Well, if she was going to face this monster, she would face him at her best.
“Let’s dress my hair. I need it out of my face please. Something upswept in front with the mass of my curls tumbling down my back.
What she did notice was missing was any kind of cosmetic. She wasn’t big on rouge and lip coloring, but they were common among Saren women. Had he noticed she didn’t wear them or did Kiltian women not wear them? She decided it was the latter. It wasn't likely he would have noticed the finer details of her toilette.
Once her hair was dressed and her body lotioned, she slipped on the colorful skirt made of silken layers. So many layers that it stood out from her body as though she were wearing many light petticoats. Usually she wore only one petticoat and her dresses lay smooth and long down the length of her body. She then carefully slid her blouse on over her hair and felt the cool silk glide over her skin. The blouse was cut in a low square at the bosom, much like Saren gowns were, but it fell shapelessly over her, hiding her figure. Until Mariah found a colorful silk scarf and tied it around her waist, cinching her figure back into shape.
“It’s how I saw the Kiltian women wearing them,” Mariah said.
That made her turn quickly to face her lady maid. “You saw other women? Where were you exactly?”
“I am staying in the servants’ quarters in the back of this building. But I am being followed by a guard. I crossed through the kitchens and some of the common rooms.”
“Could you find your way out of here do you think if you didn’t have a guard with you?”
“Not yet. I haven’t seen enough of the place. I was put to sleep before I could see the outside of the building.”
“Me too,” Ariana said with consternation. “But perhaps they will grow lax in their guard of you and perhaps one day…”
She trailed off. Even if she could escape, it was a two- week journey by wagon to get to Capitol City. Walking it would be an even longer journey. It would simply enrage their captors and Mariah might suffer for it if she were caught.
Mariah could see the loss of hope in her mistress’s eyes and she patted her comfortingly on her shoulder. “We’ll find a way,” she said encouragingly. “Maybe when he tires of…maybe he will let us go.”
“No doubt he will,” Ariana said grimly. But it was all that would happen in the interim that truly terrified her.
The door opened with the sound of a noisy metal lock. In walked a man she had never seen before. He was armed with a deadly looking sword on one hip and a jeweled dagger on the other. Ariana looked longingly at that dagger. If only she had a weapon! She could end this travesty with one well-placed cut.
But who was she kidding? There was probably a Jadoc monitoring her every thought. He must be because when she had needed Mariah she had appeared and now that she was through readying herself, they were taking her away.
“Come with me,” the guard said, beckoning Mariah forward.
Mariah hesitated. She was so loyal to Ariana that it was clear she would not want to leave her had she a choice in the matter.
“Go on,” Ariana encouraged her. “I will be fine.”
She didn’t believe that for a second, but she wouldn’t let Mariah know that.
She turned to address the guard. “You will see to it Mariah is kept safe and made comfortable at all times,” she instructed him.
He cast her an odd look and she supposed he hadn’t expected her to give commands when she was in a position of little power.
“Yes,” he said shortly. No ‘my lady’ or even ‘honorable lady’, the two addresses she was used to in her position as triumvir. But she was a woman of no fame here. Did these new guards even know who their captive was? Did everyone know she was being kept here like this? What did they think of their master’s insanity? Perhaps…perhaps over time, she might meet up with someone who would see this lunacy for what it was and they might help her to escape.
But every time she thought of escape her hope was immediately crushed. They were too far. It was frigid out of doors. It was very likely these people were very loyal to their raja. After all, their leader had negotiated a deal that had taken them out of their overpopulated mountain homes and opened a wilderness of fields and woods to them to be settled. She had no doubt they worshipped him for that.
Mariah was led from the room. The door shut and the heavy lock turned in her wake.
Chapter Six
Sin sat in his study with a glass of hussa in his hand. He turned the crystal, tipping it side to side until the purple liquor within was just about to dribble over the edge before tipping it just as far in the other direction. He did this in the light of the fire in the fireplace, noting how the flames turned the glass orange and yellow in places.
He liked fire. He liked everything about it. The heat of it that could so easily burn…the way it devoured its fuel like a hungry beggar. It’s relentlessness once it took root. It was a languid mistress at times and at other times a raging beast. It very often reflected his strongest emotions and feelings. Like now…how it danced tauntingly against the glass, making the liquid look as if it were on fire, yet it was not even warming it from its distance.
He released a small, breathy, mirthless chuckle.
“Is something funny?”
Sin looked up at Lindo who was walking into the room. Lindo was probably Sin’s closest thing to a friend. He was the only submissive who had the freedom to walk in and out of rooms of the temple without having to announce himself or wait for permission to enter. He didn’t always know if that was because of their closeness or because of the bastard’s cockiness in thinking he deserved free rein just as much as Sin did.
“No. There is nothing at all amusing right now,” Sin told him.
“I would have thought you would have introduced yourself to your guest by now,” Lindo observed.
Sin released another cheerless chuckle before taking a swig of the hussa. “Is that what you thought?” he asked.
“Yes. Is there a reason why you are keeping yourself from her? You went to a great deal of effort to get her here.”
“I did indeed,” he agreed. “But now that she is here I have more time than I need to tame her to my hand. This is just the beginning. I will not rush the process.” However much I want to, he thought to himself.
“Then perhaps we should turn our attention to other things,” Lindo said, his tone becoming more grave.
Sin looked away from his glass and up Lindo’s significant height as he stood beside his chair. Sin nodded to the chair across from him and Lindo took it. He did not sit back in it however. He remained perched on the edge of the seat as if to charge up to his full height at a moment’s notice.
“Let me guess,” Sin said, grimness settling over him. “My brother.”
Lindo gave a short nod. “Raj Vich has been quite voluble in our absence. Apparently he has been ruling as though he were raja and you were not even alive. He seemed to take much pleasure in besmirching your name at every opportunity.”
“I have no choice but to leave him in charge in my absence,” Sin said dourly. “He is prince and heir beyond me. The people would not follow the rule of anyone outside of the blood line to the seat of raja.”
“Which is one reason why you need to breed sons to become heir in his stead,” Lindo reminded him needlessly. Pushily.
“I am working on it,” Sin said with a sardonic smile.
“I know you are. But…one woman? One recalcitrant woman? You should have an entire harem of wives and mistresses at your age.”
“So you have said many times,” Sin said dryly.
“Only because it is true. You do not follow the traditions in that way…and yet now you are following tradition and—“
“Lindo,” he said quietly. Dangerously. “This is no longer up for discussion. I have done what I have done. My reasons are my own. I answer to no one for them. I am raja. My sons will be raj upon their birth and become my heirs. I will decide on whom I will ge
t those sons. No one will tell me otherwise.”
“Yes Raja,” Lindo said, injecting the amount of required respect into his tone. “I only meant…should something happen to you before those sons are born, we would be left under the rule of Raj Vich. The very thought of it makes me shudder. And Vich will not sit idly by while you take steps toward eliminating him from the succession. By bringing her here like this, you have endangered her very life.”
“I will protect her. Vich does not dare touch her. He knows that if something happened to her I would suspect him first. And I would remove him from succession the hard way. I would have done so already if not for the war.”
“We have had peace now for two autumns.”
“I am aware of this,” Sin said. “What is your point?”
“My point is it is not so easy to kill a brother, no matter what the headache he gives you.”
“It is a headache I can manage at present. But any attempt on my life or the lives of those dear to me would change things quite dramatically. He knows that.” Sin shrugged. “Besides, who can plot against me that you cannot hear their thoughts?”
“I can hear your brother’s thoughts…but he schools them quite firmly when he is in my presence. Any plotting he does he does it out of my sight and hearing. I have never known anyone with such control over their thoughts and impulses. He is a force to be reckoned with, Sin. Do not underestimate him.”
“Believe me, I do not underestimate my brother. He openly opposes me every chance he gets. He makes no secret of it when he disagrees with me. And he disagrees with me just for the joy of contending with me. If I say black, he says white. If I say it is cold, he says it is hot…whether it is or is not.”
“But you—“
“Brother! There you are!”
Lindo surged to his feet as the object of their discussion conveniently walked in the door with a sweep of presence. The prince was a good six inches shorter than his brother, but it was easy to see the family resemblance in their faces and similar coloring. They both were fit of form and wide of shoulder. They both boasted the same blade of a nose and sculpture of lips. However, Raj Vich’s eyes were set closer together and their brown was far lighter than Raja Sin’s nearly black irises. In fact, they were so light they seemed an almost golden beige in color. They were quite unnerving to look into, even if you didn’t know of the cunning mind behind them.
“Brother,” Sin greeted without getting to his feet. Without even looking away from his glass which had suddenly grown interesting again. “How went things while I was away?”
“Quite well. There were no troubles of note.”
“Of note? But there were troubles?”
“Merely some land disputes,” the other man said with a shrug. He walked into the room and into Sin’s eye line. “The usual nonsense.”
“We have opened the frontier to whomever wishes to stake a claim and settle upon it. Of all things, dispute of land should not be occurring.”
“There are those who don’t respect that which is already staked by another.”
“And you mediated these arguments?”
“I did indeed. And a small matter developed at one of the mines.”
Sin raised a brow and finally looked up at his brother. “Which mine?”
“The Golan Reserve.”
“That is a very large gold mine. No matter is small where the production of gold is involved.”
“This is true. The workers were threatening to walk away. Apparently they feel they are being poorly treated.”
“That is not a small matter. It is a very serious one,” Sin said with a dark frown of disapproval. “In what way are they being mistreated?”
“Oh, they complain that the work days are too long…that they do not get enough breaks in the middle of the work day in which to catch their breath. But you know as well as I do that any mine that does not reach its quota—“
“Did you give them what they wanted?”
“Why…no! We cannot be held hostage by a few disgruntled laborers. I told the foremen to dismiss any of the malcontents.”
Sin’s frown deepened. “The effort it will take to replace those workers lost will slow down production of the mine just as much as having those people walk off the job would. The better choice would have been to shorten the day by and hour or give them an hour rest at midday. Lindo, see that those dismissed are returned to their jobs. I'm sure they will return as they have families to feed. Then instruct the foreman to provide an hour rest for the men at midday.”
“If you give in to one mine’s demands news of it will reach the others. Your quotas will be destroyed.”
“Then the quotas must change.”
“But we have trade needs to be met!”
“I am aware of that. I am aware this act will send ripples throughout our entire economy. But better a ripple than a wave. A wave is what we’ll get if the workers walk out of the mines in force.”
“They wouldn’t do that! They need to feed their families, as you just said!”
“The land act we have instituted that allows anyone to make a claim on fresh land will provide any family with new means to provide for themselves. Maybe not this winter, but definitely come spring.”
“I never agreed with this land claim idea. Free land! When we paid so dearly for it…and will continue to pay for it every autumn in our tithe to the Sarens. A bad choice brother, to not buy the land outright.”
“We did not have the means to pay the Sarens what they were asking for outright. We are a rich country, but we are not that rich and we were desperate for the land. It was a good choice. Or as good a choice as we were able to make. As it is it is taking us time to refill our coffers in the wake of the purchase.”
“They will never refill if we have to pay a tithe every autumn.”
“They will. It was not an unreasonable amount.”
“I never agreed with the war, but since we were in it, it seems we would have been wiser to simply take what we wanted, purchase be damned.”
“Of course you did not agree with the war. You never agree with any of my choices,” Sin said dryly. “But we were losing too many lives and too many battles. We were lucky the Sarens wanted to make the deal at all. It cost us less in lives and the expense of war in the long run. Now our country is enlarged by half. Is that not worth a small tithe every autumn?”
“It is hardly small,” Vich said.
“Neither is the land.” Sin was tired of this same argument. They had had it dozens of times since the agreement had been made. Raj Vich insisted that, had he been there they would have struck a better bargain. Raja Sin let this insult slide. He could care less about his brother’s opinions…however voluble they might be.
“But to give it away for free…”
“The land needed to be settled. We need farmers willing to plant fields and begin to grow the grain and produce we need to feed our people. We needed to make it as attractive to them as possible. I will not go over my reasons again,” Sin said testily.
“Of course not,” his brother said with sudden magnanimousness. “I mean only to provide a differing perspective.”
“A talent you excel at,” Sin said wryly.
“Well, I came only to say it is good to have you returned to us safe and undamaged. But…you did not tell me what business it was that you had with the Sarens.”
And he damn well wasn't going to. Not a moment before he had to. Oh, Sin knew that his brother would find out very quickly. That there was a woman installed in the peculiar room Sin had ordered be constructed some time ago. That it had been left empty and without apparent purpose until six weeks ago when he had ordered the room outfitted with a bed and all the things of comfort a woman could use. Now that the room had an occupant, it was only a matter of time before his brother learned there was a woman there…and not too long after that that he would discover the identity of that woman. Then…then there would be a price to pay. What that price would be he didn’t know.
There was no telling what the people would think of what he had done. Especially if it brought new war to their doorsteps.
But the deed was done and there was no going back. He only had the future to be concerned with.
A future with her.
“I needed to establish a trade of goods,” he said.
“Well surely you could have sent emissaries for that,” his brother said keenly.
“Not for this. It was a delicate matter that needed my presence. Besides, you always enjoy ruling in my stead. Are you complaining about the duty?”
“Not at all. You know I am more than capable.”
“If you call your solution to the mining problem capable.”
His brother bristled. “My solution was just as good as yours was.”
“For the short term perhaps…until they grew discontented again. Our manpower resources are not what they once were. There are no longer ten men vying for one job.”
“Again, your land claiming idea is to blame for that,” his brother said.
“I am glad of it. It means there are no longer men and their families starving. It means there are no longer the unemployed or generations fitted under one roof just to survive on the pittance one or two working family members can bring in. No, I do not regret my choice to give the land away for free. And again, I will not rehash the idea any further.”
“Of course not, Brother,” the raj said to the raja. “Well, it is good to see you. A month is too long for my brother to be gone.”
With a little bow, Raj Vich left the room. Once they were alone, Sin glanced up at Lindo.
“It is only a matter of time before he discovers it,” Lindo said.
“I am aware of that,” Sin said.
“What will you do when he does?”
“I will make no apology for my actions, that’s for damn sure. What I have done is in the way of our people. No one can argue that.”
A Kiss of Fire Page 6
