Gaheris shook his head. “I don’t understand. Gail would have published this?”
“Oh, yes,” said Tristanne.
“But… she didn’t?” Gaheris furrowed his brow.
“I intervened,” said Tristanne, and she stopped pacing and glared at Mairli. “Blazes knows why. I could not give a blazing blaze about your wretched reputation, maidam, but there it is. I know you care, and I did it for you. Blaze you the blazing blazes forever and ever. You don’t deserve it, not after this.” She gestured around at the house, at Gaheris, at the couch.
Mairli looked up at Tristanne, utterly stunned. “You did what?”
“I paid him off.”
“But that must have been very expensive.” Mairli was on her feet. “You never part with coin easily, Tristanne, and—”
“I know,” said Tristanne, glaring at her.
Mairli’s lower lip trembled. “Thank you.”
“Oh, flames take you,” growled Tristanne. She rounded on Gaheris. “As for you, all you had to do was to tell me that you wished me to stop using your name, and I would have. As it is, I will. You can tell everyone I’m dead, if that’s what you wish. I couldn’t care less about you, and I’d rather all ties be severed.”
“Well,” said Gaheris, smiling at her. “That’s very good of you, Tristanne. I’m appreciative of all of this.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” said Tristanne. She turned back to Mairli. “Do you have things you need to gather up?”
“What do you mean?” said Mairli.
“Obviously, he won’t want you here anymore,” said Tristanne. “He doesn’t need you. And don’t worry, I can’t stand the idea of your sleeping in some stable. You’re coming back to my house with me.”
“Oh,” said Mairli, taken aback.
“But things between us, maidam, they are—” Tristanne bared her teeth.
“Yes,” said Mairli, swallowing. “Of course they are.”
“Go and get your things, and let’s go,” said Tristanne.
When they got back to Tristanne’s house, Tristanne deposited Mairli in a guest room, closed the door on her, and left her alone for the night.
She was always getting herself confused by ending up back between that woman’s thighs—which, admittedly, were very nice thighs—but not this time.
No, this time, she was fixing the problem of Mairli Utherain for good.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“WHAT DO YOU mean they left?” Haid was standing at the top of the stairs that led to the dungeon. He’d just come from looking for Cadon and found nothing. Now, he was speaking to Maister Yeine.
It was morning, and he spied Sefoni coming down the stairs. Her maid had arrived yesterday, and her bedchamber had been made up for her, but she’d slept with him anyway. There had been at least some sleeping in the bed, eventually. She looked radiant, more beautiful than she had ever looked to him. Every day, she seemed to look better to him. She dazzled him. Just now, the sight of her made his breath catch in his throat, and he was completely distracted.
“…tell me that I wasn’t to allow them to leave, Your Grace,” Maister Yeine was saying.
Haid turned back to him. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I said that Maiss Givons asked for the carriage, and I didn’t know that she wasn’t suppose to use it,” said Maister Yeine.
Haid sighed. “No, I’m not angry with you. I suppose I should have realized something like this would happen.”
Sefoni was coming towards him. “What’s going on? Pairce left?”
“She took Cadon with her, along with the coffin.”
“You paid for that coffin,” said Sefoni.
“Oh, indeed,” said Haid. “I pay for everything, including Pairce’s townhouse. I don’t know where she thinks they’re going to go.”
“You’d kick her out of her home?”
“I… I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do.”
“We have to go after them, of course,” said Sefoni.
“Mmm,” he said. “I suppose you’re right.” He looked her over. “Have I seen you in this dress before?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose I wasn’t wearing some of the more, er, revealingly cut frocks, but now it seems a bit silly.”
He smiled, wrapping an arm around her waist.
Maister Yeine cleared his throat.
Haid didn’t take his eyes from his wife’s face. “Yes, that will be all, Maister Yeine, thank you.”
The man scurried off, and Haid put his mouth to the place where Sefoni’s breasts cleaved.
She laughed softly. “You approve of the revealing nature, then?”
“Utterly.” He raised his head to kiss her mouth. “Yes, I believe I said that I wanted you to just parade around topless, didn’t I?”
“But not in front of the servants, surely?”
“Well, it would probably make them uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t mind.” He thrust a hand down her bodice to cup her.
She gasped. “Haid,” she scolded, but in a knowing sort of way. “That’s a very wicked thing to do.”
“Is it? Have we had a conversation about how I’m a villain? Because if not, allow me explain to you about my wickedness.”
“You are wicked,” said Sefoni. “Just a bad, bad man.”
He grinned at her, squeezing her breast, feeling her nipple harden against his palm. “So, if we’re going after Pairce, it would probably be better if I could come up with some sort of plan to fix Cadon, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, likely,” said Sefoni, and her voice was a little breathy.
“You know what I think would help me think of something?”
“I don’t.”
“Your wearing less clothes for one thing,” he said.
She smirked.
“Since we don’t wish to scandalize the servants, we’d best go back to the bedchamber.”
“Are you sure that’s the activity that will help you scheme?”
“Positive,” he said. “And then we can maybe start for town after luncheon? It occurs to me I very nearly rutted with you in a carriage but didn’t quite manage it.”
“Well, we should remedy that,” she said.
“It pleases me that we’re of such like minds about these things,” he said. He kissed her all the way back to bed.
MAIRLI AWOKE THE next morning in the guest room at Tristanne’s house to find Tristanne seated across the room from her in a chair with a half-naked woman in her lap.
The woman was someone that Mairli had never seen before, and she was wearing a skirt, but nothing up top, and Tristanne was kissing the woman’s small, pert breasts.
Mairli sat up straight in bed, pulling the covers with her, feeling both horrified and vaguely aroused, which was disturbing, because this was also ripping her heart out. It was one thing to know that Tristanne had been with other women. It was another thing entirely to see it.
“Oh,” said Tristanne, punctuating this by kissing the woman’s nipple, “you’re awake.”
“What are you doing?” Mairli’s voice had no strength.
“We are done,” said Tristanne, running her hands over the other woman’s breasts, who sighed obligingly, writhing against Tristanne.
“We’ve always been done. We’ve never been—”
“No, I mean really done,” said Tristanne, pulling the other woman’s face down and kissing her for emphasis. She kept her eyes open and stared at Mairli the entire time.
Mairli’s heart stuttered. She was going to start crying.
Tristanne pulled away, and then lifted the other woman by her waist and stood her up. She gave her a swat on the behind. “Thank you, pigeon, that was just perfect. You can flutter off, then, if you’d like.”
The woman smiled at Tristanne. “Anytime you’d like me to come back, you know where to find me.”
Tristanne gave her a lazy smile, her rakish upper lip looking particularly appealing. She pulled the woman down for another kiss and
fondle and then sent her on her way.
The door shut and Mairli jumped and looked back at Tristanne. Had she been looking at the half-naked woman too much? Oh, this might be the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
“I’m not angry,” said Tristanne. “I’m just done.”
“I don’t see why you had to—”
“For both of us,” said Tristanne. “You had to see it. I had to do it to you. Because this has to end. Now, I can’t bear to think of you suffering, so here’s what’s going to happen. I am going to give you the money to get your house that you want with your servants. As much as your inheritance would be. I have it.”
“No,” said Mairli. “No, I won’t take a handout—”
“You can pay me back,” said Tristanne. “If you want, I’ll charge you interest. When we finish the job with Haid, you can pay me back. But you don’t have to. I don’t need you to. I have the money. It’s fine. It’s worth it.”
“I don’t understand—”
“You’re a threat to me.” Tristanne’s face twisted, and her voice was suddenly soft.
“I’m not,” said Mairli. “I could never hurt you. You’re the one who can fight and climb walls and use a sword—”
“You make me weak,” said Tristanne. “And I need you settled and quiet and taken care of before you destroy me. So, I consider buying you this house an investment. You take the money, and we are done.”
“I wouldn’t destroy you, Tristanne,” said Mairli. “You might have just destroyed me, making me watch you with that—”
“Apologies,” said Tristanne. “But it’s better this way.”
Mairli’s lower lip trembled.
Tristanne stood up. “I can’t bear it if you cry.”
“I hate you,” said Mairli.
“I hate you too,” said Tristanne. She walked out of the room.
WHEN PAIRCE ARRIVED at her townhouse, she had a difficult time getting Cadon’s coffin out of the carriage with him in it. Both of her servants had to help her, but once he was out, the coffin was on wheels for ease of transport.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have anywhere to keep him in her house.
She had a small cellar room, but it had a high window that let in light. There were always street lamps lit outside her house, so he would be confined to the coffin indefinitely, and she began to panic, because she knew this was not sustainable for him.
He needed to eat and he needed to make use of a chamberpot. He could not live in a coffin. But if she let him loose, she wasn’t sure if she could contain him or ever get him free again. They had only ever tested stone, not wood, but she had her manservant help her to nail wood over the small window in the small cellar room, and then they tested it.
Cadon was himself, so that was a relief.
But this was no solution, not truly, because the cellar room had dirt floors and stone walls and was damp and horrid, not a room for a man to live in.
“I will fix this,” she told him, and she left the house immediately.
It was morning as she hurried through the sunlit streets, heading for the home of an old friend.
The Cowntess had given her a name—Maib—and a location—the outskirts of Laironn, but that was all so vague as to be practically meaningless. Pairce could not simply circle the outskirts of Laironn, knocking on doors and asking after a woman named Maib.
However, she knew someone who might be able to tell her more.
She went directly to a townhouse in the part of town that was hovering right on the verge of fashionable, a sort of up-and-coming area, and she went around the back to the servants’ entrance.
A man answered the door there, and he recognized her. “She’s gone,” he told Pairce. “Been two days now.”
Pairce shook her head. “What are you talking about? Gone where?”
“Run off finally,” said the man. “The braon was never going to let her out of that contract. Probably got tired of being strung up or gagged or whatever it is he does to her.”
Pairce furrowed her brow, because that didn’t make sense. It was a contract, and it was not an equal relationship between the braon and her friend Caith, but whatever it was between them, Caith enjoyed herself. Of that there could be no doubt. She had even heard her friend bandy about the word “love” on occasion, and she thought the braon felt similarly. Certainly, there was a reason that he had this house, this house that was not quite fashionable, this house in which he never brought his wife—favoring another townhouse for such things—this house which he had bought for Caith. “She wouldn’t run away.”
“She did,” said the man. He was probably a footman. Pairce couldn’t be sure, but he worked as a servant in this house, and the activities between the braon and Caith were such that the servants were all aware of them. Such things were termed depravities, but Caith had a certain appetite for it, and Pairce could not throw stones, not when she had first met Cadon when he was inside her after she’d flung herself into a strange and dangerous sexual situation for various reasons, but not the least of which was some sort of arousal she’d felt at the notion of being taken by a beastman.
At any rate, Pairce knew something was wrong, but she didn’t have time to think of that now. “Did she take things with her?” said Pairce. “Can I look in her room?”
The man shrugged. “You know the way.”
“Thank you,” said Pairce, moving past him.
She climbed the servants steps to the top floor, to Caith’s room, which was large and lavish and decorated with black silks and filmy red curtains. This was a room for a lover, not a captive, even if the braon liked to play pretend that Caith was his captive, even if Caith liked to call him master as some sort of pet name.
Pairce didn’t understand it, and she never tried very hard. Caith had been her friend, and they had worked together in Madame Horsa’s house of ill-repute until Caith had caught the eye of the Braon Mainse, and then she’d left to go and live here, to belong to the braon. Caith had been pleased by the changed, and Pairce had been jealous. They had stayed close, and Caith had sometimes put together a little charm for her, a gathering of herbs to be worn inside her clothes.
“Just for good fortune,” Caith would say softly. “It never hurts to have a bit of magic about one’s person.”
Pairce didn’t really believe in magic, but she knew that Caith did, that Caith was from the north mountains, that she put out milk and nuts for the fire elves on the ancient holy days, even though such things were forbidden by the Order of the Flamme, who considered the old religion evil and demonic.
If this Maib woman lived in Laironn, Caith would know about her. Pairce knew that Caith had visited various witch-women in the city. She bought things from them—herbs and metals and the like.
This Maib had extracted money from the Cowntess, which meant that she likely sold her skills for coin, so it was not out of the bounds of possibility that Caith had bought things from Maib.
She knew that Caith had kept notes on her spells, noting her ingredients, noting where she had got them, noting the effects of each one. She referred to her notes when she made a new spell or potion or charm.
Where would she have kept the notebook?
Pairce had once seen her pluck it from beneath her pillow. She went to Caith’s bed and pulled aside the pillows.
Ha!
There was a tiny black book, worn and bound, with a silk ribbon bookmark. She opened the book and began to page through, looking for some mention of Maib.
She found it after only a few minutes.
Oleander purchased from Maib on Coarth Street.
Pairce shut the book.
“You.” The voice came from the door to the room.
Pairce stood up, still holding the book.
It was Braon Mainse. He stood in the doorway, his long dark curls falling over his pale skin. He always dressed in dark colors, and he had long, elegant fingers. He lifted one to push a lock of dark hair away from his eyes. “I went looking for yo
u. But they said you had left Madame Horsa’s.”
“My contract was purchased,” said Pairce.
“I thought she would be with you,” said Mainse. “Surely, she’s at least contacted you?”
“No,” said Pairce.
“Something’s happened to her,” said Mainse. “The servants want me to believe she ran from me, that she has been deceiving me all this time, only pretending to care for me, but I know it’s not true.”
“I agree,” said Pairce. “She would not have left you voluntarily.”
Mainse let out a noisy breath. “I can’t tell you what it means to hear someone say that. I paid musqueteers to look for her, but they acted as though I was foolish to think that she might be in danger. I am worried beyond belief. But you… you don’t know where she is?”
“I can’t do this,” said Pairce. “Not right now. I have other things to see to. Important things to see to.”
“She is your friend,” he said. “I would wager you are her only friend, her closest—”
“I have to go.” Pairce dropped the book on the bed.
“Don’t leave,” said Mainse. “Surely, if we talk, if we think this through together, we’ll come up with some idea of where to look for her.”
“I can’t help you right now,” said Pairce, and it broke her heart. “I want to. The blaze only knows that I can’t imagine what could have happened to her. But I can’t.” She pleaded him to understand with her eyes.
“Please.” His voice broke.
She shook her head. And then she fled the room and the house and ran, as fast as she could, back to Cadon in the cellar.
“Get into your coffin,” she told him. “We’re going to Coarth Street.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“NO, I SEEM to remember making a promise that I would kiss every bit of your skin I uncovered,” Haid was saying. “I’ve been awfully remiss in making good on it, because you distract me so and I become impatient, but we have a long carriage ride ahead of us, and I think we can take our time.”
Scars and Swindlers Page 18
