She was suddenly no longer at my side. I kept the satisfaction from my face with effort, and turned to see her stopped dead on the walk, clutching her marked wrist.
“Years?” Her voice sounded as though someone had a grip around her throat. “Are you saying that I might be beholden to you foryears?”
“Of course. Did you think it would only be a few weeks to be rid of me?”
Unintelligible sounds gurgled from her throat.
I closed the distance between us, pleased to see the glaze in her eyes as I came close enough to increase the movement of her chest, to make the pulse at her neck throb.
“No, Marietta,” I whispered as I stepped forward another inch, close enough to brush. “You will be serving me for a long time to come. But don’t worry.” I touched her wrist, concentrating on the throb, watching it jump. “I’ll save you a prime spot in my harem. Because those three vows to sin might take a verylongtime to complete.”
Her breath caught, her throat trembled, and her lips parted. Those reactions in her drew me closer. I wanted to see what it would take for her to relinquish all control to me. Not that I would allow anything else. A woman ceding control was an absolute, and had been since I was sixteen.
I let the dark cloud envelop me at the unwanted thoughts of the past and twisted them to seduction. I lowered my head, my lips a scant breath away from hers, making her pulse race by mere proximity and the thoughts of whatcouldhappen. How I could kiss her. How I could stroke her. How I could do things with my fingers that would make her forget her own name.
Her head tipped back, just an inch.
I could play women like a violinist drawing out a languid lullaby or plucking a furious scherzo. It was my most honed and most hated talent. Most women were easy, needing nothing more than my face to lure them in. Others required compliments or flattery. Simple as well.
The real challenge lay with the ones who required a specific tuning. The turn of a knob, the pluck of the right string, the correct rhythm of the bow.
What would it take for Marietta? A simple kiss? A caress? No. I had a feeling that while she could be lured with the simple things, getting her—really getting her—under my control would be a challenge.
I stepped away, allowing the street and homes to surge back into view. The bustle of the traffic—carriage wheels, horse hooves, shouts and curses—mingling with the clatter of pedestrians as they walked past.
I saw the knowledge seep into her eyes, the rose creep up her long white throat and bloom through her cheeks. We were in the middle of a crowded neighborhood during one of the high times of the day, and she had completely forgotten where she was.
At sixteen I had vowed to always be in control. It had taken two years, but I hadn’t failed since.
Challenge or not, she too would fall.
~*~
MARIETTA
Hackenstay’s office was located in a ramshackle neighborhood bordering the textile docks.
I trailed behind Noble as we entered the building, still completely enraged at what had happened on the sidewalk. He had been smiling at my ire for the past fifteen minutes, further stoking the flames.
I gripped his tailored sleeve when he turned down the wrong hall. “His office is that way.” I pointed in the opposite direction.
“No. It’s this way.”
He pushed open the door on his right without knocking and walked inside. This hadn’t been where I’d met the negotiant previously, but there he was. Hackenstay, with his scrawnyframe and heavy mustache, lurched to his feet from behind a misshapen desk. A tin box clattered and spilled across the desk, and he hastily pushed a thick stack of fallen notes and loose coins back inside, closing the tin firmly and putting a trembling hand on top.
“You must be Master Hackenstay,” Noble said. “I’m here on behalf of Lord First Winters and Lady Second.”
Wariness passed through the negotiant’s eyes, replaced by obsequiousness as he caught sight of me. I hadn’t liked him before—the gin-soaked little toad—and I didn’t like him now.
Noble continued, not allowing Hackenstay to respond. “I understand that instead of going through a solicitor, they hired you directly. Is it true that you took the sum of two hundred gold from Lord First Winters and Lady Second Winters?”
Money that we didn’t really have. We had leveraged everything. Used everything. And for once Ferris had been lucky at the tables. He’d won a hundred gold. He would have lost it the next night if we hadn’t put it in the negotiant’s hand. Money never stayed long in the household.
Hackenstay bobbed his head. “Payment for services rendered and to be rendered.”
I opened my mouth, but Noble beat me to it. “What services?”
“Consultation fees and showing up in court with Lord Third Winters. I will help him until the very end.” He puffed out his chest and rattled off a litany of empty jargon about pleading Kennen’s case.
