the bottom of a spirits glass. I’ll be fine.” She tilted her head toward the shops behind her. “And I’m not alone. We’ll manage him together if necessary.”
Assured by her words, the Quereci women bid her farewell and left to join the diminishing throng in the street. Gaeres lingered, his regard intense, those black eyes reminding her of a bolt of black velvet her father had once presented to her mother as a gift. “Where is your husband to guard you from the likes of this Culkhen, Madam Ipsan?”
Emerence sighed. It always came down to this. She didn’t fault him for the assumption. Most women her age were or had been married for years. Those who weren’t were widows or embraced partnerships outside the accepted bonds of marriage. Never married, with no prospects in sight or a wish to pursue any, she was an oddity in Beladine society, sometimes ridiculed, often pitied.
“I have no husband,” she said without apology. “I’ve yet to meet one worthy of that role.” She smiled to take the sting out of her words though she meant every one. “And you, Gaeres? Does your wife wait for your return?” If he felt entitled to ask about her marital status, then she’d return the favor and ask about his. She tried not to pay attention to the flutters of anticipation and dread in her belly as she waited for his answer. Not that it mattered either way.
A smile curved his mouth, enhancing the prominence of his high cheekbones. “I have no wife,” he admitted. “I’ve not yet been deemed worthy enough for one.”
Those flutters in her belly burst into flight. Mortified by her reaction to his words, Emerence thanked almighty Yalda that she was good at hiding her thoughts, though the way Gaeres watched her made her doubt her ability.
“I’ve no doubt that will be rectified very soon,” she told him. “Especially if you’re about to be made a council chief as Dahran has said.” She glanced over her shoulder to see the figures of the women disappearing into the crowd, obviously not concerned that Gaeres wasn’t with them. “You should hurry,” she said. “Before they leave you behind.”
“And you have a shop to attend to.” He bowed to her. “It was my honor and my pleasure to meet you, Madam Ipsan.”
The way he said it made it seem more than just a polite, perfunctory farewell. Impassioned almost with the hint of hope they’d meet again. The awful blush plagued her yet again, and she returned Gaeres’s bow to hide the fire licking at her cheeks. “Likewise, sir. May you and yours enjoy Delyalda while you’re here.”
She watched him sprint after the Quereci women, his tall figure fleet as he maneuvered through the crowd to catch up. He was handsome, intriguing, courageous, and courteous. And young. At least too young to consider a woman like her anything more than the role she fulfilled: Beladine merchant. She shrugged. His presence had afforded her a pleasant interlude for a short time, and if she’d imagined the admiration in his eyes, that was fine too. It was good to dream.
She shivered in the blustering wind and retreated to the drapery where fine cloth dyed by an Elder race and woven by mysterious nomads waited to be repackaged and stored for her father’s return and inspection. The work day didn’t stop, not even for daydreams of future Quereci chieftains.
She didn’t see Gaeres the following day or any days after, though Kaster said the Quereci had returned to the drapery to inquire after her and ask questions about the festival. Gaeres had also spoken to her father who’d been in raptures over the amaranthine wool and regaled Emerence over supper one evening with gossip from the royal palace.
When he left for the kitchen to refill his tankard from the ale ask, his wife Linnett gave Emerence a pitying look. “You realize you’ll hear all of this at least three times?”
“How many times have you heard it so far?”
Tocqua’s second wife was much like Emerence’s deceased mother in character if not in looks. Pragmatic to the bone and just as patient. Emerence had liked her from the first moment they’d met.
Linnett huffed. “Four, and I was there with him, mind, so I saw and heard the same things he did firsthand.
Emerence smothered her laughter when her father returned with his ale and continued with his stories of palace chaos and intrigue as the royal family planned to open the festivities for Delyalda and