Pleasure and Purpose Read Online Free PDF Page B

answer, but she thought carefully before providing him with one anyway. "If I felt you were being unduly harsh for no purpose but to cause me distress, I would have to judge if my distress brought you solace." He met her eyes, expression curious. "And if it did?"
    "For every patron to whom I provide absolute solace, one more Arrow fills Sinder s Quiver. So I believe and such is my goal. So if I believed allowing you to treat me harshly somehow brought you solace, I'd suffer the treatment with grace and the glory of knowing I was doing my part in bringing the return of the Holy Family. However," she said, raising a finger, "if I believed your abuse was ill-guided and purely selfish, that causing me harm did nothing to ease you . . . then I would leave and return to the Order and you could be faced with fines for not obeying the confines of our contract. I'm not a whipping boy."
    Edward reached for the hand that had pointed, and he took it between his two. "And what do you believe about how I have treated you thus far?"
    Nessa reached to touch his cheek. "I believe you're a man uncomfortable with needing." He put a hand over hers against his face, holding it there for a moment before taking it away and holding both hers between his. "I'm quite gratified to have you here to see to my needs."
    "You needn't fret. I'm not made of glass. I don't break."
    "How do you know?"
    The challenge in his tone surprised her, but she met it. "Experience has taught me so."
    "Experience with patrons?"
    Her experience with the limits her body could handle had happened before she'd discovered her Calling. "Some."
    "Is that something they train you for? The Order?" He seemed alarmed and disturbed, two states of emotion Nessa didn't wish to encourage.
    "All Handmaidens are given the same basic training," she told him, hoping her calm would transfer to him. "But we all have our own specialized interests and abilities. Some are more patient. Some, better mannered. Though we're all trained to provide comfort, there are as many ways to do it as there are stars."
    "Have you ever had a patron you didn't want to serve?"
    She smiled. "It's not a question of want. If I'm assigned, I serve."
    "But if you didn't like him?"
    Nessa thought for a moment on how best to explain. "There are five principles of the Order of Solace. The last is women we begin and women we shall end. I'm a woman, but I am also a Handmaiden. I've learned how to be both at the same time."
    "You put aside one part of yourself in order to become the other."
    "When necessary."
    With some alarm she watched his face tighten. Her words had upset him, somehow, and she didn't understand why. He let go of her hands, and she saw she'd lost him again.
    "You might make me some tea, now" was all he said, and so that was what she did.

Chapter 3
    "Sinder's Arrow, man, you look fair busted." Alaric Dewan's blunt words made Edward look up from the mug of hot mulled cider he'd been studying and not drinking. Alaric slid onto the couch across from Edward, his long legs stretching out comfortably as he reclined, hands linked behind his head of blond curls. "Frankly, Edward, you look like you've been rode hard and put away wet, as our dear Cillian likes to say."
    "I haven't been sleeping." Edward sat back, forgetting the cider, which held no interest for him. The library at the palace was otherwise empty this time of day, and he'd sought a respite from the monotony of court to sit and think.
    Alaric lifted one pale gold brow. "How so?"
    Edward scrubbed at his face before answering. He hadn't bothered with a looking glass over the past few days, but if Alaric said he looked bad then he assuredly did, for Alaric was honest to a fault.
    "I've had much upon my thoughts" was what he finally said, more to appease Alaric than to reveal anything.
    "Oh?" Alaric leaned forward to snag a biscuit from the tray on the low table between them. He ate it as he did everything else— with unabashed pleasure and gusto. "How so?