The Price of Desire (The HouseOf Light And Shadow Book 1)

by P. J. Fox

  Having realized that Kisten was not in fact a customer, the little man treated him with grave solicitousness—and suspicion. Kisten wondered idly what would happen if he asked that the requisite business licenses be produced. He couldn’t spare the time to find out.

  Saghred smiled benevolently. That no one had noticed his absence in the past two months spoke highly of his assistant. Kisten decided to promote the man—or adjust his pay to match his duties, depending on how one viewed the issue.

  “May I be of assistance, Subahdar?” The proprietor’s mellifluous voice contained just the faintest trace of tension.

  Kisten turned, surveying the room through the fog. Men lay prone in every stage of stupefaction. Eventually his eyes lit on the waif; naked, now, she was straddling a fat man of middle years who played idly with her small breasts. “How much for the girl?” he asked.

  The proprietor tittered uneasily. “She is, as you can see, engaged.”

  “No,” he said shortly. “Not to rent. To own.”

  The man quoted him a figure. It was too high, but Kisten nodded. “Fine. Have her cleaned up and sent downstairs.” He produced his wallet, and gestured again. “I’ll take the statue, too.”

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  Not a breath stirred the fields around him. Wheat that should have rippled in the breeze looked as lifeless as granite. The clouds above him were almost black, but the sun was coming from somewhere; the fields, the thin ribbon of river, the occasional stand of trees seemed almost to shine from within—not with the warmth of new growth but with the harsh, urine yellow glow of corruption. The land around Haldon was beautiful, but not this morning: this morning, the sun had dawned on a fell, uneasy world that appeared to be holding its breath.

  A shiver ran up Kisten’s spine, and he questioned his decision to leave the residence—not on his own account, but on Aria’s.

  He’d taken her out before sunrise to shoot. She needed the practice. She could hit her target, now, most of the time, but she’d never shot at a moving object. In addition to her sidearm and his, he’d brought one of his rifles. It was high time that she learned to shoot one of those, too.

  “Move your right foot just slightly forward,” he instructed, standing behind her to guide her. He was having her practice at three, seven, fifteen and twenty-five yards. Versatility was important, even though most threats came from within three to ten feet. She angled her support arm toward the target. “Remember to keep your elbows bent,” he added, speaking directly into her ear. They’d progressed from simple stances to tactical stances.

  He could be a merciless teacher, but she’d never minded. Now, she shot him a look. Tempers were high all over the cantonment; the heat was appalling, and the air was charged with a breathless expectation that set everyone’s teeth on edge. Kisten had to fight down his own surge of anger; one thing a man should never do was insult a woman with a loaded gun.

  “Keep your shoulders squared with the target.” He moved his hand down, until it rested lightly on her waist. She was wearing a white shirt and gray wool trousers; with the addition of a bluer, she could have been wearing his own school uniform. A traditionalist though he might be, Kisten was no idiot and no one could climb through the fields or learn to shoot while swathed in several yards of silk. Aria being so small, she’d gotten her costume on loan from one of Deliah’s sons. It did look, Kisten had to admit, oddly fetching on her.

  The lowering clouds were oppressive, the monochrome world beneath them oddly frightening. Aria regulated her breathing, as he’d taught her, and pulled the trigger. The shot went high.

  “You didn’t compensate for the recoil,” he observed.

  “I know,” she said irritably. “You don’t have to always repeat yourself.”

  “I don’t speak for the sole pleasure of hearing my own voice.” His tone was dry.

  She turned. “You’re patronizing me.”

  “I’m instructing you,” he said patiently.

  “You’re treating me like a child.”

  “You learn badly.”

  “Maybe you teach badly!”

  He took the gun from her. “If you’re going to lose your temper, at least secure the safety.” She glared. He arched an eyebrow. His persistent calm was maddening to her and, like the child he was, he gloated over having the upper hand. It was the weather; it had to be. His coworkers sniped at each other unmercifully; even shy, foolish Garja had been a hellcat.

  They were all…waiting. But for what?

  He and Aria had been coming to the same spot now for weeks, on a tract of farmland that he’d purchased recently. Their hill commanded a fantastic view of the capital, which looked drab and insignificant from such a distance. Within its warren of narrow streets, the tension had grown so acute that even the simplest actions felt like rubbing sandpaper on a raw nerve. Up here, at least, the world had felt peaceful—until now.

  “Stop patronizing me!” Aria flushed. He tried to remind himself that she was just scared. She’d been cooped up in the compound for weeks, with little enough to distract her. Even Ceres had left the week before, boarding a transport the morning after their party.

  And he hadn’t even tried to explain that he’d purchased her a new maid, an opium-addicted wastrel in need of antibiotics and a good delousing. As the girl was still in the hospital, he hadn’t felt the need. In point of fact, he’d been putting the whole thing off until a suitably suave idea occurred to him. She’d taken the appearance of the statue, at least, in stride.

  “Aria—”

  “You treat me like a child,” she said hotly. “The only time I get to go anywhere is when I’m doing something that pleases you. But what about what I want to do? Maybe I want to see the city, or go shopping!” She waved her hand, indicating the vast expanse of wheat that surrounded their little clearing. “I want to go out, to be an independent adult, not be told that I have to hide in the house to await your pleasure like—like some pillow slave!” Her lower lip trembled. “Except your actual pillow slaves get to leave the house.”

  He lost his temper. “Yes! Because I don’t care about them—I care about you.”

  “What about Renta?” she challenged. “Can she shoot?”

  “Yes,” he said shortly.

  “Did you teach her?”

  What did it matter? “Yes. I also taught my sister.”

  “If there’s some reason I can’t leave the house,” she said, “I want to know what it is.”

  He couldn’t believe that she was challenging him like this. Didn’t she trust him? And what was this sudden interest in his sex life? She hadn’t cared a week ago. Women, he knew from growing up in a house full of them, were fickle. Aria wasn’t supposed to be like other women, though; she was supposed to understand him, and realize that he was doing all of this for her.

  “The reason,” he said coldly, “is that I’m your husband and I order it.”

  “That’s not a reason!”

  “Wrong,” he hissed, his rage getting the better of him. “It’s the only reason that matters.” She shrank back, frightened by his tone. Her weakness infuriated him, because it made him feel vulnerable. She was so thin, so fragile. If something happened to her…. “I am your lord and master,” he continued, “and you will obey me as such.” He turned and surveyed the fields. The clouds overhead were massing together, darkening, and the light had begun to feel peculiar. A storm was coming—a big one. He’d heard stories about the storms on Tarsonis.

  “I,” she informed him, equally coldly, “will do no such thing. In fact, maybe it’s time I started doing what I want and not asking for your permission.”

  “If you do,” he replied, still intent on the clouds, “I’ll cane you until you can’t sit down and lock you in a closet.”

  His tone was almost abstracted. She made an indignant noise, and he ignored her. Over the last week, the violence had escalated—just scattered incidents, and that was part of what frightened him so much. If it had been one discrete group or one res
entful individual…but this diffuse, all-pervasive hate? He couldn’t arrest it, couldn’t have it followed, because it was everywhere and nowhere all at once. It was the city itself: a simmering cauldron of resentment that could boil over at any moment, needing only the slightest provocation—and who knew what that might be? He might as well try to shoot the fog. He pulled his gaze from the sky, to the city below. If the crops were destroyed….

  “We’re going back,” he announced.

  “No.” She crossed her arms over her thin chest. “I belong to no one, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You belong to me.” And if he had to carry her home, he would.

  “A woman is a man’s equal, not his plaything.”

  He matched her glare for glare and she paled, but she didn’t move. They’d had this argument before; why in God’s name did she want to have it again now? The city might go up in flames at any minute but all that mattered to her was her feelings. He wanted to grab her and force her over his knee and spank her right then and there, constraining himself only with difficulty.

  “In some respects,” he allowed, “perhaps. But this is not about equality, Aria. It’s about reality. It’s all very well and good to say that men shouldn’t rape women with tire irons, and that women should be able to walk around unescorted without fear. But should is irrelevant. Outside of Paradise, these things happen.” Goddamn her, why didn’t she understand? “Women are not as strong as men, and treating them as though they are in order to fulfill some abstract feminist ideal does a disservice to them both. And I, for one, am not going to sacrifice my family to an ideal.” His eyes held hers. “So yes,” he finished, “if keeping you alive means locking you in a closet, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

  “You’re insufferable and—and little better than a slave driver!”

  “I’m a realist!” They were inches apart now.

  Her eyes flashed. “So because men are pigs, men are allowed to be pigs—I must say, My Lord, your logic is impressive!”

  “A woman needs a man’s guidance—his protection.” In this world, at least, if not in the next.

  “You’re justifying rape, injustice, and every other horrible thing!”

  He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. God, he wanted to hit her. “A woman is safer from unwanted attention if she dresses modestly. Which is not to say that she deserves to be raped but that if she’s not capable of preventing it, she’d better act accordingly! What should I do, let you risk your virtue—your life?—in order to prove a point?”

  “I don’t know how dangerous the situation outside is, because you don’t tell me!” For a moment he thought she might actually stamp her little foot. “And what would you know of virtuous women, anyway?”

  He mastered himself a supreme act of will. “You’re upset, which I understand. I’ve been a demanding teacher and—unkind. It’s not my intention to be a neglectful husband.” He paused. She said nothing. “There’s a small inn in town. I could take you out to dinner, after a trip to the—bookseller? Jeweler? Whatever you’d like. Please. Let me make it up to you.”

  She responded to this magnanimous offer with scorn. “Oh, I see, you’re going to tell me that you own me, like—like a car!—and then try to fob me off with a trinket or two?”

  He blinked, taken aback. “Yes, I suppose.” Although that hadn’t been what he’d meant at all.

  “No. Go and dangle your money in front of one of your whores. You talk about virtue,” she continued, “but you wouldn’t know a virtuous woman if you tripped over her in the street.”

  “So you’re not one?” He couldn’t help himself; he smiled unpleasantly.

  “Not anymore!”

  The comment stung, and he responded in kind. “You’re a woman! What could a woman possibly understand of the world?” He poured a wealth of disgust into his tone that he didn’t truly feel. Yes, a woman—and an exasperating one at that. He wanted to hurt her, like she was hurting him. “Then, madam, I rescind my dinner invitation. I have no wish to inflict my presence on someone who so obviously does not want it. No doubt, being the rake I am, I can find other women to amuse me. I do, as you so charmingly point out, have a mistress.” He was being malicious, and he knew it. “Although I might consider auditioning Naomi for the spot; I doubt that she’d turn her nose up at my expressions of love.”

  He wouldn’t touch Naomi with a ten-foot pole; he’d said what he’d said just to be cruel. The only woman he wanted—the only woman he ever could want—was standing right in front of him. Watching her face crumble, he knew that he’d hurt her far more gravely than he intended. Had, in fact, made a terrible mistake.

  What Aria didn’t, couldn’t know was that he’d worried the same thing: that by keeping her with him, he’d ruin her. He had no illusions about the kind of man he was, and no illusions that she’d wanted to marry him—then. But he’d dared to hope that, now, she did.

  They stared at each other. At first, the only sound was her rapid breathing. Then she sniffed, fighting back the tears that welled in her eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought that he’d caused her pain, just as he couldn’t bear the thought that his love, his devotion, were so toxic.

  “Aria—”

  “I hate you!”

  “No you don’t.” His anger fled, leaving him hollow. She’d been scared, and the admission that she couldn’t do certain things hurt her pride. Being thrust, unawares and unprepared, into an alien culture had cast her in the perennial role of student. A role that, quite obviously, grated. And he, instead of tolerating her perfectly human reaction, had all but eviscerated her.

  “You tell me how I feel, you say horrible things….” A sob escaped her, and it cut his heart. “I suppose that, being the prince of the universe and an expert in everything, you feel entitled to whatever you want—however disgusting! But your license is not my obligation to tolerance! You’re a drunken, drug-addled, womanizing wastrel and maybe it’s time for you to accept the fact that you’re out here in the middle of nowhere because you’re in no fit condition to be on Brontes!”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “The hell I don’t! I don’t love you, I don’t even like you and—and I wish that I’d never met you!”

  “Aria,” he said quietly, “you know that’s not true.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes. Because—”

  Because no one could touch him like she’d touched him and not love him. And she’d told him—hadn’t she? Not in so many words, but…suddenly, it was too much. He turned and strode toward the waiting guards and the car. One minute they’d been fine and the next they’d been fighting; he didn’t know what had happened. They’d both been under a tremendous amount of strain, if for different reasons. A small, still-rational voice inside him said that she’d adjusted to more, and more quickly, than anyone had any right to expect. She was overwhelmed and overwrought, that was all. But he was too badly hurt to care.

  How had they gone from that glorious night at the bungalow to this in less than a week?

  “To hell with you, then,” he said, loud enough for her to hear. He’d deal with this later; he couldn’t bear to look at her now.

  Another breeze tickled the wheat.

  She called after him. “Fine, then! Leave! I don’t care if I never see you again!”

  That stabbing pain came again. He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. What was there to say?

  She couldn’t know, and neither could he, how bitterly she’d come to regret her words.

  The end of BOOK ONE. The story continues in BOOK TWO of The House of Light and Shadow, A DICTIONARY OF FOOLS. Look for A Dictionary of Fools, coming soon, from Evil Toad Press. In the meantime, P.J. Fox welcomes visitors to her website, pjfoxwrites.com, where they can learn the latest updates on her characters as well as on what she herself is doing (and writing). She encourages fans to contact her, and welcomes questions and comments of all kinds.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  P.J. Fo
x published her first story when she was ten. Between then and the present moment, she detoured to, in no particular order, earn several degrees (including a law degree), bore everyone she knew with lectures about medieval history, get married, and start a family. She realized, ultimately, that she had to make a go of this writing thing because nothing else would ever make her happy.