“
Yes,” Nathan said. “Yes, that would be best. I’m a man of wide experience and refined taste. I’m used to better. Bring something to dazzle me.”
“
Of course, my lord.” He bowed twice and rushed off.
Clarissa grinned in wonder after the man had gone. “Nathan! This is the finest dress I’ve ever seen, and you wish him to show us something better?”
Nathan lifted an eyebrow. “Nothing is too good for a concubine to the emperor, the woman carrying the emperor’s child.”
Her heart fluttered to hear the prophet say that again. Sometimes, when she looked into his azure eyes, she almost saw something there, almost had the vaguest impression, if only for an instant, that Nathan was quite beyond mad. But when that serene smile of his came to his face, she melted in his confidence.
He was more daring than any man she had ever met. His daring had saved her from the brutes back in Renwold. Since then, his daring had saved them in circumstances that to her seemed worse than hopeless.
There had to be a grain of madness in daring that far beyond bold.
“
Nathan, I trust in you, and will do whatever you ask of me, but please, would you tell me if this is just a story to pass us here, or do you really see such a horrid thing for my future?”
Nathan brought his leg down and rose to his full, towering height. He lifted one of her hands, bringing it to his heart as if it were the most fragile of blossoms. His long silver hair slipped over the front of his shoulder as he stood ever so close to her and looked into her eyes.
“
Clarissa, it is just a tale to accomplish my goals. It in no way reflects anything I see about the future. I won’t lie to you and tell you that there are not dangers ahead, but be at ease for now, and enjoy this much of it. We must wait for a while, and I wanted you to have an enjoyable time of it.
“
You are pledged to do what you must. I trust in your word. In the meantime, I wanted nothing more than to do you a simple kindness.”
“
But shouldn’t we hide where people won’t know of us? Somewhere alone and out of sight?”
“
That is the way criminals or unskilled runaways would hide. That’s why they get caught. It makes people suspicious. If anyone is hunting them, they look in all the dark holes, never thinking to look in the light. As long as we must hide, the best place to hide is in the open.
“
The story is too preposterous for people not to believe in its truth. No one would ever consider that anybody would have the audacity to invent such a tale, and so no one will question it.
“
Besides, we aren’t really hiding; no one is hunting us. We simply don’t want to make people suspicious. Hiding would make them so.”
She shook her head. “Nathan, you are a marvel.”
Clarissa eyed the bodice of the beautiful dress, what she could see of it, anyway, beyond the exposed flesh of her breasts, which were pushed up so high that they nearly tumbled out. She tugged at the bone stays lying against her ribs under her bosom. She had never worn such strange and uncomfortable undergarments. She couldn’t imagine why they were all required. She smoothed the silken skirt of the dress.
“
Does it look good on me? I mean, honestly. Tell me the truth, Nathan. I’m just a plain woman. Doesn’t it look silly on a plain woman?”
Nathan’s eyebrow arched. “Plain? Is that what you think?”
“
Of course. I’m no fool. I know I’m not—”
Nathan waved her to silence. “Maybe you should have a look for yourself.”
He pulled the sheet off the standing mirror. This was a showing room for gentleman. When he had instructed her on matters of decorum and propriety, he had told her that the mirrors in such a place were rarely used, and she wasn’t to look in one unless asked. It was the look in the gentleman’s eyes that mattered in such an exclusive shop, not the look in the mirror.
Nathan gently took her elbow and walked her before the mirror. “Forget what you see in your mind, and look at what others see when they look at you.”
Clarissa’s fingers fidgeted over the bunched frills at her waist. She nodded at Nathan, but feared to look in the mirror and be disappointed by what she always saw when she looked at herself. He gestured again. Wincing just a little out of embarrassment, she turned to gaze at her reflection.
Her jaw dropped at what she saw.
Clarissa didn’t recognize herself. She was not this young-looking. A woman—not a young, fickle woman, but a woman in the full glory of her maturity, a woman of elegance and bearing— stared back.
“
Nathan,” she whispered, “my hair … my hair wasn’t this long. How did the woman who worked on it this afternoon make it longer?”
“
Ah, well, she didn’t. I used some magic to do it. I thought it would look better if it was just a bit longer. You don’t object, I pray.”
“
No,” she whispered. “It’s lovely.”
Her soft brown hair was done in ringlets, with delicate violet ribbons tied into them. She moved her head. The ringlets sprang up and down, and swayed side to side. Clarissa had once seen a woman of standing come to Renwold, and she had hair like this. It was the most beautiful hair Clarissa had ever seen. Now, Clarissa’s hair looked just like that.
She stared at herself in the mirror. Her shape was so … shapely. All those hard, tight things under her dress had somehow rearranged her figure. Clarissa’s face blushed to see her bosom straining up the way it did, half exposed for all to see.
She had always known, of course, that women like Manda Perlin weren’t really shaped as they appeared. She knew that when they had their clothes off, their shapes were not a great deal different from any other woman’s, but Clarissa had never known just how much of it was due to the dresses those attractive women wore.
In the mirror, in this dress, with her hair done in such a fashion and with the paint on her face, she looked the equal of any of them. Perhaps older, but that age seemed only to add bearing to what she saw; not a spent, unattractive quality, as she had always thought.
And then she saw the ring in her lip.
It was gold, not silver.
“
Nathan—” she whispered. “What happened to the ring?”
“
Oh, that. Well, it wouldn’t do to have you supposedly a concubine to the emperor himself and carrying his little emperor heir, and have a silver ring through your lip. Everyone knows that the emperor only brings those with gold rings to his bed.
“
Besides, you were wrongly marked with a silver ring. It should have been gold from the beginning. Those men were just plain blind.” He gestured in a grand fashion. “I, of course, am a man of vision.” He held his hand out toward the mirror. “Look for yourself. That woman is too beautiful to wear anything but a gold ring.”
In the mirror, the woman staring back was getting tears in her eyes. Clarissa wiped a finger across her lower lids. She feared to ruin the paint the woman had put on her face when her hair was being curled.
“
Nathan, I don’t know what to say. You have done magic. You have made a plain woman into something …”
“
Beautiful,” he finished.
“
But why?”
His face screwed up with an odd expression. “Are you daft? I couldn’t very well have you looking plain,” He swept a hand down, indicating himself. “No one would believe a man as dashing as myself would be seen with a woman any less stunning.”
Clarissa grinned. He didn’t look so old to her as he had seemed when she had first met him. He really did look dashing. Dashing, and distinguished.
“
Thank you, Nathan, for having faith in me, in more ways than one.”
“
It’s not faith; it’s vision for what others are too blind to see. Now they do.”
She glanced to the curtain where the dressmaker had disappeared. “But this is all so very expensive. This dress alone would cost me near to a year’s wages. And all the other things: the lodging; the coaches; the hats; the shoes; the women who did my hair and face. It all costs so much. You are spending money like a prince on holiday. How can you possibly afford it?”
The sly smile oozed back onto his face. “I’m good at … making money. I could never spend all I can make. Don’t be concerned about it; it means little to me.”
“
Oh.” She glanced back at the mirror. “Of course.”
He cleared his throat. “What I mean is that you are more important than petty matters of gold. People are more important than such considerations. If it was my last copper, I would have spent it with no less enthusiasm, or greater worry.”
When the dressmaker finally returned with a selection of stunning dresses, Nathan chose a number for her to try on. Clarissa went into the dressing room with each, and with the aid of the dressmaker’s woman, tried on each. Clarissa didn’t think she would have been able to lace, tie, and button any of them by herself.
Nathan smiled at each dress she came out in, and told the dressmaker he would buy it. By the end of the next hour, Nathan had selected a half dozen dresses, and had passed a handful of gold to the dressmaker. In all her life, she had never imagined a place of such wealth that dresses were already made. It was another measure of how much her life had changed with Nathan; only the very rich, or royalty, would buy dresses this way.
“
I will make the necessary alterations, my lord, and have the dresses delivered to the Briar House.” He darted a look at Clarissa. “Perhaps my lord would wish me to leave several of them loose-fitting, to accommodate madam, when she grows with our emperor’s child?”
Nathan waved a hand dismissively. “No, no. I enjoy having her look her best. I will have a seamstress let them out when necessary, or simply purchase others to fit her then.”
It suddenly embarrassed Clarissa to realize that this dressmaker thought that she was concubine not only to the emperor but to Nathan. The ring through her lip, gold though it was, still meant she was nothing more than a slave. A slave would mean little to the emperor, with child or not, gold ring or not.
Nathan boldly told people that he was Emperor Jagang’s plenipotentiary, which kept them furiously bowing and scraping. Clarissa was merely property, shared with the emperor’s trusted agent.
The dressmaker’s sidelong glance finally struck home. She was a whore in his eyes. Maybe a whore in a fine dress, and maybe not a whore by choice, but a whore nonetheless. A whore who was enjoying herself, being dressed in fine clothes and kept by an important man at the finest inn in the city.
The fact that Nathan didn’t think the same thing was all that kept her from running from the dress shop in humiliation.
Clarissa reproached herself. This was the pretense Nathan had crafted for them, to keep them safe. It kept the soldiers they encountered at every turn from hauling her away to a tent. Deprecating glances were a small thing indeed for her to bear in return for all that Nathan had done for her, and for the respect he always showed her. It was what Nathan thought that mattered.
Besides, she was used to disapproving looks—looks of sympathy at best, scorn at worst. People had never looked upon her with favor. Let these people think what they would. She knew she was doing something worthwhile, for a man of worth.
Clarissa lifted her chin as she strutted to the door.
The dressmaker bowed again as they stepped out into the dark street to the waiting carriage. “Thank you, Lord Rahl. Thank you for allowing me to serve the emperor in my small way. The dresses will be delivered before morning, you have my word.”
Nathan waved an offhanded dismissal to the man.
In the dim dining room of the elegant Briar House, Clarissa sat across a small table from Nathan. She now noticed the surreptitious glances she got from the staff. She sat up straighter and put her shoulders back, defying them to have a good look at her bosom. She reasoned that in the murky candlelight, and under all the face paint, they wouldn’t be able to see her face reddening.
The wine warmed her, and the roasted duck finally sated her gnawing hunger. People kept bringing food—fowl and pork and beef, along with gravies and sauces and a variety of side dishes. She nibbled at a few, not wanting to appear a glutton, and afterward she was satisfied.
Nathan ate with zeal, but didn’t overeat. He enjoyed the different dishes, wanting to try them all. The staff hovered around him, slicing meat, pouring sauces, and moving plates and platters around as if he were helpless. He encouraged them, asking for things, sending others away, and in general made himself appear an important man in their midst.
She guessed that he was. He was the emperor’s plenipotentiary; a man not to be crossed. No one wanted Lord Rahl to be anything but most pleased. If his pleasure required seeing to Clarissa’s desires, they did that, too.
Clarissa was relieved when they were finally shown to their rooms, and Nathan had at last closed the door. She sagged, at last unburdened of the responsibility of acting a fine lady, or a fine whore; she wasn’t exactly sure how to play the part. She did know that she was glad to be away from the eyes that played over her.
Nathan strode around the two rooms, inspecting the painted walls with gold molding applied to form huge, sweeping panels with reverse-curved corners. Rich carpets in deep colors covered nearly every inch of floor. Everywhere there were couches and chairs. One room had several tables, one for taking meals there, another, with a slant top, for writing. The writing table held neatly arranged sheets of paper, silver pens, and gold-topped ink bottles with various colors of ink.