by Kelly Hunter
He carried her, wet and wanting, to an alcove filled with pillows and throw rugs and all manner of oils and unguents.
And this time he didn’t hold back.
CHAPTER NINE
AUGUSTUS STRODE INTO his office in a mood that ran blacker than usual. He’d woken alone in Sera’s quarters, with a breakfast tray beside him and a blanket draped over his nakedness. They’d finally made it to her bed during the night. Sleep had overtaken him at some point after that. There’d been a note on the pillow next to his head. Exercising, was all the note said. A morning ritual for his courtesan of the High Reaches. No matter what.
He’d left a similar note on the pillow requesting her company mid-morning. He had a lunch date he couldn’t get out of. With Katerina DeLitt.
He stalked to the coffee corner in the outer office and poured a cup for himself in silence. Lukewarm coffee was his friend.
His secretary cleared his throat and Augustus spared him a glance and there was something off in the older man’s gaze—but how could he know?
Granted, the man knew practically everything, but still...
Did he have I lost my mind and my heart last night written on his forehead?
‘Morning,’ he muttered.
‘You’re late,’ the older man said.
Augustus nodded. Instead of taking a quick morning shower, he’d lingered in that damned bathing pool of Sera’s, working the kinks out of his body and hoping she’d turn up. She hadn’t.
The older man handed him a file and Augustus took it. ‘What’s this?’
‘The investigative report on Lady Sera’s mother arrived last night, hand-delivered.’
‘Sounds ominous.’
‘My investigator judged the information to be of extreme sensitivity so he went old school, helped by the fact that he’s seventy years old and is old school. The report is hand-written; no digital copies exist and he cleaned up as he went.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning no one’s ever going to find that information again unless they read the file you’re holding. You’ve paid handsomely for the information and that service, by the way. Enough to send an old military-hero-turned-investigator into welcome retirement.’
‘I live to serve.’ Augustus took the folder from the other man with a frown. He dealt with classified information on a daily basis. He’d never read a hand-written report before. ‘Is the information really that sensitive?’
‘I doubt it’ll start a war. I suspect it’d come as a shock to some of the people involved. Perhaps not all.’
‘Be cryptic, then. What do I have on at eleven? Can we clear some space for a meeting with Sera?’
‘Another costume tour of the brothels? Circus arts for children? Tortoise races?’
Augustus allowed himself a smile. ‘Not yet. And I’m going to need more coffee. Double shot. Hot.’
He went to his office and shut the door behind him, slapped the file down on his desk. His desk was big, black and imposing and his chair was fit for a king and significantly more comfortable. The room was cold, his sister was always complaining of it, but he found it stopped people from lingering overlong and the less they lingered, the more work he got done.
The first half hour of his day was always dedicated to reading. Daily reports sat waiting for him in a tidy pile, arranged in order of importance. He could have read them on his computer just as easily, but there was something about the ritual of paper copies and the pile getting smaller as he worked his way through them that appealed to him. There was an end to that pile of papers, whereas digital news was never-ending. Even if he was deluding himself, he liked to think that his workload had an end-point.
Sera’s mother had loved a man, an abusive man, and had a child by him. Sera had already told him this. But she’d never mentioned names, and if he was contemplating marriage to her—which, God help him, he was—he wanted no surprises.
* * *
Sera didn’t know what to expect when she walked into Augustus’s office at exactly eleven a.m. She’d left him sleeping soundly in her quarters because she hadn’t known how to deal with him after a night like the one they’d just shared. She still didn’t know how to deal with him. But she crossed the cold room and took a seat in the chair placed strategically on the opposite side of his gleaming black desk and tried not to fidget beneath his impenetrable black-eyed gaze.
Gone was his openness of last night and the defencelessness he’d exposed in his sleep. The tousled hair and the boneless weight of his body in her bed. The long, dark lashes fanning delicately over the skin beneath his eyes. He’d been beautiful in his sleep. Softer and more boyish and she’d looked her fill in case she never got to see it again. Some of the things they’d done last night... Skin to skin with heaven in between.
She’d asked for it. She had asked for it. And she had received. ‘Morning.’
He quirked a brow and returned her greeting and asked if she wanted some coffee.
She didn’t. ‘You wanted to see me?’
‘For several reasons, not all of them concerning business.’ A crack appeared in his regal regard. A flicker of something that might have been concern. ‘How are you this morning?’
She felt as if she’d been skewered with a hot buttered sword, had begged for more and been given it. Should she say that? She might have said it to the man. Not to the King.
‘So-so,’ she said instead. ‘Ari chose not to call on me to spar with him this morning. He tells me my concentration’s off.’
‘Does he know I stayed the night?’
‘He’s head of my security detail. Of course he knows. Are you worried he’ll gossip?’
‘No.’ Augustus didn’t look worried. ‘If there’s one thing I’m learning about the Order of the Kite, it’s how well they can keep secrets. If I wasn’t increasingly wary of the lot of you I’d be impressed.’
‘If you want to know more about the Order, ask.’ She was serious. She’d been handing out historical information ever since she’d got here. ‘There’s not a lot more left to tell.’
‘Really?’ The huffing sound he made was an irritated one. ‘I had two reports cross my desk this morning, both of them concerning you. One of them informs me that before you came here you were the Chief Financial Officer for a global not-for-profit organisation that distributes over half a billion dollars each year to charities. Lady Lianthe controls the company—which I assume is connected to the Order of the Kite.’
Sera nodded. All of this was public knowledge, or at least accessible knowledge if you knew where to look.
‘You were being groomed to replace her,’ he said next.
‘I was, yes.’ She squared her shoulders and avoided glancing at the report beneath his hand in favour of studying the hand itself. Long fingers, broad base and a signet ring with the royal crest on his middle finger. A kernel of need began to heat deep inside her. Those fingers were magic.
‘And here I was trying to turn you into a humble employee so you’d have something more than courtesan to show on your résumé when you left here. More fool me.’
He was angry this morning. Clipped vowels, exact pronunciation. Sera eyed him warily.
‘I have no complaints about the work I do here,’ she said. ‘The charity programme here has been honed over centuries, much like the one the Order oversees, and it’s been illuminating to compare and contrast the similarities and differences. They’re both good. Different, but good. Besides, you know why I’m here. There is no secret. I didn’t come here to court business opportunities. I came here to honour an ancient accord between my people and yours and repay a personal debt I’ve been accruing since I was seven. I win, Augustus. You keep implying I’m here under duress. You’re wrong. I’m here because I choose to be.’
He had the best sexy brooding face she’d ever seen. ‘And where does last night factor into all t
his winning?’
‘Last night can be whatever you want it to be. Forgotten. Repeated. Picked apart until it bleeds.’ She was predicting the latter and sought to head him off. ‘I enjoyed it.’
‘You were a virgin.’
‘And?’
‘And now you’re not.’
Apparently she wasn’t the only one with slow brain cells this morning. ‘I’ll celebrate later. First let me reassure you that I have no regrets, no inclination to tell anyone else what transpired between us and no plans to force you to marry me now that you’ve claimed my precious virginity.’ He looked highly sceptical and Sera bit back a sigh. She had no wish to trap him. That had never been the goal here. Helping him address his needs had been the goal and she was doing that, wasn’t she?
Frustration looked remarkably like arousal on him. ‘So you don’t want to marry me?’
Panic hit her hard and fast. ‘That’s not even on the table. Marriage isn’t for the likes of me. Courtesans don’t marry.’
‘Don’t they?’ He was getting colder by the second. ‘Is it formally not allowed or is it something you personally just don’t want to do?’
‘You’re angry with me.’
‘Sharp as ever,’ he clipped. ‘Answer the question.’
‘I’ve never considered marrying you.’ She kept her voice even but it was a near thing. ‘Courtesans and kings can be intimate, no question. They often grow quite fond of each other. I’m fond of you.’ Liar—you’re in love with him. ‘But a wife’s role is very different to that of a courtesan.’
‘Really?’ She hated his mockery. He did it so well. ‘How so? You’re already bound to me and under my protection.’
‘For a time,’ she injected.
‘You take on hostess roles, offer me counsel and share my bed.’ His lips twisted. ‘And you’re fond of me.’
She was. Very. ‘Augustus, you’re a king. I’m nobody. A trained companion.’
‘You have connections worldwide and a powerful political faction behind you. You’re not nobody.’
She searched for another excuse. ‘Your people would never accept me.’
‘Wouldn’t they? Because, given the press you receive, I’d say you have a better than fair chance they’re going to love you.’
‘Because I’m an oddity. A throwback curiosity with a sharp brain, a pretty face and interesting clothes.’
‘You’re making my argument for me.’
She had other arguments. ‘You want love. That’s why you’ve stayed single so long. I can’t give you that.’ Her mother had loved deeply and paid a dreadful price. Sera had paid that price too and had no wish to repeat the experience. ‘I won’t.’
‘What exactly is it you think we did last night, Sera?’
‘It was good, I don’t deny it. But I’ve been trained to please.’
Last night...what you did with him? That was love, a little voice told her helpfully. Are you really going to deny that?
‘My mother loved and look where it got her,’ she said doggedly. ‘Even when she left him she couldn’t escape him. She was never free. One day I’m going to be free. If I were to marry you I’d never be free. That other role—’
‘Wife,’ he offered, not at all helpfully. ‘Queen Consort. Mother of Kings. Or Queens. Princes and Princesses.’ His eyes slayed her with his intensity. ‘Heart of a nation.’
Yeah. That. ‘I’d never be free.’ She retreated into silence. So did he. While the tension in the room threatened to choke her completely.
‘Right.’ Bitterness tinged his voice. ‘Not as if you want to be royal. Which brings me to the second report on my desk. If you wanted to be royal, all you’d have to do is tell people who your father is.’
Sera swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. ‘What do you mean?’
He tapped at the folder and her gaze was inevitably drawn to it. ‘I mean you’re a king’s daughter by blood. You simply choose not to acknowledge it.’
He couldn’t know that. No one knew that.
‘The only time my late mother spoke of my father, she spoke fearfully and never by name,’ she offered steadily. ‘She said he was a monster who had no time for daughters and I believed her. I don’t know who he is but, even if I did, why would I want to acknowledge a man such as that as my father, high-born or not?’
Augustus leaned forward, elbows on the table. ‘You know exactly who I’m talking about.’
She’d pieced it together over the years, yes, and then held her tongue. Confiding in no one. She wondered if ants felt like this when put beneath a microscope and burned. ‘My birth certificate says father unknown.’
‘Your father died recently. Your half-brother is a king and as a child you went to school with your half-sister. If she’s a half-sister. Who sired her is a matter of speculation. It could have been the King’s brother rather than the King. The point is, you have family. A royal family.’
And she wanted no part of it. ‘You have no proof of any of this.’
‘Haven’t I?’
‘Augustus, please. Leave it alone. It benefits no one.’
‘You know who he is.’
Yes. ‘I know nothing.’
‘You’re lying. You’re a royal daughter of Byzenmaach. Does Cas’s sister know who you are?’
‘Claudia is my friend.’ Sera stood, incapable of sitting still any longer. ‘If my father is who you say he is, then you know he had no use for daughters. The world knows this. Yes, my mother was sent to contain him when he began to mistreat his wife. She was to offer other activities for him to focus on, less damaging ways to vent his anger, and she did but he was beyond her control. She failed, and fled and hid and I’m glad. I take no pride in the blood running through my veins—and you’re only assuming it’s his. The man was a tyrant and a murderer. His son, bless us all, is a far better man than he ever was and Byzenmaach is now in good hands. What would I add to that? What could possibly be gained?’
‘Power,’ he offered.
‘I have power.’
‘Royal status.’
‘A noose around my neck.’
‘Family,’ he said softly, and at this she broke years of deportment training to wrap her arms around her waist and hunch forward as if preventing her stomach from falling out.
‘I already have a family,’ she whispered, and tried not to think of the pictures in the paper she’d seen recently. Casimir of Byzenmaach, half-brother, wholly in love with his new bride and bastard daughter. A king whose sister had recently returned from exile to claim her rightful place. ‘I am Sera Boreas of the High Reaches, daughter of Yuna, pupil of Lianthe, member of the Order of the Kite, and courtesan until you release me. I need no royal titles. I want no royal duties.’
‘Not even for me?’
‘I don’t know what you want from me!’ she cried.
‘Yes, you do. I’ve been saying it all along. I don’t need a courtesan, Sera, I need a wife. And you, for all that you’ll service me while I’m looking for one, aren’t interested in the position. For what it’s worth, I don’t blame you. You have the world at your feet. Why take on royal duties when you don’t have to?’ His face hardened. ‘But you can’t stay here any more. I won’t look elsewhere while you’re here. And it appears I do need to look elsewhere.’
She stood immobile. ‘I can’t leave. The accord—’
‘You can leave. In fact, I insist.’
He sat so still and silent. She couldn’t read him. She didn’t know what to say to him. ‘By the terms of the accord—’
‘I have the right leverage now to do whatever the hell I want. And, believe me, Sera, and with no disrespect to you or your secret Order, I’ve had enough.’
* * *
If anyone had ever asked Augustus of Arun what it felt like to be in love, he couldn’t have told them. He’d never been in love b
efore, not once. Not until Sera Boreas walked out of his office and took his beaten, bleeding heart with her.
He put his hands to his face and took a couple of deep breaths. It didn’t hurt any less but breathing was a function of living and he still had to do that.
Sera had chosen freedom over duty. Freedom over him, and it was a fair call. Last night had been brilliant but he’d been reading too much into it. Passion did that. Wanting something too much did that. So they’d made love. So what? Courtesans did that. Didn’t mean she wanted to stay and be his wife.
He reached for the phone.
‘Get my lawyers in here. I’m drafting a written offer of marriage to Katerina DeLitt.’ Another proposal that was likely to be rejected but it would serve a purpose and he didn’t have to present it to Katerina yet. ‘I also need you to find out what Sera weighs, double it, and I want that weight in gold removed from the vaults. I want a copy of my offer of marriage to the Baroness DeLitt and the gold delivered to Lianthe of the High Reaches and I want it done today.’ He needed to stitch up the gaping hole where his heart had once been and he didn’t need an audience. ‘And then I want Sera and her guards escorted from my goddamn home. Today.’
CHAPTER TEN
SERA STARED UNCOMPREHENDINGLY at the letter Augustus’s private secretary had just handed her. It hadn’t taken long to read.
‘Lady Sera, you are free to leave,’ Augustus’s secretary said firmly. ‘The terms of the accord have been satisfied, or close enough. I’ve made arrangements for you and your retinue to stay at a hotel in the city.’
Ari stood beside her, arms crossed and his face impassive. ‘It’s eleven at night.’
