He took his hand from hers to touch her cheek, then slide it to the back of her neck and anchor there. To pull her close and kiss her, softly this time, and without forced passion. He rested his forehead to hers, eyes closed, for a full long moment before he let her go.
“Care too fully,” he echoed with a hollow laugh. “But not love.”
So much had changed, as she’d said, and Annalise felt wrung out from it. Torn up. What she’d thought was love had turned to somewhat else; what she’d believed was loathing had become somewhat new, as well.
“I will always care for you. And love you as my dearest friend. The way we have ever been, Jacquin.”
His brow lowered. Another grim look. He stood, leaving her behind to once again look out over the pond. His fine clothes hung off him as though somehow he’d shrunk in the past few moments. He put his hands on the railing, shoulders hunched, and when he spoke, he sounded nothing like the merry Jacquin Annalise had always known.
“Tell me something.”
“Anything.”
“Is it because you’ve truly found a calling?”
Annalise hesitated in her answer to be certain she didn’t lie. Jacquin didn’t turn to look at her. She sighed. “I wish I could tell you yes, or no, but the truth is I have no answer for that. If you asked me that yestermorn, I’d have easily said yes. But now, here with you, I can only be certain I know what I do not want rather than being sure of what I do.”
He kept his back to her. “So you would continue on this path?”
“That of training in the Order? I don’t seek to leave it now, no.”
“That’s not what I meant. This path, this refusal not to break our betrothal.”
At this, she hesitated again. “If I dissolve it, will you require of my father the full price of the contract?”
“Yes.”
She flinched at that, thinking he’d never been so stern before, but knowing he was in the right to demand her father pay.
He turned. “I could earn a pretty sum for the expense of losing you, Annalise. I could live quite well upon it, should your father have it to give, which I know for a fact he does not. He’d have to tithe himself to me for a goodly long time, not to mention that I’m fair certain such a break would urge him to put me from the trade altogether and leave me with naught but the pittance he could provide each year.”
“It does so often come to money,” she said. “I told you.”
Jacquin didn’t laugh. His gaze darkened. “You know I’m the youngest son, not the heir, not even eligible to inherit a bedamned thing from my father, should he ever even die. You know my chance of making any success for myself came from aligning myself with your father, taking over his business, for he’s made a good reputation even if he’s had no success with keeping hold of his coin. It was to be the perfect arrangement. You the last daughter, I the final son. And now . . . there is nothing. If we don’t wed, your father will put me from the trade and I will have naught but the taste of success to sustain me. Even if I were so bold as to attempt to simply take his business, I’d have no capital for it. How much longer do you think your father will accept this arrangement, Annalise? Or the Order? At some point you must decide, become a Handmaiden. Or come home.”
“I can’t decide now.”
“How long can you stay here without it?”
She shrugged. “They don’t judge by how long the journey, only the destination. Forever, I suppose, so long as I’m still working toward my goal.”
“Could you be happy here? Really, sweetheart, in that drab gown, in the company of women, no outlet for your passion?”
“In years, perhaps my father would have enough to pay you off appropriately,” she said, “should I break from you then. Or you could have earned enough, built enough of your own contacts, to be a success out from beneath his wing.”
“Do you really want to stay here for years? Do you really expect me to wait that long, putting off the questions, convincing your father to keep me on as the son-in-law his daughter refuses to take? Your father’s a sorely poor businessman with a tendency toward indulgences, but he’s far from stupid. He’s already begun questioning your progress. My intentions. And he knows . . . he suspects, sweetheart.”
“What? That this was a plot?”
“Your reasons for making it,” Jacquin said. “I’ve been discreet, but people do talk.”
“Allow me to ask you this. If not for my father’s business, would you wish to marry me?”
“I care for you fully,” Jacquin said from twisted lips. “We have ever been the best of friends.”
What she’d meant as compliment, he’d turned to insult. “Answer my question.”
He said nothing.
She wanted none of this. Not his anger or disdain, not knowing everything for which she’d wished for the past two years had become as naught. She didn’t touch him. They stared at each other, a distance between them that had never been there and she feared now ever would.
“I will not break with you, Jacquin. Go and tell my father I have doubts about my calling, but I need a bit more time to discern if what I feel is true. Go and . . . do whatever it is you wish.”
He gave her a stiff half bow. She couldn’t recall if he’d ever been so formal with her. She curtsied, knowing she’d never done such a thing for him.
“This can’t go on forever, Annalise.”
“I might be asked to take my vows. If I discover this is a true calling, and I become a Handmaiden, what then?”
“Then you’ll have no choice but to break with me.”
“Then I suppose you’d be well served to do your best in filling my father’s coffers, so that when the time comes you might profit.” Cold words said with too much heat.
The kiss surprised her, harsh and fierce as it was, and she froze in his embrace. When he moved his mouth to her ear, the wet heat of his words made her shiver. His hands gripped her tight, too tight, and for the first time since ever she’d known him, Annalise feared the man holding her so close.
“Everything I have I would hold as close as this. And yet you are forcing me to let it go.”
He let her go as he said it. She pushed away from him. “Has it come to such a thing, that we should be enemies?”
“Such a decision, I would say, is yours to make. As you’ve made it clear I can do naught to otherwise sway you.”
Her jaw tightened, briefly. “Did you really think all it would take was a few kisses to convince me?”
“It could’ve been more than that.”
“Here? In the gazebo? Where any might see? Surely you don’t think I’m such a doxy as that, Jacquin!”
He stared hard and made no reply.
She gasped at the affront and turned on her heel. She was already halfway down the hill before he caught up to her, fingertips snagging her sleeve and turning her. A breeze blew the lace at his throat, and it seemed ever more flouncy and unnecessary an accessory.
“You,” she said through gritted teeth, “take your hand away from me. Right now.”
He did, but her arm hurt where he’d squeezed. “When you become a Handmaiden, you’ll do whatever your patron needs, yes?”
“Yes. That’s the purpose.”
“So why not take me as your patron, then? Do what I need? What I want? What difference is there between serving some stranger and giving me what I require? You’ll balk at my affections yet suck a stranger’s cock? What sort of calling is that?”
“There’s so much more to it than that!”
“Then why not me?” Jacquin demanded.
“Giving you what you want is not the purpose of a Handmaiden!”
“Oh, yes. Solace. Well, let me tell you, sweetheart, I can assure you that I should achieve solace should you just come back home and wed me as we’d arranged, so that I might continue as we planned.”
“As you planned, and my father planned!”
“And as you desired!” Jacquin spit to the side.
“I begin to believe you never cared for me as you say, if you could so turn upon me now. I would imagine if your affection was real, you’d be happy for me should I discover this calling is true. If I should decide to become a Handmaiden, I’d be doing good for the world. It’s no small thing, Jacquin. If this is truly my path, I would imagine you might be more willing to honor it.”
“You’re being selfish,” he said.
This took her aback near more than anything else he’d said, and the words rose without effort. “Selfish is the heart that thinks first of itself.”
“What is that?”
“One of the five principles.”
Jacquin’s smile stretched thin. “One you’ve not yet managed to follow, then.”
“You’re thinking of yourself as well,” Annalise said wearily. A dull throbbing had begun behind her eyes. She wanted him to go. She wanted this all to go.
“I make no claims at a calling. Ask yourself what would be the best course here, sweetheart. That’s all I want you to do. Think about it. I plead your mercy,” he added, a hand over his heart and sounding sincere. “I’ve spoken out of turn and with anger, and that was never my intent.”
She nodded, unwilling to forget all he’d said but unable to replace the affection of years with contempt, now. “I will think about what you said.”
“Then I suppose that’s all I can ask.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it formally. “Good-bye, Annalise. I’ll write to you. Don’t let another month pass without doing the same.”
“I won’t.”
Then, with another look back at her, Jacquin headed toward the stables. Annalise waited a few minutes to gather her composure before making her way toward the Motherhouse. She was in sore need of some quiet to think.
Her feet led her there as though she’d been tied to a ribbon being pulled by an unseen hand. Step by step, through familiar halls and past dark rooms, down some stairs, until she got to his room.
She sought peace, but found Cassian instead.
Chapter 20
H
e was unsurprised to find her at his door. When she pushed past him and into his room, Cassian shut the door behind her and left it unlocked. It seemed likely Annalise would be leaving as swiftly as she’d entered.
She stalked to his dresser, helped herself to a glass of worm. Quaffed it. Wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. Turned.
“Your betrothed has taken his horse from the stables and gone away. And here you are. Is he sending a carriage for you, later?” Cassian formed the words carefully yet didn’t manage to keep his tone as neutral as he’d planned.
Annalise’s head snapped up, her gaze stormy and mouth grimly set. “No, he’s not, no matter how that might please you.”
He bristled at once, she ever the oil to his water. “Don’t presume you know my mind well enough to speak it for me.”
She drew a sharp, hitching breath and turned her back. “I presume naught, sir, but speak my mind as freely as I ever have. If I presume, it’s because you yourself have led me to make such a guess as to your thoughts.”
“So you’re not leaving, then?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Should I?”
He’d thought for sure she’d be gone already. That she seemed hesitant should’ve set him a bit more at ease, but for the fact that Cassian had long ago ceased to understand the feeling of ease. It was better that way.
“I wouldn’t presume to make your decision for you.”
In her cheeks, two bright pink spots burned. “No? You have ever made your opinions clear on all else. Yet this time, when I come to you with a clear request for your thoughts, you . . . you . . .”
“Why is this even a question?” Cassian asked, hoping to fend off her tears.
“Why?” Annalise tossed up her hands and shook her head until her braid swung. “This is my life we’re discussing, not some random happenstance. My life!”
“
Your
life,” he pointed out. He doubted in that moment she’d have noticed any quaver in his voice, but he did his best to keep it calm anyway. “
Your
choices.”
When she buried her face in her hands, he thought for sure she wept. Yet the tears but glinted in her gaze; they hadn’t yet escaped her eyes. She blinked and turned her face up to the ceiling. She drew in a breath. When she looked at him again, it was steadily.
“I have choices?”
“One always has choices, Annalise.”
She gave a short bark of laughter and lifted her glass, this time to drain it. She settled it carefully on the dresser and ran her fingertip around the rim of, then licked it. She looked at him.
“When I came here, I honestly didn’t believe I’d ever finish the training, take the vows. I didn’t think I’d ever find whatever the others have inside them that allows them to serve. Absolute solace?” she scoffed. “How on earth could I possibly lead anyone toward what I’ve never known, myself? What I don’t believe exists?”
“You needn’t have experienced it to provide it to another.”
“Pretty words from a pretty mouth.” She licked her lips, gaze bright, hectic color still dotting her cheeks. “But it’s a lie, Cassian. Tell me it’s not.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You
won’t
tell me. That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
She made to pour herself another glass, but he strode across the room and took the bottle from her. He corked it. Then he opened the dresser’s top drawer and placed the bottle carefully inside and closed it, locked it with the small key jutting from the lock, and tucked the key into his pocket.
“I thought we were friends,” she said, “yet you’d be so stingy with your drink, I cannot believe it.”
“You’ve had enough. Come, Annalise,” he said softly. “You should go to your room until this passes.”
She shrugged off his grip. “Until what passes?”
“This melancholy.”
She gaped, then shook her head and backed away from him. “Melancholy? You think this is something as light as melancholy, Cassian?”
“You’re intoxicated on worm.”
“I’m not,” she protested, “for you’ve stolen it away before I could possibly have drunk enough.”