Lion's Bride - Iris Johansen [60]
He was moving leisurely toward the bench where she sat a few yards apart from the other women.
She tensed and then relaxed. He would not choose her for pleasure. Even if he was one who liked children, she was too thin and homely.
He stopped in front of the bench. “You look lonely. Why are you not with the other slaves?”
She did not answer.
He sat down beside her and she caught a whiff of clean soap and fragrant balsam. It was the way Nicholas smelled when he came back from the city baths. “My name is Kadar ben Arnaud, Selene. Do you know why I’m here?”
“To buy a woman to start an embroidery house. We all know that.” She added with deliberate rudeness, “But you are too niggardly to pay for any but a beginner.”
He did not take offense. “True. You sew very well. Do you like to embroider?”
“No,” she said baldly. “You don’t have to like something to do it well.” She edged away from him on the bench. Why didn’t he get up and go away?
“Even if I buy you, I promise I’ll not hurt you,” he said softly. “You need not fear me.”
Panic soared through her. She had thought he had erased her from his list of choices. “I don’t fear you.” She added fiercely, “But I won’t work for you. I’ll sit at my hoop and do nothing. Find someone else.”
“You prefer it here? Nicholas doesn’t seem an overkind master.”
“I must stay here.”
He changed the subject. “Why were you glaring at me this afternoon?”
“You touched me. I don’t like to be touched.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t answer. She wished he would go away.
“That hulking woman is coming toward us. I find her most unpleasant.”
He meant Maya, who was edging closer to hear their conversation. “Then you should choose your woman for the night and leave us all in peace.”
“Which one should I choose?”
The question startled her. She turned to look at him. “What?”
“It’s an indelicate question to ask a child, but I mustn’t offend Nicholas by refusing his offer of a bedmate, and I’d prefer a woman who takes pleasure as well as gives it. Is there such a one here?”
What manner of man was he? she wondered in bewilderment. Every one knew a woman’s pleasure meant nothing.
“Is there?”
She glanced around the garden before nodding at a small dark woman. “Deirdre. She’s not as comely as some of the others, but she is very peculiar. She seems to like it when Nicholas ruts with her.”
He smiled. “I thought you’d know. You’re one of the ones who watch, aren’t you?”
She asked warily, “What do you mean?”
“You stand apart and watch and learn. Poor Selene. I think you have a great hunger for life. Sitting here stitching in this cocoon must drive you mad, so you close everyone out and you think and you watch.”
How had he known that?
He answered her unspoken question. “At your age I was a watcher too. I still am when the occasion warrants it.” He smiled. “And you do warrant it, Selene.”
He was not like the others. He was far more dangerous, for he had eyes to see. She jumped to her feet. “I don’t want you watching me. Go away.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. In fact, I wished to reassure you.” He glanced at Maya. “But now isn’t the time. We will talk later.” He wandered toward the women at the fountain.
He said a few words to Deirdre and then took her hand and led her toward the door.
“He says kind words to you, but he only wants to keep you tame until he gets you back to his own country,” Maya said behind Selene. “Then he’ll set the whip to you.”
“He won’t choose me to work in his house. You heard what he told Nicholas. He thinks I’d be too much trouble.”
“But he finds your embroidery adequate. He will choose you. Tomorrow he and Nicholas will strike a bargain and you’ll be gone.” Maya smiled maliciously. “You might as well go with him meekly. I know you’re waiting for her to come back, but she never will. Thea’s probably a whore in the streets by now.”
“Be silent.”
“How could she free you anyway?”
Selene tried to shut out her words, shut away the pain.
“She was so clever. She thought she was better than the