by Kelly Hunter
And then he left.
CHAPTER SIX
THREE DAYS LATER Sera stepped naked into the bathing pool and kept going until every part of her was underwater from the neck down. The pool had been getting warmer by the day and now it ran hot, day in and day out. No one used it but her. Augustus had declined, ever since that first time. Her guards declined the use of it—even if they knew she’d be out all day giving a talk at one gallery or another or being interviewed by journalists or overseeing this function or that. Augustus kept her busy and if he wasn’t in residence, his secretary kept her busy. TV show hosts loved her because the cameras loved her face and she could string two words together.
She was compliant, carving out a place for herself in his world that had nothing to do with the sexual aspects of a courtesan’s role and everything to do with social outreach and celebration of history and letting people get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the day-to-day running of the palace.
She was an ambassador. Making connections, building a web, consolidating power that didn’t belong to her, and the role suited her to perfection. She was good at it.
Augustus was managing her, piling on the work, keeping her so busy in her dual roles of palace PR and events management that there was barely time for thought, and far too little time for herself.
This morning she’d requested of his secretary that down time be built into her weekly schedule and that if she was obliged to work weekends she wanted the following Tuesday kept free for her own use.
‘Finally,’ she thought she’d heard the old man mutter beneath his breath, and then he’d pulled a file drawer open and moments later handed her a bunch of papers on workplace rights. ‘Read these, sign these, hand them back in and I can most assuredly do something about that, Lady Sera. Not everyone here is willing to work like a dog for no apparent reason.’
She’d read through the employment conditions, signed them and handed them back in and now had every full Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning off.
Much to Augustus’s displeasure.
Sera ducked beneath the water, wetting her hair and holding her breath until the need to breathe forced her to rise.
Tomorrow was Tuesday, her first full day off, and Ari had invited her to spar with him during tomorrow’s six a.m. lesson. She hadn’t sparred with anyone since Ari had dropped her to the ground and Augustus had helped her back up. She’d taken on a tutor’s role instead, helping those who’d taken up the invitation to practise the forms, and she enjoyed her role, but maybe tomorrow she would spar with Ari again.
Take back some of her own identity.
If Augustus objected she would tell him she was a tutor now and call it a demonstration.
As for the charities she’d been working for so tirelessly, maybe it was time to invest some of her own identity into that too.
And see what good and noble King Augustus would do.
* * *
‘What do you mean she wants to take a courtesan’s clothing collection on the road, starting with viewings at city brothels?’
Augustus knew he was glaring at his personal secretary but the idea was preposterous. He was doing everything in his power to remove her courtesan status. He was trying, above all, to render her role here respectable. The very least she could do was appreciate it.
‘Lady Sera’s guards put forward the security arrangement plans this morning,’ his secretary informed him placidly. ‘There’s a fifty-page report justifying the social benefits involved, including collaboration with community welfare groups and backing from your police commissioner and city mayor. Two of the brothels are extremely prestigious. Others are less so. I have it on good advice that several are for...acquired tastes. They’re all registered and legal.’
Silence was one response to situations out of his control. It wasn’t the only response available to him. ‘Get her in here. Now.’
‘Lady Sera’s schedule for the day puts her at the state library attending a history lecture until one. This afternoon she’ll be overseeing the botanists’ picnic on the lawn surrounding the royal glasshouses.’
Roses. Good grief. Roses and social welfare. Just what he needed.
‘Ask the Lady Sera if she’s available for dinner this evening. Put us in the blue dining room with several dishes for sharing, a small selection of sweets and let us serve ourselves.’ It wasn’t an unusual request, although it was one he usually reserved for family.
‘Does next week’s costume tour have your approval?’ His secretary reminded him of the matter in hand.
‘No. Have you read the proposal?’
‘It makes for interesting reading. I particularly enjoyed Chapter Two.’
‘Fifty pages, you say?’
‘With references, footnotes and a reading list,’ the older man said, handing it over. ‘She’s also written you a report outlining new initiatives for education reform, particularly with regard to non-academic children. She confirms a substantial donation from the temples of the High Reaches to set up a pilot project. You want to see that proposal too?’
‘Give it over.’ He didn’t have time for this. He truly didn’t.
‘Additionally, Lady Sera has been restructuring the fund-raising portfolio related to education. The one your grandmother, mother and Moriana have toiled over for generations.’
‘What for? What part of “It’s a good one” doesn’t she understand?’
‘I’ll leave that for you to judge. I’ll warn you though, she’s already engaged your sister’s co-operation and they’re looking at some quite sweeping reforms.’
‘They’ll still have to go through me.’ He wasn’t looking forward to being the voice of reason. He could already name a dozen education initiatives that Moriana had wanted to support that had been shut down by various committees full of education experts. ‘Let’s dig deeper into Sera’s background and education qualifications. Personal history too. I want no surprises when it comes to what kind of reforms she’s likely to advance.’
‘You have a dossier on her.’
‘I have a CV. I want to expedite that full investigative report I ordered. Whatever has been collected, get them to send it.’
The older man nodded.
‘As for education reform—’
‘It’s been on your agenda for the last six months,’ the older man offered drily. ‘You keep shuffling it to the bottom of your pile while you concentrate on regional water plans. I gave the portfolio to Lady Sera a week ago on a whim. So if you want to blame somebody for that particular report, blame me.’
‘I will.’ Augustus looked at the folder in his hand and scowled.
‘Children are our future,’ the older man said serenely. ‘I so look forward to yours.’
‘Alas, that will require a wife.’ And, at last glance, he still didn’t have one in mind.
He already gave careful consideration to the charities and initiatives he supported.
‘Will you be requiring casual dress for dinner this evening or something more formal?’ his secretary asked.
‘Casual.’ Even if the image of Sera in a formal evening gown made him momentarily lose focus. What would a courtesan of the High Reaches regard as formal clothing? What would she regard as casual? He hadn’t forgotten the collar and the manacles she’d worn upon her arrival. ‘Definitely casual.’
* * *
Sera arrived at the door to the blue dining room at precisely thirty seconds past seven. The door was open and Augustus was already within. She entered and he looked up, a dark-haired devil with classically handsome features and black eyes that knew how to drill deep.
She pushed back the hood of her travelling cloak and met those eyes with polite composure, before dropping to a curtsey and rising again before he could tell her to get up. He could add Doesn’t take orders to her list of sins. There were bigger sins.
‘Y
ou wear a travelling cloak to walk down a corridor?’ Augustus asked as she reached for the tie at her neck and stepped aside so that Ari could wheel a covered rack of clothes into the room and set it to one side. She waited until Ari had stationed himself outside the door before closing it behind him and turning to face her host.
‘You ordered me never to appear in front of your court wearing the clothing of my profession,’ she reminded him gently. ‘Remember?’
The cloak came off. Her tunic was sheer and the bodice beneath it was more beautiful and intricate than he had ever seen before. Fitted trousers, high heels, no jewellery but for the pearls in her hair. Modesty for the most part, enticement if anyone was so inclined. She draped the cloak over the back of a nearby chair and turned to face him again.
‘You call that casual dress?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Also, you’re wearing a hand-tailored suit, a fifty-thousand-dollar vintage watch, and the only concession you’ve made to dressing casually is that the top button of your shirt’s undone and you’ve loosened your tie.’ She arched an elegant eyebrow. ‘Did you expect me to wear shorts?’
‘I’m pretty sure the watch wasn’t worth fifty thousand when my grandfather bought it,’ he offered mildly. ‘But point taken. You look lovely.’ She always did, no matter what she wore.
He ought to be used to it by now.
‘I know your interest in historical gowns and clothing is limited,’ she said, turning towards the clothes rack. ‘But I took the liberty of bringing a few along for show and tell. They’ll form part of the costume collection I’d like to take on the road to various places, should you give the go-ahead.’
Which sounded all well and good, but he’d read the proposal—all fifty pages of it and the appendices—and by various places she meant brothels.
Augustus would have reprimanded her for being so blatantly obvious about her political agenda, only she’d turned her back on him and his attention had been firmly caught and held by the dazzling dragon-shaped embroidery that wove through the material at her back, leaving pockets of nothing but creamy skin showing through the delicate gaps. Shimmery scales collected from heaven only knew what kind of beast highlighted various dips and curves, and as for those forest-green stilettoes that matched one of the dragon’s main colours, how did she even balance on those things?
‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked, rather than engage with the topic she’d introduced. He was no novice when it came to directing conversation where he wanted it. Or keeping people off-balance, if he wanted to.
Movement was good. Movement meant he could leave the dragon at her back behind. The sideboard was stacked with a selection of beverages. ‘Wine?’
‘Thank you.’ Sera smiled, her movements quick and effortless as she removed one particular gown from the rack and twirled it around on its hanger, the better to make the skirt flare. ‘Take this gown, for example.’
‘No. Sera, you’re not taking it anywhere.’
Her eyes turned stormy. ‘You haven’t heard me out.’
‘Red or white?’
‘White.’
He poured some into a wine glass and took it to her and their fingers touched.
Her gaze met his and the outside world as he knew it skidded to a halt as a kaleidoscope of memories flashed through his brain. Sera on her knees in front of him, swallowing him down. Sera rising naked from the bathing pool and wringing water from her hair. Sera pushing back the hood of her travelling cloak. Sera, all too tempting, no matter what she said or did.
Perfect posture, regal bearing. He wondered if it came naturally to her or whether it had been drummed into her by her elders, the way Moriana’s had been ground into her. The way cool analysis and never letting anyone get close enough to truly know him had been drummed into him.
‘Is there a reason you don’t trust me to do a good job with this?’ she asked. ‘Have I not been pitch-perfect in my presentation of the courtesans of old so far?’
‘You have.’ He had to give her that. ‘Different audience.’
‘You mean you’d rather not put me in front of an audience that might actually benefit from their profession being acknowledged and treated with respect?’
‘You can reach them without prioritising them. You already are.’
‘But I want to prioritise them.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ve never lived at the edge of poverty and violence and hopelessness, have you?’ She waved a careless hand in his direction. ‘No need to answer; I know you haven’t. But I have. And every day I thank my looks and my luck and the training someone saw fit to grace me with that I’m not still there.’
‘I can’t imagine you there.’ He just couldn’t.
‘My mother was once a courtesan to a high-born man. She loved him, and in many ways that precipitated her downfall because I don’t believe he ever loved her at all. He just wanted her at his beck and call. He certainly didn’t want me to ever draw breath. My mother fled, but his reach was long. She tried to start over, but he always found her. She hid, and once I was born she hid us both, over and over again, always moving, always one step ahead. The houses got smaller. The cupboards got barer. Her sponsors meaner.’
He didn’t like this history she was telling him, but he listened while she paced.
‘I don’t remember all that much of the very early years but, by the time I was seven, my mother was lost in the bottle and dying of cancer and I was so skinny and malnourished that I couldn’t even sit at a table and eat the first meal Lianthe ever put in front of me. I ate a quarter of it, and even that was too much for me. To this day I still prefer to snack rather than sit down to a three-course meal.’ She spared a glance for the dinner table. ‘I trust it’s simply an eating preference by now but it was born of necessity.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ About the food. Her mother and the bottle.
‘You ask me why I proposed the costume tour of the brothels and this is part of it. It’s personal for me. This lavish, glittering history of the Kings’ courtesans is their history too, and you have no idea what simple acknowledgement can mean to those who are outcast. Those who live on the fringes of society and who are so often overlooked. I’m already reaching out and talking to your noble art curators and librarians about the history of courtesans—at your request. Why not reach out to the people who identify with that history the most?’
She was warming to her theme and he couldn’t take his eyes off the glittering, shimmering dragon which writhed on her back.
‘Education and learning. Physical and mental health. Those are causes the Arunian royal family has supported for centuries.’ Irony tinged her voice. ‘Causes you continue to endorse and pour money and resources into. My costume tour proposal should have made sense to you. I designed it to fit within your broader mission statements.’
Too smart by half. Too bold with her plans. And defiantly, unapologetically idealistic. He wondered if he’d ever been like that when it came to what causes to support. He rather thought not. ‘It fits to a point,’ he said carefully. ‘I applaud your...passion for outreach.’
‘No, you don’t. You’d rather bury it. Turn me into a perfect puppet who performs whatever tasks you deem suitable for someone like me.’
‘What I’d rather do is protect you,’ he argued. ‘Keep the press off your back and your reputation spotless by only giving you certain roles to play. If I send you to brothels the press will draw comparisons to what you do here, for me. They’ll dig up your history, make front page news out of you.’
‘So? I’m not ashamed of my pathway through life. I am who I am. You think you’re protecting me—you’re not. You think that by carving away at the unsavoury parts of me you’re reshaping me into something better. You’re not. All you’re doing is carving me up.’
Sera’s hands trembled as she cupped her wine glass and brought it to her lips.
She made a good show of wetting those lips but he’d bet his kingdom on the fact that she didn’t swallow so much as a drop. He strode to the sideboard, poured her a glass of water and exchanged it for the wine before she could protest.
‘Why say yes to wine when you don’t even drink?’ he snapped.
She took the water and drank it down, not stopping until she’d finished, and then set the glass on the table. ‘Is that a no to taking the costumes on tour throughout your city brothels?’
‘Yes, it’s a no. You’re not doing it. It’s a bad idea.’
She looked strangely shattered as she collected her cloak and fastened it around her neck. ‘As always, I am bound to your will and will abide by your command. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my leave.’
‘Sera.’ Her compliance should have pleased him. Instead, it left him strangely bereft. ‘You could stay and eat.’
Not that she ate in the same way he did, apparently. She’d already told him that.
‘And talk about what?’ she asked coolly. ‘Adding perfection to the list of things you require in a wife? No supporting those lost causes, right? No acknowledging the seething, need-ridden underbelly of humanity from that pedestal she’ll be standing on, right? Consider it done.’
‘I didn’t say that.’ She could get under his skin faster than any woman he’d ever known. Call up a temper he took a great deal of care to conceal. He still had her glass of wine in his hand. The temptation to drink it was strong. His fingers tightened on the stem. That tiny insignificant tell did not go unnoticed by his courtesan.
‘Go on.’ She drew closer and closer still until her breath fanned his ear and the scent of tea roses teased his nose. ‘Throw it.’
‘Why would I do that?’ He set the glass on the table gently, never mind that the temptation to hurl it at the nearest wall was strong. ‘I’m not a savage.’
‘I guess they carved that out of you as a child.’ She drew closer and closer still until her lips touched his ear. He shuddered and not with disgust. She didn’t miss that tell either. ‘Who needs passion? Who needs compassion? Not a king.’
