Bride by Command (20 page)

When he burst into the parlor in a near rage, she knew he had tried again to find the Ramsden girl and once again had failed. Kristo was a man unaccustomed to failure. It did not agree with him at all. Most women—men, too—would be rightly frightened of Kristo in a rage, but Rikka simply watched him and admired his masculine form and his formidable power and his hypnotic eyes. She could not ask for a better partner in her quest.

“Nothing?” she prodded.

He looked directly at her, and she could swear she felt a chill even with a distance between them. “I think she is already in Arthes.”

“You
think
?”

“Yes. I believe that she is there, somewhere.”

“Arthes is a large city,” Rikka said. “Your uncertain belief that she is there
somewhere
is not particularly helpful.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Kristo shouted.

Rikka was not afraid of him, not as others were. He would shout and perhaps break a few things, and then he would strip her naked and with his cold body he would make her scream before leaving her shaking and spent while he departed from her unfulfilled. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon.

The angrier he was, the more fiercely he would take her. Rikka liked fierce. “Why is she different?” She took a step toward her lover and fellow conspirator.

“I’m too close to her, I suppose,” he admitted, his voice lowered but his eyes no less brutal. “It is harder for me to see those who are near to me.” His eyes bored through her. “There was a time when I could see into you very well, but lately I see almost nothing.”

Rikka smiled. “Because you love me?”

That got a grin out of Kristo. Rikka shuddered. The man should not smile. The expression did not agree with him at all. “I love no one,” he said, “but we have shared a physical closeness that clouds my knowledge.”

“Did you once share such a closeness with Lady Morgana?” Rikka asked. “Is that why you do not see her well?”

Kristo laughed loudly. It was a sound Rikka had never heard before and would be very happy never to hear again. His laugh grated like broken glass. “No, but I did fuck her mother a time or two.” He looked Rikka in the eye. “Lady Morgana is my daughter.”

 

 

HIS
time of bliss was almost over. Jahn realized that too well. If he was not very careful, it would end very badly.

When Morgana had begun helping women with their beauty concerns, he had considered it a hobby which would keep her occupied while he tended to business in the palace. The pastime was harmless enough. That supposition had changed abruptly. Learning that his former mistresses had called upon his wife that very afternoon was more than a little disturbing. He’d had to wait for word that they were gone before he could even think about returning to the tavern! He was always careful not to be seen and recognized, but this was ridiculous. Morgana’s business was no longer a harmless hobby; it was a potential disaster waiting to explode in his face.

Morgana was obviously quite pleased with herself as she welcomed him home. After seeing Melusina and Anrid in the palace staircase as he’d made his way from one home to another, Jahn understood why. In a single afternoon, in a matter of hours, she had transformed them from painted ladies to pretty girls. She had, with a few small changes and a few large ones, given the women a touch of elegance they had never before known. Their faces had been scrubbed clean, and looked younger and softer. Their hair had been arranged simply, also taking years from their appearance. Though not primly styled, their clothing was no longer shocking. How had Morgana gotten them new gowns so quickly? The woman was a marvel.

Melusina and Anrid had been quite pleased with his surprised expression, even though he had not stopped to speak to them. He could not help but wonder what, besides the concerns of beauty and fashion, the three women had talked about during their long afternoon.

When Jahn walked into the room he now called home, Morgana kissed him well, a welcoming ritual he always began to crave long before it was time for him to return to this simple, false life he had created for himself. She loved him now, when she did not know who he was. Would she love him tomorrow?

“I have news,” Jahn said, giving Morgana a wide smile. “In the morning we’re moving into the palace.”

Her bright smile faded and she paled considerably. “I don’t want to move into the palace. I like it here.”

So did he, though he could not tell her how much. Jahn placed a hand on Morgana’s cheek. “My friends have been missed at the palace, and some of them have hardly seen their families in the past few weeks because they’re so often here. I cannot continue to ask them to make that sacrifice. In the palace I can see that you are safe with a much smaller contingent of guards.”

It was tedious to leave the palace dressed as an emperor and guarded by an entourage, duck into one private place or another and change clothes, then make his way to the tavern as another sort of man, but tediousness would not make him change this routine. Keeping Morgana in the dark a bit longer—that was what motivated him.

“Do I really need . . .”

“Yes,” Jahn said sharply, not giving her a chance to finish her question. “You are precious to me, and I will not leave you unguarded.”

“Other women are not escorted about town by four armed guards,” she argued.

“Other women are not my wife,” Jahn replied.

“During the daylight hours I see many of them out and about unaccompanied.”

“The last time you were out unaccompanied, you were frightened.”

“Needlessly so, since I didn’t know you had your friends following me. I can take care of myself.”

“There is no need, not as long as I take care of you.”

Her expression softened. “You make it so difficult to argue with you. What about my business?” she asked. “Will I be able to work here still, or will there be a place for me in the palace?”

Jahn took a deep breath. She was not going to like this change, he suspected. “For now, I have made arrangements for you to work for the palace laundress. The pay will be much better than what you’re bringing in with your little venture, and . . .”

He knew he was in trouble when her eyes went hard. “My little venture?”

“I’m not saying you can’t earn some money of your own.” For now, when she was ignorant of her true position . . . “It’s just . . .”

“My little venture?”
she said again.

Obviously that was a poor choice of words on his part. “I want you to be happy,” he said. “More than once you have wondered aloud what we’ll do when we have children. You’re right; you have been right all along. We cannot raise our sons and daughters in a small room over a tavern; we cannot make a home for a family here.” He gave her a smile and tried to picture the Level Seven room he had in mind. No one used that level much anymore, as it had once been the home of witches and wizards and less-than-wholesome magic, and many palace residents were a mite suspicious. He could do with that entire level as he pleased. “There is a room there that is at least three times as large as this one, and the emperor has promised it to me.”

Her expression softened. “Three times?”

“Perhaps four.” There might be a greater risk that his charade would be discovered, as he would now be leading his double life and changing his costume within the palace, but at least his wife would not be swapping stories with the women who had once shared his bed! Melusina and Anrid wouldn’t be caught dead near the laundry. Besides, he intended to have them both out of the palace as soon as possible. Could he get them out before he moved Morgana in?

The First Night of the Summer Festival was fast approaching. Three weeks and three days to go. He could maintain his charade until then, if he did not break down and confess the truth in a moment of weakness.

“The furnishings there are palace castoffs, but still they will be much nicer than these,” he promised. “If we can make a happy home here, imagine what we can do in the palace, with more room and a proper bed and a sturdy table and chairs.” He leaned into her and lowered his voice. “It will be very quiet at night, without the drunken voices of tavern patrons invading your sleep.”

“I like the sound of that,” she said, her voice kinder. Gentler.

He breathed a sigh of relief, even though he knew he was digging his own grave with each lie, and that grave got deeper with each passing day that he allowed the lies to continue. If he were a better man, he would tell her the truth here and now, even if she had just met his former mistresses. No, this was the worst of times for such a confession.

“We will move in the morning,” he said as he backed Morgana toward the waiting bed.

“So soon?”

“I see no reason to delay,” he said, raking his nose across her neck where it turned to shoulder. She was wearing the blue dress she had so carefully repaired. He would not cut it off her again, not until he could tell her the truth of her place in this world and gift her with a dozen more suitable frocks. “You smell so good, and you are so warm.”

“You warm me,” she whispered. “You always have.”

“Is that why you love me?”

She answered with a touch of humor in her voice. “Perhaps.”

He took his time removing her best dress, which had seen much wear since he’d taken her from her home. Yes, soon he would dress her in fine gowns and bathe her in jewels. He would feed her well and she would sleep on the softest, most luxurious bed imaginable. She would want for nothing.

All she had to do was forgive him.

“WE
leave tomorrow for Arthes,” Kristo said, his eyes on Rikka’s face. She was not the prettiest woman he had ever known, and she was far from the youngest, but she was the most wonderfully broken. Inside, where it counted most, she had never been complete. She had never been happy, not even as a child. He sensed that she hadn’t enjoyed sex at all until he’d come along. Her cheeks flushed in the aftermath of an orgasm that had made her scream, her face lit up even more at the news that her plans were about to come together.

“The women, the foolishly hopeful brides we did not choose, are they dead?” she asked breathlessly. “Can you see that are all four are dead?”

She was naked beneath him, and unlike other women she did not cringe at the touch of his cold skin. In fact, she liked it very much. He could even run his hands across her flesh without making her flinch. He touched her as she questioned the outcome of her plans. “Dead or out of the picture.”

Her smile faded. “They are not all
dead
?”

“No.”

Rikka’s short-lived contentment fled. “Who failed me, Kristo?”

“Many failed you, but the result is that which you desire. You will have all that you want.”

Though he did not see Rikka’s future well since they had become lovers, he did get a sudden flash of knowledge which warned him that she might not live to see all that she had planned come to pass. If he cared more for her, he might fight to learn the details, he might warn her to be cautious in days to come, but he did neither. She was a diversion along the way to the total chaos he craved; she was the impetus which would eventually put his daughter and grandson into a position of great power—and Kristo would be there beside them, guiding and teaching.

Kristo had sensed at Morgana’s birth that his daughter had inherited some of his gifts, but they had been weak and he’d been disappointed by her gender and her frailty. If he’d cared to take her under his wing and nurture her long ago, perhaps she’d be more powerful now. At that time in his life he’d been too busy developing his own magic to bother with that of a child. He’d neglected Morgana and her gift over the years, and she was not well taught in that regard. His grandson would be taught from birth; he would see to it himself. He would not fail his grandson as he’d failed his daughter. Allowing Morgana’s mother to take her away had been a mistake, the biggest of Kristo’s life.

All his life, having power only made him want more and more and more. Morgana’s mother, the only woman he had ever taken as a true wife, had never understood that. She’d wanted him to be happy with what they had; she’d wanted him to be a loving husband and father, much as Gyl had wanted Rikka to be satisfied with being a loving wife.

Which reminded him . . .

“Gyl tried to come back this afternoon,” he said, rubbing his cold, hard body against hers and stealing even more of her heat.

“Did he?”

Was there a touch of longing in her voice? Did this broken woman still yearn for something only her ineffectual wizard could give her? “Yes. He came to rescue you, I think, or to kidnap you. I suspect he thought those two actions would be one and the same.”

“I trust you sent him away.”

“No. I killed him.”

Rikka tried to hide her reaction, but he felt her body lurch, just a little.

“I turned him to stone as he foolishly lunged for me with a knife. You have never seen me use that power, but perhaps one day you will. It’s quite remarkable.”

“Where is he? Am I to have a statue of Gyl frozen in midattack in my garden?” she snapped.

“Of course not,” Kristo said. He touched her hip with his cold hand, he grabbed her flesh hard, and this time she did flinch. “I shattered the stone figure and spread what was left of it across the western fields. If I had left Gyl’s remains intact, there would always be the possibility that someone might possess the magic to bring him back again. We can’t have that, now can we?”

“No,” she whispered.

“You mourn him,” he said, amused by her reaction.

“I do not,” she argued, but there were tears in her eyes, and she suddenly looked old. She wore every one of her years on a hardened face.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow we leave here and you start a new life where all you desire, all you deserve, will be given to you. When Sebestyen’s sons are dead and you rule Columbyana, all the sacrifices you’ve made will seem small.”