Read Jayne Castle [Jayne Ann Krentz] for Free Online Page B

still have my studies to attend to this
    evening."
    Ridge smiled. "Has anything ever kept you from your appointed hours of study?"
    "Nothing," Quintel said simply. He rose, his black-clad body looking ascetically thin. "Iwis will be at my
    study door any minute now with my evening glass of Encana wine."
    Ridge nodded and turned to leave the room. "I wish you good evening, then, my lord."
    "Ah, Ridge, there is just one other thing."
    Ridge halted and turned to confront his employer warily. "Yes?"
    "This marriage of yours ... I think we should celebrate it properly."
    Ridge eyed the other man. "It's a business arrangement. It needs no celebration."
    "For the woman's sake, Ridge. It will make the arrangement seem more of a real marriage to her. More
    romantic, more emotionally binding. Besides," Quintel said, allowing himself one of his rare grins, "I have
    a mind to see you properly wedded, my boy. You have always escaped the necessity of taking a trade
    wife in the past. Who knows? First time out may prove lucky for you. This contract you have with
    Kalena might become permanent. I think we should give you both a proper send-off."
    "You've decided to indulge your odd sense of humor at my expense, haven't you, Quintel?" Ridge said
    with a stifled groan.
    Quintel's grin disappeared. "My instincts tell me the wedding would be a good first step for this venture.
    I want all the luck on the Spectrum I can get for this trip."
    "Putting me through the paces of a formal wedding ceremony strikes you as lucky?"
    "Don't complain. I'll be paying for it."
    "Somehow," Ridge said as he turned again to leave, "I have a feeling I'll be the one who winds up
    paying. One way or another."
    He opened the curved moonwood door, the only point of color in the all-white room, and walked down
    the hall with a feeling of deep irritation. He would kill for Quintel if the necessity arose, and had done it
    more than once in the past. But being forced to endure a full-scale wedding ceremony when the bride
    was merely destined to be a short-term trade wife was almost too much. He wondered how Kalena
    would take the news.
    Ridge left the softly lit hall and stepped out into the oblong moonlit garden that divided Quintel's side of
    the house from the servants' quarters and the guestrooms. Quintel was a gracious host, but he insisted on
    his own privacy, regardless of how many people he chose to entertain under his expansive roof. No one
    violated Quintel's private sphere without permission.
    Ridge could have walked all the way around the garden under the shelter of the colonnaded portico that
    surrounded it. But tonight the garden paths of gleaming, iridescent rainstone were far too inviting to
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    ignore. The rainstone was bathed in the red glow of Symmetra, reflecting the moonlight with almost
    unbelievable brilliance. Ridge glanced up at the red orb and decided Quintel probably knew what he was
    doing. He usually did. The time of the month when Symmetra was at its fullest was an auspicious time to
    begin a major venture. A full moon was traditionally a trader's moon, and although he was not strictly a
    trader, Ridge had his share of belief in trading luck. In his view there was always room for the random
    appearance of luck at any point along the Spectrum, even if a man had to create that luck for himself.
    He was halfway across the garden, almost to the black and white onyxite fountain with its shimmering
    black and white spray of water, when Ridge realized his quarry was not waiting conveniently in her
    chamber. He stopped, unconsciously using the shadow of the perfectly proportioned fountain to shield
    himself as he watched Kalena make her way through the garden. Perhaps the light of the red moon on the
    rainstones had lured her from her room. Or perhaps she was simply restless. Ridge wished he knew
    more about women in general. He sometimes found it very difficult to