The Treasure_ A Novel - Iris Johansen [7]
Thea shrugged. “I know. Sometimes you don’t think.”
“It’s true. I’m a terrible, terrible person. I was selfish.” She jumped to her feet. “Come. We’ll go back downstairs and I’ll be very, very good. Kadar will think it’s because of him, but you’ll know. And tomorrow you stay late in bed and then spend the day playing with my godson. I’ll tend the guests and then make the round of the cottages to check the weaving myself.”
“You must be contrite.” Thea smiled in amusement as she moved toward the door. “We’ll see.”
But she would probably be up at dawn as usual, Selene thought. Perhaps she would mention to Ware how weary Thea looked. It would need only a word for him to become passionately concerned. When Thea had come down with the fever last year after giving birth to Niall, Ware had nearly fallen apart. Selene had never seen a man so besotted with his wife.
But would he remain enamored when Thea was no longer young and lovely? Nicholas had often displayed a passion for the youngest and comeliest women slaves, but the older women received little of his attention. And the men Nicholas allowed to use his women chose only the ones blooming with youth and beauty. She knew Thea believed that Ware would love her forever, but how could she be so sure that—
Trust. Shock jolted through her. Ware was her friend, and yet she feared he would destroy her sister with his fickleness. If she distrusted Ware, was Kadar right about her lack of trust in him? She had always thought she knew herself, but she had deliberately blinded herself to—
“Selene?” Thea was at the door, gazing at her inquiringly.
“Coming.” She moved quickly across the room. She would think of this more later. There was the rest of the evening to get through now, and she must help Thea all she could to make up for her lapse.
Trust . . .
MY GOD, he wanted her.
Kadar’s hand tightened on his goblet, his gaze following Selene as she moved about the hall.
She was being meek and polite as an angel sent from heaven. Talking to the old ladies sitting at the side of the room, trailing behind Thea, and helping with the servants.
Not once had she looked at him since she returned to the room with Thea, but he knew she was as aware of him as he was of her.
The awareness was always there. It had been there from the beginning. Since the first time he saw her in Nicholas’s house, her thin back scarred from that bastard’s whip, he felt a bond he had never felt before for anyone.
Why was he still here? The little devil was not going to look at him, and she had evidently decided not to further provoke him.
Tonight.
He had no confidence she would give up entirely. She was as stubborn and determined as Thea and far more single-minded. It was probably best if he left Montdhu for a while. Perhaps when he returned she would be able to give him what he wanted.
Or more likely he would toss this damnable caution aside and forget everything but taking her to bed. Why not do it now? It shouldn’t be so important to him. Nothing was perfect. His life had been full of compromises. He had grown up on the streets of Damascus, the bastard son of a Frank who had taken his Armenian mother and left her alone and with child. He had indulged in every kind of wickedness and dark pleasure, from the whorehouses of Damascus to the band of assassins led by Sinan, the Old Man of the Mountain. He knew all about filth and death and the few precious moments that made life worthwhile.
Then Selene had come into his life, only a child but touching, bonding with him, stubbornly holding back the darkness. It was a gift beyond anything he had ever hoped to possess. He should accept what Selene could give and be content. But, dammit, he wanted this one thing in their lives to be without blemish.
She had paused beneath a torch; her hair shimmered in its flickering light. She would never be the beauty Thea was, but her spirit lit this smoky hall like a thousand torches. He wanted to warm his hands before that fire, hold her, teach her . . .
God, he was thickening, hardening as he looked at her.