Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [343]
Except when it was.
Dark pleasures, violent pleasures. Remembering Valerian House, I felt a flush of heat rising to my skin, the awful tug of desire. It hadn't gone away. I supposed it never would. After all, I was my mother's son.
True and not true.
All at once, it seemed too hot in the room. I threw off the heavy quilts and lay naked atop the bed. When a soft knock came at the door, I went to answer it unthinking, pausing only to grab my sword-belt.
It was Jeanne, the Lady's daughter. Amusement lightened her dark grey eyes. "Did I disturb you? I thought you might be awake."
"No, and I was." I laughed. "How did you know?"
"Because I'm healer who ought to know better than to ask pressing questions of a battle-weary soul." She touched my bare chest with her chirurgeon's fingers. "And so I came to offer…"
"Healing?" I asked.
"Respite." Jeanne smiled at me. "Ease. Eisheth's mercy, if you want it."
"Yes." Taking her hand, I drew her into the room. "Oh, yes."
This, too, is sacred.
It was, all of it. And there was healing in it, and ease and mercy. She opened all of the shuttered windows to let the night breeze blow through the chamber, tasting of salt from the ocean. I could feel the chill on my skin, and yet I was hot, too. The embers in the brazier blazed in answer, bright shadows moving in their burning hearts.
No brooding.
No thinking.
Only a woman, warm and kind. She touched me with her healer's hands, stroking my skin. It felt as though my scars melted under her touch; brand and lash, sword and spear. She took me into her, and we lay for a long time, barely moving. Propped on my arms, I gazed at her black hair spread on the pillow like sea-grass, the flickers of pleasure shifting in her grey eyes. At last, I closed my eyes and rocked slowly, a ship come home to safe harbor, until I felt her sigh into my ear and shudder beneath me and around me, long, slow ripples as inexorable as the tide. And then I sighed, too, and spent myself.
It was quiet and good.
Afterward, I was peaceful and sleepy. Jeanne laughed softly at me, sitting on the edge of the bed and twining her hair into a loose braid. When I made to get up and escort her to the door, she shook her head at me.
"Sleep." She bent down and kissed me, then regarded me for a long minute, a smile still hovering on her lips. "Eisheth had a fondness for beautiful sailor-boys, too."
I laughed.
Jeanne kissed me again, then rose and closed the shutters. The room felt pleasant now, neither too cold or too warm. I fell asleep listening to the rhythmic swish of her skirts. I never even heard the door close softly behind her as she left.
It was a gift that stayed with me. I rose in the morning, later than I'd meant. There was no guilt and no shame, only a lingering sense of tenderness. This was Terre d'Ange, and I was D'Angeline. I was home.
At the breakfast table, Jeanne and I caught one another's eye, and I couldn't help but smile. Gerard noticed it and grinned, raising his brows at his sister.
"Oh, so that's how it is, is it?" he teased her. "You didn't light a candle to Eisheth, did you? It's high time you thought about an heir of your own, you know."
"Of course not!" She rapped his knuckles with a serving spoon. "I've time. And I'd never do such a thing without asking."
"Women do," he observed.
"I don't." Her gaze rested briefly on me, filled with bright amusement and somewhat more. "Though you'd be a good choice if I did, Imriel."
I stared at Jeanne. "Me?"
"Well, of course," she said. "Why not?"
I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it. She didn't mean it, not really. Already, their conversation had moved onward to other matters, brother and sister bantering in a long-familiar