Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [50]
When I took his meaning, I laughed out loud. "You bought me with your father's goodwill purse?"
"Ah, well. Not the whole of it, no." He fidgeted with a fold of his tunic. "A goodly portion," he admitted.
"Severio." I leaned forward, my eyes dancing. "Do you realize there's naught else you could have done with that money that would impress D'Angeline nobles more? They were laying odds on who my first patron would be! In one grand gesture, you have acquired a status no D'Angeline will ever hold. It is not my place to advise you, but believe me, if you make it known, you will be admired and envied by the Palace entire."
His face lit up, making him look younger and handsomer. "You truly think so?"
"I know it." I did, too. The stakes were different, when I was Delaunay's anguissette, a delightfully decadent secret to be shared among peers with certain vices. The Comtesse de Montrève was a hotly sought prize.
"Why did you choose me?" A thought struck him, andhe frowned. "Was it only the money? I thought it would be. That's why I made the offer so high."
"No." I gazed at his scowling face and smiled. "I liked your anger."
"Did you really?" Reaching for me, he drew me onto his lap so that I straddled him and began to open my robe, hands laying claim to my flesh. "Do you like me still, now that I am not so angry?" he asked curiously, tugging his toga half-off. The blunt head of his rising phallus probed between my nether lips as his hands, inside my robe, slid up my welted back.
"Yes, my lord," I managed to gasp before he entered me, his nails digging into my skin.
Young men.
SIXTEEN
Severio Stregazza took my advice, although I did not hear the whole of it until I returned to court. As had been my wont in Delaunay's service, I took some few days' leisure to recover from the assignation, after being tended by an Eisandine chirurgeon.
It had been my intention to contract the Yeshuite doctor who had tended Alcuin and me in prior days, but Joscelin objected adamantly. I gazed at his beautiful, implacable face, the khai pendant gleaming silver on his chest, and gave way, too tired to do battle with his conscience. Let no Yeshuite be offended by my nature; I would be tended by one of our own. Eisandines are mayhap the most skilled healers in the world, and I had no objection on that score. Delaunay had trusted the Yeshuite's discretion; they do not gossip
about their clients. I resolved the matter by setting Fortun to contract the dourest Eisandine he could find.
Joscelin had said naught when I returned to him in Severio's quarters; I daresay only we two knew the unspoken shoals that loomed beneath the surface of our cordial greeting. He had bowed, I had inclined my head, and perforce kept from wincing as my heavy cloak brushed against my freshly-lashed skin. I have had far worse than I endured at the hands of the young Stregazza and walked away with a steady gait.
What Joscelin felt, I did not ask, knowing it well enough. The pain of the flesh is naught to that of the heart.
Severio had come forward as my first patron, and allowed the amount of the fee he paid for our assignation to be whispered in the corridors. This I learned from my chevaliers, who had it from the Palace Guard—nothing escapes the Guard's ears—and from Cecilie Laveau-Perrin, who paid me a visit during my time of recuperation.
"Twenty thousand ducats, they say," she related, eyeing me speculatively. "Is it true?"
"True enough," I said, laying aside another stack of proposals. The offers had risen considerably with this batch; some were outlandish. One L'Agnacite lordling promised me a vineyard. "Do they say what I've done with it?"
"No." Cecilie eyed me shrewdly. "I heard, though. I've ears still in the Night Court. You paid Favrielle no Eglantine's marque. Did you know it's said she was pushed?"
"In the bath, when she split her lip?" I raised my brows. "No, but I guessed as much. I grew up in the Night Court