A Gift Freely Given (The Tahaerin Chronicles Book 1)

by J. Ellen Ross

  Leisha had no idea what he meant or what he expected her to say. The wine. She tried shaking her head to clear it, which only made her dizzy. All she knew was his kiss was not unpleasant and now she felt pursued, desired, and she enjoyed it. Here was a man who already had everything. He needed nothing from her.

  “Come with me,” Lukas said. He took her hand and led her down one street leading off the courtyard. She followed without protesting, unsure if she should put a stop to this or enjoy a new experience.

  Lukas found the pleasure house without much difficulty. There were always a few of them on Tumult nights—places where the drunk nobles could go and indulge in nearly any sexual activity they wanted to, without reprisals, without consequences. Tomorrow would be a different story, but for the night of the Tumult, the pleasure houses drew the curious and the experienced alike. Lights burned low inside the windows and the front door stood open, inviting everyone to experience all the Tumult offered.

  Leisha felt the wine numbing her and allowed Lukas to tug her inside. Everywhere masked bodied lay tangled with one another on piles of cushions while others stood watching people performing acts she had no names for. On benches around the edges of the room, couples kissed and undressed each other. Their lustful, greedy thoughts filled the room, overwhelming Leisha.

  Lukas found the pleasure house madam. “I need a room for the evening. The best.” He dropped twenty tira in the woman’s hand, a ridiculous sum, and took the key she handed him. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Leisha admitted and heard the dreamy tone to her voice. The combination of the wine and so many people confused her. She could not stop herself from feeling the surging tides of emotions swirling around inside the pleasure house, no matter how she tried.

  “With the wine you had earlier, you definitely are.” Lukas grinned and took her hand again. They went up the stairs to the top suite.

  When the door opened, Leisha saw a room appointed almost as well as her own back at Branik. An enormous canopy bed stood in the middle of the room, with silk drapes that reached the floor. Only a few candles burned in their holders.

  “You’re so lovely, Leisha.” Lukas stepped closer and kissed her. “Why have you waited so long?” he murmured as he moved to kiss her neck and collarbone. “You’re a queen. Take what you want from this world.”

  He traced his fingers along the plunging neckline of her dress and Leisha felt her breath catch. “We don’t need masks anymore, here,” Lukas said in her ear and untied his, then hers. The act of removing her mask seemed so intimate and he kissed her, sending his tongue into her mouth again. Now his arms went around her and began undoing all the laces running up her back.

  Leisha knew the wine was keeping her from blocking out Lukas’s thoughts. She remembered reading about it in the tiny book—warning her alcohol would open her to everything anyone nearby felt or thought. But she no longer knew why it was a bad idea. She felt his growing desire for her. For her. His mind pulsed with a monumental need to have her and he made her body feel a warmth that spread from her core to her limbs.

  Lukas slid her dress open and then down over her arms and breasts and hips until it rested on the floor. “So many underthings,” he chided. “Come to the bed.”

  Stepping over the dress, she followed and watched as he pulled the silk curtains aside. Cushions and pillows covered the bed. Lukas sat on the side and untied the lacings running up the sides of the bodice. He found similar lacings down one side of the underskirt she wore and loosened these as well. Both garments slid off and Lukas breathed on her skin. Caught in the web of his thoughts, Leisha felt herself grow more aroused. She wanted this.

  Things began to move very quickly for her. One moment, he was lying next to her sucking on one nipple while rolling the other between his fingers. Next, he moved on top of her and kissed her. She felt his hips shift and he was inside her. A brief pain flared then subsided. She felt his delight and enjoyment. His emotions and pleasure entwined with hers and she was being dragged over some precipice with him. But she could no longer tell if it was his pleasure or hers causing it.

  Lukas rolled to one side, panting. “That was amazing, Leisha.” He played with her hair for a minute and then his head lolled to one side.

  Asleep, his conscious thoughts left her and freed Leisha from his spell. Now she just felt drunk and confused. As she dragged the silk sheets over her, she tried to remember how they’d gotten here. The wine had been a mistake. She enjoyed the rush of emotion and physical intimacy between them, but she felt unfulfilled and wanted more. Snoring from the other side of the bed told her it was unlikely to happen tonight. Perhaps riding Lukas’s wave of pleasure was all she should expect. After lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for an hour or more, she rolled over and fell asleep.

  In the morning, she woke early. Carriages would fill the streets soon and retrieve tired, hungover revelers. Leisha started to dress, knowing she would need Lukas’s help to do up all her ties and buttons. But all she heard from his side of the bed was soft snoring filling the room. What a stupid way to fasten a gown. She had no idea what to do next.

  A soft tapping on the door made her jump. Against one wall stood a wardrobe Leisha had not noticed the night before with several robes hanging on the side. She grabbed one and cracked the door a tiny bit. A young girl stood outside, perhaps thirteen or fourteen.

  “My lady, do you need help dressing? I heard you moving around. I can help you,” she whispered, mindful of not only the sleeping patrons but also of the sore heads that must abound.

  Relieved, Leisha smiled. “Yes, I do. Come in.” She moved aside and the young girl stepped inside.

  “My name is Elsbieta, my lady. Here, let’s get your underskirt on first, then I can help with the bodice.” In no time, her deft fingers had Leisha’s underthings and her dress back on and laced properly. She even tied the ribbons of her mask.

  “Before I leave, here,” the girl pressed a small paper envelope into her hand. “To prevent pregnancy, my lady.”

  Leisha stared down at her hand and stuffed the tiny package in her bodice. Pregnancy? What had she been thinking last night? “Thank you,” she stammered, surprised and unsettled. She forced a smile and said to the girl, “You did a wonderful job. I don’t have anything here with me to give you, but tomorrow, can you go to the castle gate? I’ll leave something there for you. Tell them the Q— one of the queen’s ladies left you a gift.” Elsbieta smiled and nodded.

  “Thank you. Good day, lady.” She bobbed a curtsy and closed the door behind her as she left.

  “Why did you lie to her about who you are?”

  Startled, Leisha whirled to see Lukas watching her, amused. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for her to know her queen visits brothels and nearly misses her carriage by oversleeping,” she snapped.

  Sitting up now, he said, “But why do you care? You are the queen. You can do whatever you like. You make the rules here.”

  Leisha sighed at him. “This isn’t Embriel. Things are different here and very different for me. We should go, so we can get a carriage back and get some food. I’m starving.” She did not want to be here any longer. Though confused, she did not regret last night but also had no desire to linger.

  “Leisha, I lived here longer than you. This is a choice you’re making. Make the rules. Don’t let your nobles dictate them to you.”

  With her mask on, she felt prepared to face the day. Horses’ hooves clattered down the cobblestone, enough hooves to be the coach teams. “I need to get back. There are things I need to do today. Duty and all that.” She needed to talk to one of her women about the envelope. Pregnancy was simply not an option and would ruin everything. How stupid could she be?

  “Wait, wait,” Lukas nearly fell out of bed. “Here, it won’t take me anytime to get dressed.” He threw on trousers and his boots. In the daylight, he really was gorgeous. When he pulled his tunic over his head, he found it torn.

  “I wonde
r how that got there,” he said, grinning at her now.

  Vague memories of last night surfaced, reminding her of fumbling attempts at removing unfamiliar clothes in a frenzy. She smiled. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  They found a carriage waiting on the street below and rode together with several other people, all masked and huddled together, miserable with their headaches. The streets filled with tired nobles, some walking back to the castle, others waiting for the next round of carriages to return for them. Leisha saw the townspeople beginning to peek out of their windows, wondering when they would be allowed to resume their normal lives. Already, crews of workmen were on the streets, tearing down the hastily erected stalls and buntings, all signs of the Tumult being erased.

  ***

  Jan, as ordered, kept a respectful distance all evening, playing a street vendor. One time he found a man dressed as a mummer standing in an alley, staring a bit too intently at Leisha and scared him off. Then he saw the kiss, saw the prince leading her to the pleasure house. He stood outside several long hours until morning came and carriages rolled into the city to retrieve the drunken and exhausted nobles. Once he saw the queen in her carriage with Lukas, he abandoned his vigil. In two days, he expected Zaraki to return and ask for a report. For reasons he could not quite place, this was not one he would enjoy delivering.

  ***

  They met in another uninspiring tavern. “Sir, everything is fine. We haven’t seen or heard anything to be concerned about.”

  Zaraki knew Jan well enough to know when he held something back. “But?”

  The other man looked very conflicted and uncomfortable. “I don’t mean to gossip. It’s just I think is important. But it feels like I’m gossiping about Her Highness. I’m really not.”

  Holding up a hand, Zaraki said, “Jan, please. I believe you. If you think it’s important, then it probably is.”

  “Sir, it’s just this might affect her safety.” He paused before plowing ahead. “She and the Embriel prince, Lukas—they spent the night together, the night of the Tumult. In one of the pleasure houses.”

  Zaraki froze as all the air rushed out of the room. Out of nowhere, a thought struck him like an arrow. A moment of crystal-like clarity. This was the hurt Aniska warned me about, the heartbreak she said I had coming. She was right, I never stopped loving her.

  This was finally it. A marriage of political convenience he accepted as likely in Leisha’s future. But a love affair for his lovely, guarded, walled-off queen? He had never prepared himself for this. It knifed through him and he thought he might be sick at the table. “Well, then perhaps we need to know more about this lordling, eh?” he heard himself say.

  “Sir, I’ve asked around quite a bit. We’ve watched him and haven’t seen any odd comings or goings, no shadowy figures visiting at night. He’s definitely a womanizer but weren’t we all at that age?” Jan shrugged.

  “Keep an eye on him then. Thank you for bringing this to me. I doubt it’s anything too concerning as long as he keeps his nose clean.” Zaraki barely knew what he was saying. The room seemed so small and stifling. He needed to get out so he could breathe again. Standing up, he threw coins on the table, enough to pay for both their meals. “I’ll be back again.”

  He could not recall getting Capar from the stable or pointing the horse towards one of the city gates. His great black friend picked his way through the streets of Otokar. Once they passed out of the city, Zaraki rode him hard, giving the horse his head. Both were sweating, but neither one wanted to call a halt to their wild ride down small roads and over hedges.

  You have no right. You have no claim. This was the danger Aniska warned him about, and now it found him and he could not face it. Capar would never outrun it. He wanted to get drunk, to walk away from this job forever and never see Leisha again, to enlist in someone’s army and march into certain death. He wanted to put an end to this torment. But more than anything he wanted to be the one she loved.

  Exhausted, Capar slowed to a trot. Finding a small stream, he stopped and drank deeply. Zaraki slid off and collapsed under a nearby tree. He laid his arms across his knees and rested his head there. Feelings of shock, grief and anger warred in him. Now what? he wondered.

  “What do I do, Capar? How do I live like this? Can I live like this? You don’t have any answers, do you?” The horse flicked an ear at him but continued nibbling at the grass nearby. This revelation broke open all the walls Zaraki had built and tended to since that day he held her.

  The peace he found on the farm in Ola lay shattered all around him and he owned up to the lies he had told himself. He loved her and those feelings had, cruelly, not diminished, not subsided in nearly four years. He still remembered breathing in the scent of her hair, still remembered how she felt pressed close to him. She still haunted his dreams at night. At twenty-six or so now he had not touched a woman in all those years because he only wanted her.

  Panic gripped him. I have to decide right now. Can I live with this? He wanted to say no. He could not live with seeing her love another, could not live with knowing someone had won the right to know her body and take her heart.

  But how could he walk away? How could he say goodbye to a place that had become his home? For six years now, Symon, Andelko, and Leisha had been the closest thing to home and family he had. Another lie, he thought, remembering how he tried to pretend he did not care so much for his friends. How could he leave the life he had built in Lida?

  With a sharp pain, he realized he had made this exact decision four years ago. To be selfless in order to keep Leisha safe, rather than selfishly guarding his heart and running away. To put his feelings aside and do the best he could for her. Like then, he knew being selfless did not only mean he stayed and kept his love to himself. It meant staying when it felt hardest, too.

  Perhaps this served as the wake-up call he needed. He had slipped recently, thinking of her, dreaming of them together. Now he needed to redouble his efforts and tuck his love away in a safe place.

  Scrubbing at his damp eyes, Zaraki climbed to his feet and wondered what he would do when she no longer needed him.

  Falling

  The wedding of Brigitta and Lorant occurred two days later, to give all the nobles time to recover from their hangovers and forget any lingering awkwardness from the night of the Tumult. Leisha thought about wearing something stunning and reminding everyone their queen chose to attend. But it seemed petty and Brigitta was a lovely young lady, even if her father was a liar who tried to evade paying taxes.

  Instead, she wore a pretty, modest dress. When her maid showed Lukas into her rooms, he beamed at her. “You’re truly lovely, Leisha. I thought I would escort you to this event unless you have someone else in mind?”

  They had not seen each other since returning to the castle, and she delighted to see him now. “That would be wonderful. We’ll keep each other company on what is likely going to be a very dull afternoon.” Weddings in Otokar were tedious affairs, the way Symon described them.

  Giving her a sweeping bow, he said, “Then it’s my pleasure. If you’re ready?” He offered her his arm, which she took. It still felt incredibly odd to be escorted anywhere, rather than to lead.

  “Have you had much time to visit with Lorant?” Leisha asked as they strolled together towards the hall.

  Lukas made a face. “Some, though not as much as I had hoped. We haven’t seen much of each other since I was sent back to Embriel. He has obligations now that his father died, and I can’t just come for a visit whenever I want. And I’m a third son, a throwaway. I’m unfamiliar with the concept of obligations.”

  When they reached the hall, Lukas notified the herald and he showed them where to stand for the procession. They would lead, of course, as the highest-ranking nobles in attendance. Standing at the head of the line, Lukas leaned close. “I did enjoy our night together.”

  Leisha thought she felt herself blushing, which annoyed her. “As did I, Lukas. It’s been very pleasant having
someone to talk to, as well.”

  “You have a whole castle full of people to talk to,” he said, laughing.

  “They’re my servants,” she said, feeling flustered, not understanding what could be funny.

  “My friends are just about all my servants. It doesn’t stop me from being friends with them. You don’t have to be a queen all the time, Leisha.”

  She started to answer but saw the herald moving to open the door and announce the start of the procession. They stood back until he called out, “Her Royal Highness, Leisha, Queen of Tahaerin and His Royal Highness, Lukas, Prince of Embriel.” They walked through the doors and up the aisle to their appointed seats. They remained standing until all of the other nobles entered the hall. Lovek welcomed his guests. “We’re especially honored our queen has come to watch and bless the marriage of my daughter.”

  Now everyone, excluding Lukas, knelt. Leisha acknowledged this with a nod and gave permission for them to rise, then Lovek asked the bride and groom to come forward. Following the traditions of Otokar, Brigitta and Lorant read poems to each other for an hour, recounting the histories of their families, great deeds accomplished by both, enemies slain heroically. Leisha doubted anyone found them enjoyable or enlightening.

  After that came the speeches by Lovek and one of Lorant’s uncles. They both droned on about their holdings and how this marriage would strengthen and enhance each. A choir sang songs, which mirrored the poems read by the couple earlier. Leisha found her family’s deeds far more heroic and thought they did not really need another reminder of Lovek’s history.

  Nearly three hours in and finally the bride and groom stood together and made their simple vows to live as husband and wife and to care for Lorant’s lands. Everyone stood, the choir sang a recessional and Leisha walked back down the aisle with Lukas.

  Once they were through the doors, Lukas grabbed her hand. “We have a couple of hours before dinner. I would very much enjoy spending more time with you. In your rooms.”