Deven and the Dragon - Eliot Grayson Page 0,25
pale.
“All right,” Andrei said. “I don’t say this because I think you’re a fool, or because I don’t respect your judgment. But, my lord — just because you can’t follow through on feelings you may develop, does not mean you’re incapable of developing them. Seduction’s not only a physical thing. And wanting to give yourself to someone, while not being able to do so, might make you all the more likely to give him something else instead.”
Fiora looked up sharply. “Such as a strongbox full of gold and a promise to smile nicely for the tourists?”
“For example, yes.”
“And you think I’m so pathetic that all he has to do is grin at me and tell me he’s sure I look wonderful in spite of having boils, and walk about in a garden with me, and hold my books in those big strong hands of his, and I’ll fall all over myself to do whatever he wants? Is that it?” Fiora was all but shouting again, and he had to stop to fill his lungs.
As he panted, Andrei cut in. “I hadn’t actually thought any of those things, or known about them for that matter, until just now,” he said. Fiora winced. “And I don’t think you’re pathetic, I think you’re lonely and susceptible and unhappy. And if you don’t like hearing the truth, you can simply turn me off.” Andrei fixed him with a withering stare. “I would be glad to use my severance pay to travel home as quickly as I’m able and discuss your current situation with your lady mother.”
And with that devastating exit line, Andrei stalked out, leaving Fiora gasping and furious.
Just as before, though, the anger faded as quickly as it came, leaving him merely miserable. He slid down to sit on the floor, leaned his forehead on his bent knees, and closed his eyes. It wasn’t really dark in the study, but it would be once the candles burned out. Fiora could wait. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to go.
Chapter Seven
For five days, Deven waited for another summons from Lord Fiora — or even to catch a glimpse of the man. He waited in vain. He had breakfast in his room, simply because a maid arrived with a tray every morning at half past seven. During the rest of the mornings he wandered about, either taking long walks through the gardens and along the river or parking himself in the kitchen to chat with Mrs. Pittel, who had a dry sense of humor and an aim with a wooden spoon to equal Deven’s aunt’s. If the kitchen maids also hung about flirting with him and perhaps brushed past him a little more often than necessary, he wasn’t going to complain. They were all witty, and most of them were pretty, too.
Lunch he took in the parlor, where he’d eaten it the first day he’d arrived. The afternoons were spent in more wandering, or hours in the library, where he was left happily undisturbed.
And dinners were in the dining room, where, after the first evening on which he’d been served in solitary splendor, he ate to the right of the head of the table, with Andrei munching away across from him.
The seat between, presumably reserved for Lord Fiora, remained stubbornly empty. Was it odd that he and Andrei sat down in the dining room, when Andrei was (as far as Deven could tell) a valued and intimate servant, but a servant all the same, and Deven was a guest only on sufferance? Probably, but what did Deven know? He’d never met anyone with a title before, let alone eaten in a lord’s dining room. Who bloody knew what was normal for aristocrats.
Asking Andrei was impossible. Not because Deven shied away from asking questions, but because asking Andrei anything was impossible.
“How long have you served Lord Fiora?” was met on the first night with, “A long time. Would you care for more potatoes?”
Deven accepted the potatoes, and then attempted, “What drew Lord Fiora to Marlow Castle? It’s a beautiful place, but it seems like it’s far from his home.” Andrei simply nodded and said that he himself enjoyed fishing along the riverbank.
When Deven dared to ask if Lord Fiora would be joining them for dessert, Andrei only sniffed.
Three more dinners full of deflection and monosyllables wore Deven out, and on the fifth night of dining with Andrei, the sixth that Deven had spent in the castle, Deven just ate in glum silence. The mutton