Pleasure and Purpose by Megan Hart

Author:Megan Hart [Hart, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf

Chapter 13

She'd brought no formal gowns with her, nothing suitable for taking dinner as a guest in a nobleman's home, but Honesty didn't fear. Cillian had provided a wealth of gowns for her use, all tailored to fit her exactly. A hot, scented bath and sweet lotions to perfume her had already set the mood, and now she sifted through the pile of pretty dresses, comparing them one to another to see which would best suit her.

She held up the green, which would look striking next to Cillian should he wear the same shade. And, she decided, she'd insist upon it. She nodded at her reflection, turning her face to look at the lines and angles to which she so rarely paid attention. She was dressing for him, she realized, and the dress fell from her suddenly nerveless grasp to puddle at her feet. She'd sent away the lady's maid, used to and preferring to take care of herself, and so there was nobody else to smooth the wrinkles from the fabric. Nor anyone to help her to a chair or pour her a glass of cool water from the pitcher, so she sank instead to the floor along with the dress.

From her place there she could see the ceiling, the pattern of stamped metal and the painted designs depicting the Fall of Sinder. It was perhaps meant to be an erotic scene, something to tantalize the bedchamber's inhabitants as they lay abed, but to Honesty the scene was anything but sensual. Sinder had come out of the Void and created the world, and he'd come across Kedalya in the wood, and he'd fallen in love with her. He'd fallen.

A week was not long enough to lose a heart, she thought, and knew that to be a lie. A heart could be lost in a day. An hour. A minute. With one glance, a sigh. A breath.

"I don't love him," she whispered. "I do not love him." Perhaps not, but something stirred within her, and it was more than the normal emotion she carried for every patron. Honesty sat amongst the tangles of ribbon ties and lace hems. When had it begun? The first time she took him into her mouth, maybe. Or when he'd allowed her to take his hand, or when he'd smiled instead of losing his temper. When he'd tried to refuse her, she thought, and when she'd realized how much difference she could make in his life, and how much he deserved to have such a difference made. She knew the sting and bite of love, knew the power of it. How it could send a strong man to his knees and pull a weak woman off hers. What she felt for the Prince of Firth wasn't love, but it was something well on its way.

"Your mercy!" The low male voice from the doorway startled her into getting to her feet. Honesty clutched the robe about her; the gown remained crumpled at her feet. "Who are you?"

"Your mercy, lady.

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