by Megan Hart
"Prince Cillian. About this matter of the trade routes," Devain began without preamble, but Cillian held up a hand.
"I discuss such matters when it's time. It's not time now." Devain had become one of the king's appointed ministers while Cillian had been what his father referred to as "recuperating," though Cillian had never been ill. Devain had been a magistrate of the province where Cillian had attended school, one of those called to decide the prince's fate after the prostitute's death. He'd been one who ruled Cillian should enter the asylum instead of hanging.
Cillian supposed he ought to be grateful.
Devain supposed so, too.
Devain looked around the empty room, then gave a pointed glance to the herb bowl.
"You're too busy, now?"
Cillian swallowed the retort that rose instantly to his lips. This man had been there when they took Cillian to his cell. When they'd shorn his head and dressed him in rags. And when the board of medicuses had met to determine if the Prince of Firth, the king's only son, could be allowed to return to society, Devain had been there, too. Devain had been the one to ask the most pointed questions about Cillian's progress, to make the medicuses doubt. And when Cillian had at last come home after near two years in that pit, he found Devain sitting at his father's side and whispering in his ear.
"I didn't say I was too busy. I said now was not the time." Cillian kept his voice steady, and also his gaze. Devain, like a jackal, could sense weakness. "If you wish to meet with me, you can take an appointment at court, the way the others do." Devain's smile crept into his eyes and yet was devoid of any humor. "As you wish. I merely thought it might behoove you to take the time to listen to my proposal without the jabber of all those others to distract you."
"You meant you want me to put your interests over those of others, and you believe yourself above the protocol they're all required to follow."
Devain drew himself up to his full height, head and shoulders above Cillian, who didn't give the other man the honor of tilting his head to look at his face. Devain let out a slow, hissing breath.
"One might forget how one was once in a madman's rags, sitting in his own filth," he said in a voice meant to bring blood.
Cillian had bent and been broken for love and would do it again for no less than that. He surely, by the Void, wouldn't do it for Devain. His fingers twitched into fists for but a moment before he straightened them, but Devain saw it, and smiled.
"No, my lord," said Cillian in a voice as sickly sweet as joba syrup. "One might remember."
Four days into this assignment, and Honesty was sure Cillian would send her away. That wouldn't please the Mothers-in-Service, but it would make Honesty happy. If he sent her away, she wouldn't have to abandon him.
She'd expected to feel more guilt about her lack of enthusiasm for this assignment. After all, she was failing not only the prince, but the Order and the Holy Family. Herself, too, if she wanted to admit it. She'd taken a vow to do her best to serve her patrons, and this was not her best.
Her sigh began in her toes. Honesty stared out the window. She'd been a veritable captive in these chambers, since it hadn't pleased her patron to take her out of them. Four days since her arrival, and he'd left her every morning after the first without a word of explanation about where he was going or when he'd be back.
The nights had been interesting. Cillian slept on the chair in front of the fire and every night she fell into sleep waiting for him to join her. After that first night, he never had. She'd woken each morning before him but had forced herself to stay abed until he rose, often with a groan of protest at what must have been screaming muscles. He bathed and dressed and left, every morning, and left her there. Alone.
No patron had ever ignored her. Especially not after she'd used her mouth on him. She might have made a mistake with that, she mused, though it had been delicious. He might not be the sweetest tempered man she'd ever met, but he was beautiful. Even so, it seemed she'd misjudged him, and despite her desire to quit this place and this career, she couldn't help but be a little ashamed.
His abandonment had done one thing for her. Convinced her the apathy for her chosen field was no passing thing, that she was, indeed, no longer a Handmaiden in her heart. Oh, she'd been playing the role for so long she wore it like a costume, her smile a mask and her words of comfort dialogue in a play she'd memorized so long ago she no longer had to think about the plot.
She knew the truth, now, no matter how much she'd like to pretend she didn't. She wanted to go home, and not to the Mother-house. Not to await her next assignment. Not to attend any more people so caught in their webs of sorrow and discontent they couldn't see clearly for even the single moment required to pass as solace. She wanted to go home, to Bellora, where she could sit in her father's orchards and smell the tart-sweet scent of ferlafruits and let the wind tug tangles into her hair.
She wanted to return to the place that would not, in any likelihood, welcome her. She couldn't go anywhere without first finishing this assignment. Not unless she wished to run away, and she owed the Order the debt of her consideration, at least. She could flee her duties, but never her obligation.
With nothing else to pass the time, she'd done a bit of tidying. And, since Cillian had apparently sent away all his maids, she was left to straighten the bedcovers and sweep up the dust and stoke the fire. She could and did ring for meals when she was hungry and had someone come to take away the dishes, but the rest of every long day she'd spent reading and looking out the window. She'd devoured all but three of the books on his shelves and memorized every blade of grass on the lawn outside.
If this kept up, she'd have to go in search of him. She couldn't bring him to solace if he was never with her, nor could he send her away. And if he didn't send her away or give her the chance to give him what he needed, she'd have to decide to leave. She wasn't ready to decide it. Better, if more cowardly, to have him make the choice for her. Failure here would mean she'd have good reason to go to the Mothers-in-Service and tell them she was finished. Nobody would fault her for leaving if it was clear she was no good. No, she had to do what he'd already accused her of doing. She had to fail here. But, damn him to the Void, she couldn't fail him if he wouldn't give her the chance. Honesty had turned, deciding to grip the horse by the reins when the door flew open hard enough to slam into the wall and shake the pictures. Cillian kicked the door shut behind him. He stood there, seething, his eyes like storms in a face gone pale with fury. He looked at her, his mouth parted, but if he meant to speak, he bit back the words and looked away from her. That stung more than she'd have thought it could from a man she didn't even know. He strode to the table next to the fireplace and poured himself a cut-crystal glass full of whiskey and tossed it down his throat before taking another. Then he stood, shoulders slumped, and held the glass in his hand as though it were too heavy even to lift.
Now was the time for her to succeed with failure.
Witty words rose to her lips, a taunt designed to prick him to anger, but died there when he turned. She'd found him pleasing to the eye upon first sight, beautiful in laughter and arousing in his desire. Looking at him now, the bleak gaze, lips drawn to tight whiteness, Cillian broke her heart.
"Tell me what happened," she said softly.
Countless other men had taken what she offered, but Cillian did not. Indeed, he stepped back as though her touch were poison. He sipped slowly and set the glass down half empty. He shook his head and pushed past her without a word. He went into the bedchamber and shut the door.
He didn't want her. Honesty gripped the back of the chair to steady herself. From inside the bedchamber came the sound of a single, strangled . . . sob?
This had naught to do with her. Whatever wounds festered in the Prince of Firth, she wasn't meant to heal them. She didn't have it in her any longer to be what someone needed before they knew they needed it. To be someone's comfort. She had nothing left for anyone; she barely had enough for herself.
&nb
sp; Her feet moved anyway, soft steps cushioned by the thick rugs and the lovely slippers he'd provided. He'd been generous in that respect, clothing her in garments fit for a. . . well, perhaps not quite a princess, but a prince's consort, at the least. They were the finest she'd owned in a long time, the fabrics rich and soft and of a flattering cut. If nothing else she owed him a thank-you.
She could try to fool herself into thinking that was what she meant to offer when she rapped on the door and waited for him to speak, but Honesty knew herself too well to be convinced. She couldn't ignore or resist the look in his eyes. The man needed something with the desperation of the haunted. He needed her.
She knocked again and when he didn't answer, she pressed the latch. Inside the prince crouched, still half dressed, on the floor. That rich auburn hair had tangled again, tumbling over his shoulders and bare skin. He'd taken off his shirt but left the trousers on, and he clutched his knees to press his face against them. She heard the hoarse, strangled rasp from deep in his throat.
So caught in his own despair, he hadn't noticed her entry. She could turn and walk away, leave him to his misery. Instead, she knelt next to him.
He startled when she touched his shoulder; the jerk of a man expecting a blow. When he looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes, seeing but not knowing her, she touched him again the way she'd have gentled a horse. Slow and easy, she stroked her fingertips down the length of his bare arm and ended at his hand. It clenched, but he didn't pull it away.
"Leave me," he said.
"No."
"I want you to leave me," he insisted.
The grief in his voice pricked her fiercely as a pin. Honesty curled her fingers around the lump of his fist. "No."
Another strangled sob lurched from his throat and he buried his face against his knees again. "Did they send you here to torment me?
"No. I don't think so." Guilt poked at her. It wasn't his fault he'd had the misfortune to be assigned a Handmaiden who wanted to leave the service. "I'm sure they thought I'd be the best suited to you. Tell me what troubles you."
He shook his head. "No. You can't help."
Though the scent of herb clung to him, Honesty didn't think he was intoxicated. She squeezed his hand. "I can try."
He looked at her, then, his expression so bleak she wanted to weep. A shudder ran through him, and at first she thought it was the jerking of his muscles that shifted her toward him, so subtle was the gesture. But then he moved again, no closer than the thickness of a thread.
He needed her, and Honesty found she couldn't deny him. "Come here." She opened her arms and he slid into her embrace with a groan. With both of them on their knees, his face fit perfectly into the curve of her shoulder. His back was hot beneath her palms as she pulled him close. His breath, hot, too, against her throat. She held him in silence until the small tremblings in him ceased and then she stroked a hand down his hair. She kissed the top of his head and his arms tightened around her. After so many years in service, she didn't think she could be surprised by anything a patron did, but in that moment Honesty learned she could surprise herself. She took his chin in her hand and lifted his face to hers. She kissed him.
Cillian turned his face at the last second, so her lips landed at the corner of his mouth and not full upon it. "You don't have to do this."
An odd statement from a man whose cock she'd already had down her throat. "I know."
"I don't... I haven't. . ." He shook his head and tried to move away, but Honesty stopped him with her hands on his shoulders. He wouldn't look at her.
"Shhh. You don't have to say anything." She kissed him again. His lips parted. She cupped the base of his neck. She tasted his earlier indulgences, but his mouth was sweet for all that. She stroked his tongue with hers and he shivered. He kissed with his eyes closed, she saw, and as simply as that he endeared himself to her. With the bed so close there was no need for them to stretch out on the floor, but it was no hardship to rest on thick carpets. Honesty pushed him onto his back, an arm cradled beneath him. For a moment he simply let her push him, but in the next he'd pulled her down on top of him. Chest to chest, their legs tangled. His kisses grew urgent. Harder. The sudden passion in them heated hers, and she moaned softly into his mouth. Cillian stopped at the sound and pulled back to look at her face. "I said you need not do this."
"I know." She bent to kiss him again, but he turned his face once more. This time, her kiss didn't even reach his skin. Honesty stilled, the position awkward but the tension between them worse. "Is it so difficult for you to believe I'd like to?" Gently but firmly he circled her upper arms and pushed her to the side so they could both sit. When he got up to pace, Honesty stayed on the floor to watch him. At least he no longer looked as though he were staring into the Void and thinking of jumping.
"You said yourself, you're not a whore." His voiced stayed low.
"I'm not, that's true enough." As he paced, she got to her feet, too. "But does that matter? A whore sells herself. I'm offering."
He shuddered again and went to the window to stare out. He pressed his fingertips to the glass, then the whole of his palm. At last he leaned to rest his forehead there, his eyes closed. He took in breath after breath, each deliberate and slower than the one before it. Giving comfort sprang from intuition. Sometimes, many times, from utter guesswork. It meant she'd been wrong upon occasion, though never grievously. People were people, some more damaged than others, but most the same at heart.
"Cillian," she murmured, and he twitched but looked at her.
"That's the first time you've used my name."
She'd thought of him by name since her arrival, but he was right. "We haven't had much chance for conversation."
"I've been avoiding you."
Honesty tried to tempt him with a smile he didn't return. "I noticed."
"I don't want you to want to leave." The man speaking to her now didn't sound like a prince . . . but weren't all princes men beneath the crown?
"Is that why you've been avoiding me?" She moved closer, and he didn't move away. Cillian took in another low, slow, and deep breath and turned from the window. "You said you'd give me what I need. Not what I want."
"That is my purpose, yes." She watched him carefully.
"But not your pleasure?" The hint of a smile quirked his lips but faded fast. "You can't say that and live up to your name."
"It has ever been my pleasure to serve my patrons." It was not a lie, and yet untruth clung to her tongue and stifled her from further speech.
His eyes closed again, the dark lashes in such contrast to his bright hair sweeping shadows on pale cheeks. His mouth thinned, and he swallowed hard. He put a hand over his heart. Alarmed, Honesty grabbed his arm, feverish hot beneath her fingers. He looked at her then, those green eyes swimming with a depth of emotion she couldn't refuse. But when she tried to kiss him, again he turned his head. She'd gone on tiptoe to reach his mouth and her lips hovered over his cheek. She pressed them instead to the beard-prickled roughness of his throat, warm as his arm had been. She put her arms around him, his chest hot against her through her gown. He was burning up with something inside him that didn't feel like illness.
"You don't want to help me," Cillian said.
It wasn't a matter of want, but she didn't tell him so. There were many ways to provide the comforts that led to solace, and thus far she'd failed him in most. But this, the most basic, she already knew he'd respond to. Her hand slid to the laces at the front of his trousers. "I can try."
Cillian shook his head and put a hand over hers. She kissed his throat again, then his shoulder, then his chest. When she licked his collarbone, Cillian hissed. His hand clamped, hard, on hers but he didn't pull it away. When she moved her mouth lower over his salt-sweet flavored skin to tug his nipple between her lips, his groan swept over her in a rush of heat.
"You taste good," she whispered and looked up at him.
He opened his eyes, ablaze with desire. Under her hand his cock filled and
pressed against his trousers. His heart thundered beneath her mouth and when she bared her teeth to press his skin, it humped at once into gooseflesh as he shivered.
"This won't solve anything," he gritted out.
She licked him again, this time moving over his ribs. "Shhh." When she got on her knees and unlaced his trousers, Cillian stopped protesting. When she pulled the material over his thighs and down his strong, muscled calves, he stepped out of them to stand naked before her. When Honesty cupped his testicles in her palm and nuzzled his cock before licking it from base to crown, he curled his fingers into her hair. She took him in her mouth, but only for a few strokes of her tongue before she moved up his body again with her mouth. She didn't try to kiss his lips again, but stepped back to undo the buttons on her gown and shrug out of it.
His gaze flickered, then dropped to caress her body. He licked his mouth when she pulled the shift over her head and tossed it to join the gown. His prick lifted, and Honesty's breath quickened at the sight of his response. He might not believe she took as much pleasure in this as he would, but she had no doubts.
She cupped her breasts, offering them, but though the heat in his eyes flared, he didn't move. His cock spoke for him, thickening further, but he stayed still as stone even when she licked her fingertips and tweaked her nipples tight. Nor did he move when she again sucked a fingertip and slid it down her belly to part her curls and circle her clitoris. His chest heaved and his tongue swept over his lips again, his fists clenched at his sides, but Cillian wouldn't move.
Honesty stepped backward to the bed and lay back with a crook of her finger. "Cillian. Come here."
He took a step and stopped. Then another. One more. Two more would bring him to her, but he stopped, and she was reminded again of the effort it took to gentle a horse. Honesty didn't push. She ran her hands over her body, finding all the places that felt good. She lifted her hips off the bed to give herself better access to her cunt, now slick with desire. She slid a finger inside herself and drew it up to rub her clit again. The sigh slipped out of her and she did nothing to hold it back.