Read Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses) Online

Authors: Sharon Shinn

Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses) (58 page)

 
 
“And do you feel that sense of panic now?” he asked.
 
 
She gave a shaky laugh. “I didn’t until you came to stand over me like that.”
 
 
He smiled slightly. “So would you like me to back away?”
 
 
It was a long time before she answered. “No.”
 
 
He reached out a hand and gently, gently touched his fingertips to her cheek. “You have accused me before of being obscure, so let me be forthright now,” he said. “I want you to stay. For Karryn’s sake, yes. Because I trust you to watch over her. For your sake. Because I think, in Fortunalt, you might find a place you can come to rest, if you can only convince yourself that you deserve to.” His hand traveled upward, took a lock of her short hair between his fingers, tested it as if it was purest silk. “For my sake,” he added. “Because I will miss you dreadfully if you go.”
 
 
She was astonished at how much her skull tingled under his touch as his hand moved farther back, cupped itself around her ear, splayed at the back of her head. “Those are all reasons for me to linger,” she said, focusing on her words as much as she would have if she were drunk. “But I don’t know how long I could promise to stay even so.”
 
 
“Another month?” he said, a whisper of a laugh in his voice. “Haven’t we advanced our contract in such increments almost from the beginning?”
 
 
She met his eyes squarely. “A month might seem like a long time,” she said, “if you seduced your captain and began to find her tiresome in a week.”
 
 
That made him laugh out loud. “Oh, you are the most refreshingly direct woman!” he exclaimed. “Surely I would not find you tiresome for a year at least.”
 
 
So he didn’t deny that seduction was his intent. The news made her feel even more cheerful, and she had already thought she might be exhibiting a certain sparkle. “Well, I won’t ask you for promises,” she said. “So I don’t think I have to make you promises in return.”
 
 
“One or two promises I think I can make you,” he said. He had lifted his other hand and placed it at her waist, and now he drew her closer to him, almost into an embrace. She could feel the heat of his body through his fine embroidered clothes. “I will never treat you with disrespect and never speak to you unkindly.”
 
 
“You
have
to keep those types of promises,” she said, letting her voice fill with mock scorn. “You know I’ll cut your heart out if you don’t treat me well.”
 
 
He laughed out loud and swept her into his arms, bending his head to kiss her firmly on the mouth. This was a bedazzlement she hadn’t expected; this was a richness. Jasper Paladar kissed the way he talked, with subtle shades of nuance and an extensive vocabulary. Clearly he enjoyed kissing. Most men Wen knew didn’t bother too much with the preliminaries, so she was finding this a rare and enlightening experience. She let her hands creep up to lock around his neck and pressed herself against him with a purr of pleasure.
 
 
When he finally pulled back, he was still laughing, or laughing again. “If that is a prelude to the evening’s delights, I see I am going to enjoy myself even more than I hoped to,” he said. “But I am just now struck with consideration of logistics.”
 
 
She felt her face crinkling into its own laugh. “How to get me up to your room so that nobody sees me.”
 
 
“Not that I wish you to interpret that as my being ashamed of your company,” he added hastily. “That was not intended to be disrespectful in the least.”
 
 
She pretended to be offended. “I believe I am the one who has more of a reputation to lose,” she said. “I’m sure Karryn would be disappointed to learn how lax my moral standards are.”
 
 
He kissed her quickly. “I think we must go up separately. Do you know which room is mine?”
 
 
She nodded. “I know every room in the house, my lord.”
 
 
For a moment he looked horrified. “You’re not going to call me that, are you?”
 
 
Now she was laughing again. “No. Unless you like it.”
 
 
“I mean—will you find it strange to call me Jasper? I use your own name quite freely, and yet I realize you almost never address me at all. Even by my title.”
 
 
“In my mind, I have been calling you Jasper almost from the beginning,” she said. “It might take a little while to get used to saying it out loud.”
 
 
“You might practice,” he suggested.
 
 
She tilted her face up. “I like it very much when you kiss me, Jasper.”
 
 
He responded most satisfactorily, then said, “I think you will like it even more when I do more than kiss you.”
 
 
Which made her dissolve into laughter again. “And I always thought lords and ladies were so reserved.”
 
 
“Did you? I think you will be quite pleased to see that I have very few inhibitions at all.”
 
 
“In that case, let’s not waste any more time getting to your room!” she said. “You go first, and I’ll follow. I’m pretty good at covering ground without being seen, but if I run into anyone I’ll just say that I’m checking the house more thoroughly tonight after this afternoon’s adventure.”
 
 
“An excellent notion,” he approved. He kissed her once more before releasing her. “Don’t keep me waiting,” he said, and left the room.
 
 
For a minute, Wen stared at the closed door and wondered if she was mad.
 
 
But her blood still shivered with excitement and her skin was flushed from contact. Gods and goddesses, she couldn’t remember the last time she had been this eager to give her body to a man. No one would stop her, not even masked assailants who might come flowing over the outer hedge. She was gliding through the halls to spend the night beside Jasper Paladar.
 
 
Or what portion of the night she could spare before taking her turn to patrol.
 
 
Chapter 30
 
 
IT WAS A SIMPLE MATTER FOR WEN TO LEAVE THE LI
BRARY and creep through the house to the servants’ stairway so she had less chance of running into Karryn or Serephette. It was not that late, in fact; any number of people could still be up and roaming the halls. But Wen was careful and did not encounter a soul.
 
 
She gave the lightest tap on Jasper’s door and it was instantly opened; he had obviously been awaiting her faintest signal. She slipped into the room and into his arms in a single motion. They paused for another exchange of kisses before she looked up to glance around. The room was not nearly as opulent as some of the bedrooms at Ghosenhall, but luxurious even so. It was spacious enough to sleep twenty soldiers, though, of course, there was not nearly enough furniture to do so—a few groupings of chairs and tables; various armoires and dressing tables; a large four-poster bed piled high with a maroon comforter and a dozen pillows. The dark curtains were pulled against the night, but a dozen candles offered plenty of illumination. Wen couldn’t see any discarded clothing or cast-off shoes. Either Jasper Paladar was a very tidy man, or his valet was.
 
 
She did see books everywhere—open on the nightstand, piled on the dressers, stacked with papers on the smaller tables. No servant had been allowed to straighten up
those
essential items.
 
 
“Does my chamber meet with your approval?” he murmured, watching her appraise the space. “What are you thinking as you gaze around? Are you assessing the possibilities for attack through the windows?”
 
 
“Oh, I did that weeks ago,” she retorted. “Second-story room, not hard to reach. There’s a gutter that offers a handhold, but it’s a little rickety, so someone who weighs too much would probably end up pulling it down, which would be loud enough to catch my attention—”
 
 
He was almost doubled over with laughter. “Enough—I see—I have underestimated you again,” he finally said, practically gasping out the words. “So we may lose ourselves in love without worrying about being surprised by assassins.”
 
 
“Well, there are four guards patrolling,” she said. “They ought to minimize the chance of assassins as well.”
 
 
“Willawendiss, Willawendiss,” he said. “You
are
the most extraordinary girl.”
 
 
“I’m glad you think so,” she said, and she kissed him.
 
 
In no time at all, they had drifted over to the bed and collapsed on top of it. Wen lay on her back and stretched her arms as wide as they would go, and still couldn’t touch both edges of the mattress. “I have
never
slept in a bed this big,” she told him.
 
 
“Even when you were sleeping next to someone else?” he inquired. He was lying next to her, propped up on one elbow. With his free hand he was slowly untying the laces on her vest. They’d both already discarded their shoes, but the rest of the disrobing was going at a relaxed pace. Both of them were enjoying themselves too much to rush.
 
 
She grinned up at him. “Well, you know, if you had a few minutes of privacy in the barracks with someone, you never wasted it
sleeping
,” she said. “And the beds in most of those quarters are about two feet wide and hard as iron. And if I happened to take a lover who had his own room somewhere, it was usually rented from some old lady, completely furnished, and not designed for extravagance.”
 
 
“You need to upgrade your quality of bedmate,” he said.
 
 
She made an equivocal motion with her head. “Let’s see how well this goes,” she said pessimistically. “I might find the gentry aren’t worth the trouble.”
 
 
That made him laugh, of course, and apply himself with a little more determination to her vest and shirt. All the while, she was helping him from his own clothes, though she couldn’t help noticing the differences between their attire—his all silk and fine wool, well-made and almost new; hers leather and cotton, well-worn and broken in. They were both half naked, and his hand was moving in a slow, sensuous sweep along the slope of her ribs, when she realized that most of the laughter had gone out of him. She gave him an inquiring look.
 
 
“What’s wrong?”
 
 
His fingers traveled lightly over the long, faded scar that cut its jagged way from her navel to her left breast. That was the worst of them, but he took a moment to touch the marks on her arm, her throat, her right shoulder. She thought that just now he probably couldn’t see the two that crossed her back, and she shifted her weight a little so he’d have less of a chance to notice them.
 
 
“You look like you’ve been badly hurt,” he said softly. “Over and over again.”
 
 
She wasn’t sure how to play this, so she chose her words cautiously and made them sound casual. “That’s a soldier’s life,” she said. “You expect to receive wounds, and get them bound up, and go out to fight again. Any blow that doesn’t kill you becomes a badge of honor. A symbol of your skill and determination.”
 
 
He traced the longest scar again. “Well, I always knew you had plenty of both. But it troubles me to see the evidence written in such a brutal fashion.”

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