Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels #1)

Daughter of the Blood (The Black Jewels #1) Page 36

Cook shook her head. "I don't understand it. Miss Jaenelle has always liked lamb."

But you didn't say lamb, you said leg, Daemon thought as he shrugged into his topcoat. What other kind of leg would they serve in that hospital that would horrify a young girl so?

"Here." Cook handed him another mug of coffee and three apples. "At least this will get you started. Put the apples in your pocket—and mind you keep one for yourself."

Daemon slipped the apples into his pocket. "You're a darling," he said as he gave Cook a quick kiss on the cheek. He turned away to hide his smile and also so she could tell herself—and believe it—that he hadn't seen how flustered and pleased he'd made her.

The girls were nowhere in sight. Unconcerned, he strolled along the garden paths, sipping his coffee. He knew where to find them.

They were in the alcove, sitting on the iron bench.

Wilhelmina was chattering as though the words couldn't tumble out fast enough and gesturing with an animation startlingly at odds with the quiet, sedate girl he was accustomed to. When he approached, the chattering stopped and two pairs of eyes studied him.

Daemon polished two apples on his coat sleeve and solemnly gave one to each of them. Then he walked to the other end of the alcove. He couldn't make himself turn his back on them, couldn't give up looking at her altogether, but he settled his face into a bland expression and began to eat the apple. After a moment, the girls began to eat too.

Two pairs of eyes. Wilhelmina's eyes held a look of uncertainty, caution, hesitation. But Jaenelle's . . . When he came into the alcove, those eyes had told him she'd already come to some decision about him. He found it unnerving that he didn't know what it was.

And her voice. He was far enough away not to catch the quiet words, but the cadence of her voice was lovely, lilting, murmuring surf on a beach at sunset. He frowned, puzzled. Then, too, there was her accent. There was a common language among the Blood, even though the Old Tongue was almost forgotten, as well as a native language among each race. So every people, even speaking the same language, had a distinctive accent—and hers was different from the general Chaillot accent. It was a swirling kind of thing, as if she'd learned various words in various places and had melded them together into a voice distinctly her own. A lovely voice. A voice that could wash over a man and heal deep wounds of the heart.

The sudden silence caught him unaware, and he turned toward them, one eyebrow raised in question. Wilhelmina was looking at Jaenelle. Jaenelle was looking intently in the direction of the house.

"Graff's looking for you," Jaenelle said. "You'd better hurry."

Wilhelmina jumped up from the bench and ran lightly down the path.

Jaenelle shifted position on the seat and studied the bed of witch blood. "Did you know that if you sing to them correctly, they'll tell you the names of the ones who are gone?" Her eyes slid from the bed to study his face.

Daemon walked up to her slowly. "No, I didn't know."

"Well, they can." A bitter smile flickered on her lips, and for a brief moment there was a savage look in her eyes. "As long as Chaillot stands above the sea, the ones they were planted for won't be forgotten. And someday the blood debt will be paid in full."

Then she was a young girl again, and Daemon told himself, insisted, that the midnight, sepulchral voice he'd just heard was the result of his own light-headedness from lack of sleep and food.

"Come," Jaenelle said, waiting for him to fall into step. They strolled up the garden paths toward the house.

"Don't you have lessons with Lady Graff too?"

Anguish and grim resignation washed the air around her. "No," she said in a carefully neutral voice. "Graff says I have no ability in the Craft and there's no point holding Wilhelmina back, since I can't seem to learn even the simpler lessons."

Daemon slid a narrow-eyed look toward her and said nothing for a moment. "Then what do you do while Wilhelmina is having lessons?"

"Oh, I . . . do other things." She stopped quickly, head cocked, listening. "Leland wants you."

Daemon made a rude noise and was rewarded with an astonished giggle. Her pale, frail-looking hand gripped his arm and pulled him forward. His heart thumped crazily as she tugged him up the path, laughing. They continued playing all the way to the house. She tugged, he protested. Finally she tugged him into the kitchen, through the kitchen, ignoring Cook's astonished gasp, and toward the doorway leading into the corridor.

Two feet from the doorway, Daemon dug in his heels.

Leland could go to Hell for all he cared. He wanted to stay with Jaenelle.

She pressed her hands against his back and propelled him through the doorway.

Landing on the other side, Daemon spun around and stared at a closed door. There hadn't been time for her to close a door. Come to think of it, he didn't remember there being an actual door there.

Daemon stared a moment longer, his eyes molten gold, his lips fighting to break into a grin. He made another rude noise for the benefit of whoever might be listening on the other side of the door, shrugged out of his coat, and went to see what Leland wanted.

3—Terreille

Daemon undid the silk tie and loosened his collar. After the morning walk, he'd gone shopping with Leland. Until now he hadn't cared what she wore, except to acknowledge to himself that the frilliness of her clothes and the frothiness of her personality irritated him. Today he saw her as Jaenelle's mother, and he'd coaxed and cajoled her into a blue silk dress with simple lines that suited her trim body. She'd been different after that, more at ease. Even her voice didn't scrape his nerves as it usually did.

When Leland's shopping was done, he'd had the afternoon to himself. In any other court, he would have put the time to good use reviewing the papers his man of business sent to a post box in the city.

They would be amazed, he thought with a chilly smile, if they knew how much of their little island he owned.

Gambling at business was a mental game he excelled in. With the annual income he drew in from all corners of the Realm, he could have owned every plank of wood and every nail in Beldon Mor—and that didn't count the half dozen accounts in Hayll that Dorothea knew about and plundered occasionally when her lifestyle exceeded her own income. He always kept enough in those accounts to convince her that they were his total investments. For himself . . . Without the freedom to live as he chose, his personal indulgences were clothes and books, the books being the more personal acquisition since the clothes, like his body, were used to manipulate whomever he served.

In any other court, he would have put a free afternoon to good use. Today he'd been bored, bored, bored, chafing because he was forbidden the nursery wing and whatever was going on there.

The evening had been taken up with dinner and the theater. On the spur of the moment, Robert had decided to go with them, and Daemon had found the jockeying for seats in their private box and the tension between Philip and Robert more interesting than the play.

So here he was at the end of the day, unable to stop his restless wandering. He walked past the Craft library and stopped, his attention caught by the faint light coming from beneath the door.

The moment he opened the door, the light went out.

Daemon slipped into the room and raised his hand. The candlelight in the far corner glowed dimly, but the light was sufficient.

His golden eyes shone with pleasure as he wound his way through the cluttered room until he was standing by the bookcases, looking at a golden-haired head studiously looking at the floor. Her bare feet peeked out from beneath her nightgown.

"It's late, little one." He chided himself for the purring, seductive throb in his voice, but there was nothing he could do about it. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

Jaenelle looked up. The distrust in her eyes was a cold slap in the face. That morning he'd been her playmate. Why was he suddenly a stranger and suspect?

Trying to think of something to say, Daemon noticed a book on the top shelf that was pulled halfway out. Taking a hopeful guess about the reason for her sudden distrust, he pulled the book off the shelf and read the title, one eyebrow rising in surprise. If this was her idea of bedtime reading, it was no wonder she had no use for Graff's Craft lessons. Without a word, he gave her the book and reached up to brush the others on the top shelf. When he was done, the space where the book had been was no longer there, and anyone quickly glancing at the shelves wouldn't notice its absence.

Well? He didn't say it. He didn't send it. Still, he was asking the question and waiting for an answer.

Jaenelle's lips twitched. Beneath the wariness was amusement. Beneath that . . . perhaps the faintest glimmer of trust?

"Thank you, Prince," Jaenelle said with laughter in her voice.

"You're very welcome." He hesitated. "My name is Daemon."

"It would be impolite to call you that. You are my elder."

He snarled, frustrated.

Laughing, she gave him an impudent curtsy and left the room.

"Irritating chit," he growled as he left the library and returned to his room. But the gentle, hopeful smile wouldn't stop tugging at his lips.

Alexandra sat on her bed, her arms wrapped around her knees. A bell cord hung on either side of her bed. The one on the left would summon her maid. The one on the right—she looked at it for the sixth time in fifteen minutes—would ring in the bedroom below hers.

She rested her head on her arms and sighed.

He had looked so damned elegant in those evening clothes so perfectly cut to show off that magnificent body and beautiful face. When he'd spoken to her, his voice had been such a sensual caress it had caused a fluttering in her stomach—a feeling no other man had ever produced. That voice and body were maddening because he seemed completely unaware of the effect he had. At the theater, there'd been more opera glasses focused on him than on the stage.

There was his reputation to consider. However, outside of his being coolly civil, she had found nothing to fault him on. He answered when summoned, performed his duties as an escort with intuition and grace, was always courteous if never flattering—and produced so much sexual heat that every woman who had been in the theater was going to be looking for a consort or a lover tonight.