Local Custom by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

labors on my behalf."

    For a moment he froze, panicked that she might somehow know of the plea he had made on her behalf to Daav—Then he shook himself, for of course she only meant the task this evening, which was in truth nothing to one accustomed to balancing the holding pods of a starship.

    "You are welcome," he said, since she seemed to wish hear him say it, and was rewarded by her smile.

    Carefully, he sat on the opposite end of the sofa, striving to ignore the way his blood heated with her nearness, the shameful desires that clamored for ascendancy over honor and melant'i . . .  He sipped wine, set the glass gently aside and steeled himself to look up into her face.

    "I regret," he said, clearing his throat because his voice had gone unexpectedly hoarse. "I regret very much to have caused you pain, Anne. It was not understood that you would arrive home at an early hour. I erred and I wish you will forgive me."

    She blinked. So that was the reason for his earlier stiffness. Almost, she reached out to touch his cheek. It was only the memory of the searing, unreasoning passion that the least touch of him awoke that kept her hand resting lightly on her knee.

    "I forgive you freely," she said instead, smiling at him warmly. "It was—foolish of me to have panicked that way. You had given me your word and I should have—" Dangerous ground here: Fatal to say that she had doubted his word. "—I should have remembered that."

    "Ah." He gave her a slight smile in return. "You are kind."

    He hesitated then, putting off the moment when he must, in honor, ask what melant'i trembled to conceive. And it was not, he admitted to himself, wryly, as he would admit it to Daav, honor's argument that most compelled him. Rather, it was happy circumstance that honor in this instance bent neatly 'round his heart's desire.

    He sipped his wine and had a nibble of cheese, all but trembling with desiring her. Sternly, he pushed the passion aside. He had sworn that it would be precisely as Anne wished it, with none of Er Thom yos'Galan's unruly passions to disarm her. There were proposals to be considered here; trade to be engaged upon. He took a deep breath.

    "Anne?"

    "Yes, love?" The intensity of her gaze betrayed a passion as unruly as his own and almost in that instant of meeting her eyes he was lost again.

    Gritting his teeth, he shifted his gaze and swallowed against the flood tide of desire.

    "I have a—proposal," he managed, hearing his voice shiver with breathlessness. "If you will hear me."

    "All right," she said. Her voice seemed odd, as well, though when he turned to look at her, she had her face averted, watching the wine glass she had set upon the table. "What proposal, Er Thom?"

    "I propose—" Gods, his thodelm would berate him and his delm also—perhaps. She was outside the Book of Clans—Terran, Terran, Terran to the core of her. She was bread to nourish him, water to slake him—desire to torment him until he could do nothing else but have her, though it flew in the face of clan and Code and—yes—of kin.

    "I propose," he repeated, forcing himself to meet her eyes with a calmness he did not feel, "that we two be wed."

Chapter Eleven
 
If fate decrees you'll be lost at sea, you'll live through many a train wreck.

    —Terran Proverb

     

    "WED?" ASTONISHMENT overrode exultation—barely. With the force of both emotions rocking her, she heard her own voice, stammering: "But—I'm not Liaden."

    Er Thom smiled slightly, slender shoulders moving in a fluid not-shrug. "And neither am I Terran," he said, with a certain dryness. He half-extended a hand to her, thought better of it and reached instead for his wine glass.

    "It would be proper," he murmured, with exquisite care, for who was he to instruct an equal adult in proper conduct? "Proper—and well-intended—for you and I to be bound by contract—wed—at the time our son is Seen by Korval."

    Exultation died with an abruptness that was agony. No