No Greater Pleasure Read Online Free PDF Page A

prevent himself from making a fist. Quilla watched him carefully, using all of her training to try and judge him. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak for so long she did the only thing she knew to do.
    She Waited, this time not in Readiness but in Remorse, her palms not folded in her lap but flat on the floor in front of her, and her head bowed. The subtle shift in position was as much mental as physical, an outward representation of her inner regret at having displeased him.
    After some long moments, he looked down at her. The firelight cast his face in shadows tinged with red and gold, and lit his dark eyes with dancing flames.
    “It’s not your purpose and place to discuss me.”
    “I plead your mercy. I was wrong to talk about you. I wanted to learn more about you, the better to serve you. I should have waited to speak to you in person.”
    “Florentine is an abominable old gossip.”
    Quilla kept her expression neutral and her voice calm. “I plead your mercy.”
    “You want to know why I waited four days before calling you.”
    “If it pleases you to tell me, yes.” She lifted her head and returned to Waiting, Readiness.
    He cast her a suspicious gaze. “I was seriously considering whether or not to keep you or send you back to the Order for someone more suitable.”
    His admission stung her more than she’d have suspected. Pride, one of Quilla’s thorns, lifted her chin. “You haven’t even given me a chance.”
    Delessan frowned, looking into the fire. “Florentine doesn’t know as much as she thinks.”
    Quilla rose gracefully and stood in front of him, pausing until he’d looked at her face before speaking. “It will be easier for both of us if you start by telling me what you’d like from me.”
    “I told you what I wanted.”
    Quilla suppressed a sigh, then glanced around the room before looking back at his face. “More specifically.”
    Delessan frowned. “I want you to come here, every day, while I’m working. If I need refreshment, or something fetched, or if I need—”
    “Solace?”
    “I don’t need solace,” he retorted.
    “Everyone needs solace.”
    “What I need is someone who will fetch and carry and provide me with the things I need without my having to ask. Isn’t that what you’re trained for?”
    She nodded. “Yes. Part of it.”
    He looked at her for a long moment. “Good.”
    Quilla smiled. “Tell me what time you rise and I will be here, Waiting.”
    “Sunrise.”
    If he thought to surprise or discontent her, he’d failed. “I will be here when you arrive.”
    “See that you are.”
    “And what, exactly, would you like me to do when I arrive, my lord?”
    “I don’t have the housemaids come in here to clean. They disturb things. Everything must be kept exactly where it is. Everything. I presume it’s not beyond your ken to manage that?”
    Quilla nodded. “Do you prefer to work in discord and grime?”
    Delessan paused, looking around, his mouth pursed. “Of course not. But I’m a very busy man, and can’t be bothered to run a dust mop around the place, can I? And since the maids can’t be trusted, I do what I do.”
    Quilla nodded again, adding to the list she’d begun. “It would not be above me to clean your studio.”
    He scowled. “Don’t touch my table. Or my desk. The rest of it, do what you like, but leave that alone.”
    She bit back a smile, sensing he wouldn’t take kindly to it. “If it pleases you.”
    “Is that all you bloody ever say?”
    True patience , Quilla thought before answering. “If you’d rather I say something different, I could.”
    Delessan narrowed his eyes. “I don’t care to be mocked, Handmaiden.”
    “No, my lord.”
    “You’ll be here before me tomorrow morning.”
    “I will be here until you give me leave to go.”
    That seemed to set him back. He nodded, his frown becoming a bit perplexed. “I work long hours. Often I don’t break for meals. I forget myself. Lose myself in the tasks until the day has