Yes, that must be the feeling churning within her.
She shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
“OUR WHOLE DAY together spoiled,” said Pairce, peeling away her bloody clothes. “You could have walked in the sun, and we could have celebrated, and now it’s just—”
“You need to rest,” said Cadon. “I’m going to go help bring up water for your bath.”
“Cadon, you’re not a servant,” she said.
“I’m stronger than your two measly servants,” he said and then he was gone.
Pairce sighed. She wasn’t even sure what sort of emotions she was feeling. The day had wrung her out entirely. First being pushed to the brink with Maib, then coming home to discover that Madigain intended to harm to Caith, then seeing Caith—who was too out of sorts for anything other than to be delivered home, whose eyes had been wide and frightened in a way that wrenched at Pairce’s soul—and then Haid.
Always Haid.
She tossed her bloody bodice on the ground and then her blouse followed it. She worked at unbuttoning her skirt.
Just as she was getting that off and standing only in her petticoats, Cadon burst through the door with a yoke over his shoulders, four buckets of steaming water dangling from it. Where had he even gotten that? It looked like something they used with oxen on those Allemande ranches.
But then he was pouring the water into her bath, and she didn’t care. She scurried across the room to sink into the bath.
“I’ll be back,” said Cadon, because the bath wasn’t full.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling up at him.
“I think it’s me who should be thanking you,” he said. “Don’t think you’re not explaining it all to me.” He raised his eyebrows.
She sighed. He was beautiful, and she usually never got to look at him. She had forgotten about his finely drawn features, his sharp cheekbones and his generous mouth. She leaned her head back against the lip of the tub and simply took him in.
“What?” he said.
“It’s just… I can see you,” she said, smiling a silly smile.
Immediately, he was smiling too. “It’s miraculous.”
“It’s too good to be true.”
“I don’t know about that. What price did you pay for it?” he said, shaking his head at her.
“Oh, Cadon, I don’t…” She shut her eyes. She well knew how he was going to react to the truth, and she didn’t want to do that to him.
“I’m going to get more water, and then we’re going to talk,” he said, and he disappeared again.
She splashed water up over her shoulders. It felt divine.
Cadon had hated that he wasn’t in control of himself, that he went out into a mindless raging emptiness and that he hurt people while he was there. She knew that the idea of his hurting Pairce unaware would cause him nothing but anguish.
She would conceal it from him if she could.
But what to say instead?
She tried to think of some way to explain away the blood, the snake, all of it in a way that exonerated him. Because it wasn’t his fault.
But he was back before she could think of anything.
He poured the water into the tub one bucket at a time, and he spoke as he did. “I know you’ve some idea of keeping this information to yourself, but I can’t have that. That’s no way to build trust, Pairce.”
She groaned. “Oh, you’re going to hold that bit about the Cowntess against me forever, aren’t you?”
“Tell me.”
She sighed. He was right. She couldn’t begin this new chapter of their relationship together by lying to him. She sank down into the water, all the way to her chin, and stared at him. “Maib turned you into monstrous beasts, one after the other, and I was to hold onto you through it all, no matter what you—the beasts—did. I did, and you eventually were whole again.”
“What did I do to you?” He was aghast, as she knew he would be.
“Does it matter? You didn’t mean it, and it wasn’t truly you, and I’m all right now.”
“I turned into a poisonous snake?”
Pairce sank into the water up to the tip of her nose.
“I bit you?”
She ducked all the way under and then resurfaced. “It wasn’t you.”
He grimaced. “You were nearly dead. I saw your body, and I was terrified. If Maib hadn’t done whatever she did to heal you…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
She bit down on her bottom lip. “Cadon, please don’t—”
“If I ever, ever again act as if I don’t trust you, you must hit me very hard,” he said, shaking his head. “What you did for me, and I repaid you by being suspicious of your friend Caith. I’m wretched. I don’t deserve you.”
A small smile spread across her features. “Oh, is that so? You don’t deserve me, the former strumpet?”
“No,” he said.
“I think you do,” she said. “Or I would not be with you, after all. You are not so awful as all that in the end. And I know you trust me. It’s only that trust is terrifying. I well know the fear.”
He pulled a chair over next to her tub and sat down in it. He was too big for it, and she found the sight of him there—his huge arms and legs folded up—charming in some way that made her heart skip a beat. “I don’t want to be ruled by fear.”
“Truthfully, in some ways, it was safer when you were trapped by the darkness. I knew you weren’t going to leave me, at least.”
“You don’t think I’d ever leave you?”
“Not truly, but…” She shrugged. “Fear is so powerful sometimes. It’s easy to give in to worries about things that don’t even make any sense.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Unless you tire of me and throw me into the streets.”
She chuckled. “Well, you do have some talents that mean I think I’ll keep you around.”
“I please you?” There was now a lilt to his voice that was intimate, a voice used only when they were alone, and she liked it.
“You are… quite pleasing.” The bottom went out of her voice, and she simply gaped at him. “I don’t think I will ever tire of looking at you.”
“Yes, it’s good to be able to see you, too.”
“I want to make love in the light,” she said. “I want our bed ringed with candles, and I want to see you from every angle. I want to watch my hands as I run them over your body. I want—”
“I think you should rest,” he said. “After the day you’ve had?” But the roughness of his voice betrayed him. He wanted her too.
“All right, well, I could be convinced to be propped up on pillows while you do all the work.” She gave him a wicked smile.
“I would be happy to exercise my talents, considering they are what is keeping me from the streets,” he said, smiling at her.
“Yes, you must work for your keep, Maister Whiss. And you can start by scrubbing my back.”
He chuckled. “With pleasure, Maiss Givons.” He got out of the chair to come to her. Then his hands were on her, and the sensations swirled together—his fingers, the sponge, the water sluicing over her skin.
She shut her eyes and leaned into his chest, not caring that her wet hair was getting his shirt wet.
Indeed, from one point of view, it could have been thought quite fortunate, because it meant that he took off his clothes too, and then they were both bare together, toweling each other off in the light of the fire, and she feasted her gaze on every inch of him.
They did make love in the light, but they didn’t take the time to ring the bed in candles, though she did insist on his lighting a few more, so that she could be sure to see him.
And though she had said she would simply lie on pillows, she couldn’t help but wanting to explore his massive cock in the light. It was mesmerizing. She traced the veins that bulged on the shaft, she kissed the nearly crimson tip, and she wrung guttural noises from him. He hissed and threw his head back and exposed the beauty of his bar
e neck to her.
But then it was his turn, and he was forcing her back into the pillows to do his own exploring with his eyes and fingers and tongue. He weighed her breasts in his hands, suckled each nipple until they were hard little pink nubs against her skin, and then he put his mouth between her thighs and it was her turn to hiss and grunt and writhe against him.
When he was finally inside her again, she thought he fit more easily, and she wondered if she was simply getting used to his size or if she was getting stretched out, something that alarmed her so much that she gasped a question to him, asking if she felt different to him.
“Mmm?” he managed, working within her.
“Am I still as snug?” she said, very concerned about this.
“Yes?” he said, giving her a confused grin.
She let out a sigh of relief. “Good.”
He kissed her neck. “Why are you asking me this?”
She let her hips roll in time with his thrusts. “Oh, I don’t know.”
“Is it because I slid into you so easily this time? Isn’t that a good thing? I don’t want to cause you discomfort.”
“I want… I want you to like—”
“I do.” It was a growl.
She sighed. “It’s easy to give in to worries that don’t make sense. Didn’t I say so?”
“Stop thinking so much.” He kissed her nose and put his fingers between their bodies, finding the center of her pleasure. “I don’t want you to be able to think.”
She gasped.
And she couldn’t think.
Not about anything about except how good it felt, anyway.
SEFONI SAT ON the edge of the bed in Haid’s bedroom in his townhouse. She was wearing a nightdress and a robe over it, because her maid had prepared her for bed. Then she’d come straight up here, to find Haid sans jacket but otherwise still dressed and drinking bourbon as he stared into the fire.
Now, he was pacing in front of her, fiddling with his neckbow. “I don’t like to talk about it, and I think that’s been obvious.”
“But when you told me about the atonement, you let me think it was about running.”
“I’m not blazing proud of running.”
“You should have told me why you blamed yourself for all of it,” said Sefoni.
“You’d just disagree with me, like you’re doing now,” said Haid. He yanked his neckbow off and tossed it aside.
“Well, you must see that you’re being ridiculous,” said Sefoni. “Your father is the only person to blame for what happened to your mother and siblings. It isn’t your fault.”
“Yes,” said Haid sarcastically, shedding his waistcoat, “keep saying that, and you’ll likely convince me of it, just by talking at me. That will work.”
She threw up her hands. “Even if you are to blame, how does going and stealing from Madigain work as some kind of atonement?”
“It just does.”
“Atonement should be about making things right,” said Sefoni.
“Well, getting the tiara back will set things right,” said Haid. “He shouldn’t have it.”
“Why not blame the man your mother was lying with?” said Sefoni.
“How do you know I haven’t dealt with him already?” said Haid darkly. He had now begun unbuttoning his shirt.
Blazes, was he just taking off his clothes now? What was that all about? Perhaps he intended to stop this conversation by distracting her with his naked flesh. She determined that she would not be distracted. “What? You killed him?”
“I dealt with him,” said Haid.
“So, you didn’t kill him.”
“I lay with his wife.”
“Oh, that’s disgusting,” said Sefoni.
Haid shrugged.
“I don’t understand. How was your mother going to divorce your father to be with a married man?”
“He wasn’t married then, but he is now,” said Haid. “He wasted no time in that either. I don’t suppose my mother meant so much to him in the end.”
“I thought you were only sleeping with all those women because you were hoping to get caught and killed,” she said, getting up off the bed and onto her feet. “I thought it was all self-destructive behavior, that you were punishing yourself. But what is wrong with me? Of course you wanted me to think better of your sordid past. All the better to get under my skirts.”
He stopped pacing and blinked at her.
“Or down my bodices, I suppose. That’s what you like. My exquisite bosom.”
He hesitated. Then he spread his hands. “All right, fine. Let’s have this conversation, then. Right now. Why not? It’s a fine time for it, both of us in a rational frame of mind. I’m sure we’ll come through it entirely unscathed.”
She folded her arms over her chest.
“I didn’t know you when I was in those women’s beds,” he said. “How can you possibly be jealous—”
“I’m not jealous.”
“You are.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not jealousy, it’s… it’s…” Her nostrils flared. “It’s not fair. It puts me in a perpetual state of being unequal to you. You have… this past… these experiences, and I have nothing.”
“Yes, but this is not my fault,” he said. “Was I supposed to sit around, waiting for you? I had no notion you even existed.”
“I had to sit around waiting for you, and I might have known you existed, but not that I would love you.”
“Well, I never asked you to. I wouldn’t care if you’d spread your legs for half of Laironn.”
“Oh, wouldn’t you?”
“Every blazing man who looks at you can’t seem to tear their gaze away from your bosom, and you don’t see me taking that out on you.”
“That’s not even remotely the same thing.”
“It’s all about being possessive, love.” He gave her a nasty smile. “You want us to belong to each other, and here’s the sad truth of the matter, we never will, not truly. You’ll always be you, and I’ll always be me, and no matter how much it feels like we…” He gestured with his hands, searching for a word. “Merge when we’re making love, we don’t.”
She liked that he felt as though they merged as well. Perhaps her expression softened a bit.
“I never felt anything like it,” he said. “Not that it will reassure you. I can tell you until I’m blue in the face that rutting with those women was meaningless, that I didn’t even have an idea of what it could be like until I was inside you, but… you’ll still feel all these inadequacies and worries about it all. You’ll still resent me for my past. Nothing will change that.”
“Why say it at all, then?” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said. Then he reached up and deliberately returned to unbuttoning his shirt.
She squared her shoulders. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Undressing,” she said.
He let out a caustic laugh and continued.
“Why are you doing that?”
His shirt was unbuttoned. He parted it, showing her inch after inch of brown skin and black curls—his flat stomach, his upper chest, his small, dark nipples, his scar.
She tried to look away and found she couldn’t. She gaped at him.
“This means something to me,” he said. “No other person has seen my chest besides the Cowntess after what happened. No one but you. Maybe it’s nothing to you, but to me—”
She closed the distance between them and kissed him.
He caught her face in his hands and pushed his tongue into her mouth.
She dragged her hands over his chest, down to his stomach. She covered his scar with one palm.
He grunted.
She pulled away. “Oh… Haid…”
He gazed into her eyes. “It’s a challenge, love. It’s an accomplishment. The plan, the job, all the people, all the moving pieces. That’s why it’s atonement.”
“But would your mother even want you to steal?”
�
�I don’t know. It’s what I do, though. It’s what I excel at. I have to do my best for her. This is my best work, and it’s for her. For them. For…”
“For yourself,” she said.
He shut his eyes.
She traced his scar with her forefinger.
He let out a deeply affected groan and he let his forehead rest against hers.
She couldn’t help but smile. “You’re… you’re wretched.”
“I’ve told you this,” he said. “I don’t deserve you.”
“You don’t,” she agreed.
“I should have waited for you. Even if I had no notion of your ever being with me, I should have conceived of the idea of you and known that I didn’t wish to do anything that caused you pain. I should have been possessed by you before I knew you, because I am possessed by you now. I am yours. I hate myself for causing you any kind of discomfort. I’m sorry, Sefoni. I’m sorry I’m not worthy of you.”
“Stop that,” she said, sighing. “I don’t want you to grovel.”
He laughed, low and rich. “Now, that’s a lie. I think you do want it.”
“I don’t want any more of it. I don’t like hearing it come out of your mouth. It’s not your way.”
He laughed again. “I am very, very damaged, Sefoni.”
“We both are.”
“You make me feel whole, though.”
She swallowed. “Yes. For me, too.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The job. It’s just some… obsession, and I’d be better off if I let it go. I know it won’t make any difference, that we’ll come home afterwards richer, with the tiara to put on the mantel, but that everyone will still be dead and that I will still have talked my mother into staying with her murderer. I will still be the boy who ran while they bled out. I will still—”
“Haid,” she whispered. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
“I know it’s mad. I have to do it anyway.”
“All right,” she breathed. “All right, well, then we’ll do it. What do we do next?”
“Shanj,” he said, smiling at her. “A lot of shanj.”
She smiled back. “Well, lucky thing, I happen to be rather good at shanj.”
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