself in his chair by the fire, disgruntled and dissatisfied and determined to stay awake all night.
He closed his eyes on darkness and woke to golden light shining through the tall windows. Honesty had pulled back the curtains, and Cillian flung up a hand to cover his eyes.
"You're awake," she said pleasantly.
"Can one wake when one hasn't slept?"
"You slept," she pointed out serenely, unaware of how close he was to losing his temper.
"Though not well, I'd wager."
"Not well. . . not. . ." Cillian got to his feet and groaned at the kinks and knots in every muscle he'd ever known he had and a few he hadn't. "What, by the Void, makes you think I could possibly have slept well?"
Honesty had dressed already and looked impossibly fresh in another of the gowns he'd provided. "I daresay I don't think you could in that chair. You should've stayed in the bed."
Cillian was not, at the best of times, accustomed to controlling his temper. He well knew its fierceness, knew it struck fear into many, and he'd never cared. There were few in his world whose rank demanded his obeisance, and fewer he loved enough to give homage.
"I applied for a Handmaiden, not a fumble-fingered maid of ill constitution," he told her flatly. "Not a failure."
Hones
ty listened to his speech with wide, unblinking eyes. When he'd finished, she drew herself up, rigid, her chin lifted in a defiance Cillian couldn't believe she dared. "I've not failed you."
"You have!" He flung his arms wide. "This is not what I want! How do you expect to bring me utter solace when you can't do something as simple as give me what I want?" She didn't flinch from his words, and admiration at her courage crept through his anger. Honesty even dared to step closer to him, well within reach of his hand should he decide to strike her. She looked him up and down, and the assessment in her gaze further fueled his rage.
"I told you to let me know what you want," she said.
Which wasn't what he wanted, at all. Where was the woman who got on her knees and gazed adoringly up at him? The one who knew just how to please him without him having to ask? Cillian's head pounded from the ache in his neck and shoulders, and his temper flared higher.
"I……"
1 want. . . tea.
"I can make you tea."
She went to the fire but of course, no kettle hung there. He didn't even like tea. She glanced at him over her shoulder, the heavy weight of her dark braid swinging. Then she straightened and shrugged with another of those beatific smiles that scraped him. Honesty gestured. "If you'd like me to make tea for you, you might provide me with the means."
She made it sound so simple, and of course it was. Cillian, sore and out of sorts, crossed his arms over his chest and did his best to glare her into submission, but unlike the women of his hareem, who trembled and threw themselves to the ground at his feet with no more than a glance, this woman only stared.