At Your Pleasure by Meredith Duran Page B

ceased to fuss with the fabric and lifted her head to glare. “If you mean to arrest me, I suppose I will regret having spared your life, but at least I will be able to hold up my head on Judgment Day, and that is a far greater concern.” Quickly, before he could reply, she added, “Besides, your death would have brought a new set of troubles onto our heads.”
    She expected a sharp retort—one she might have supplied herself: with the troubles already piled onto her, a new one would not have increased the load overmuch.
    But he held his tongue for a long moment before saying quietly, “I have caused you a great deal of trouble in this lifetime, no doubt.”
    Shock rippled through her. What a strange statement! Did he mean it as an apology, or a taunt? She could not read his expression; he sat leaning against a barrel of pickled fruit, one long leg outstretched, the other bent, his forearm draped casually across his knee.
    Surely his wound was not so grave. He looked too much at his ease to be in pain.
    A sharp ache moved through her. She supposed it was natural to care—not for the man he was now, but for the memory embodied in his flesh, for the boy she’d loved as a girl.
    And he was right: he had destroyed that girl as surely as though he’d married her to Towe himself. Nora could hardly recall her now. That girl had looked on the world as a gift and a promise. She had seen in it so many possibilities for sweetness. She had never turned to the looking glass to discover what others would make of her, or to judge what smile would best soothe them, what frown might provoke them to rage. In her reflection, she had seen only herself, her own judgments, her own hopes and grudges. It had not occurred to her that she was only a possession waiting to be purchased.
    Marriage had taught her better. A woman was never her own.
    “How you look at me now,” he said softly. “I have seen such eyes in dark alleys, in the faces of men approaching with blades.”
    She felt dim surprise at being likened to midnight assassins. But surely he was right, and this burning in her heart was hatred.
    “You blame me,” he murmured.
    No words could have surprised her more. They caught like a hook in her chest. That he should admit to this knowledge . . . that he should sound surprised by the idea . . .
    “Yes.” The word slipped into the silence between them. It lingered like a wisp of smoke, staining the very air. Such stillness in the night—stillness all around, as though the entire universe had ceased and only the two of them remained, enclosed together in this small pool of light, guttering, soon to be swallowed by darkness.
    In this strange, hushed, intimate space, jagged thoughts suddenly found words. There was no one here for them to cut but the rightful victims.
    “I do blame you,” she said. “Whether that is just . . . I cannot say. But . . .” How much better it would have gone for her if she had never met him. Or if they had remained as they had been in childhood: distant neighbors, little better than rumors to each other. “Sometimes, I do think you ruined my life.”
    He did not react. He merely looked at her. “How biblical,” he finally said.
    The rage that washed through her then was bright and violent. “Joke if you like! It is no joke to me. You destroyed— everything .” Before she had met him, what had she cared for men? She had been wild and free, and nobody had taken note of her. But he had lured her into love, and with it the whole burdensome world of womanhood—andthen abandoned her to another man’s keeping! And such a man—such a man as she would never have accepted had she had a choice in it. And she would have had a choice! Had it not been for this man in front of her, she would have been allowed to choose.
    “You lured me with false promises,” she said through her teeth. “Do you remember your pretty words? You said that one day we would dance before everyone, open and unashamed; that we