Read No Greater Pleasure for Free Online

she’d rather have it that way than the other. On the grounds of the Order there was a vast lake, so deep the bottom had never been plumbed. Sometimes the water in Loch Eltourna was gray, other times, black with depth. Sometimes it grew choppy when there was no wind, and sometimes, some rare times, the water tasted of salt. People boated on the lake, and fished in it. They bathed and swam and washed their clothes in it. They drank from it, too. But only the foolish did not respect and somewhat fear it, because even on the days when the sun shone brightly and dappled sparkling ripples on the lake’s surface, nothing changed the dark depths beneath.
    Quilla had known people like that lake. Sparkling and pretty on the surface, black and dangerous beneath. She preferred it the other way around, definitely.
    His faint muttering caught her ear and she tilted her head to better catch his words. He was not asking for her. He was reciting some sort of list, perhaps of ingredients or a formula. She went back to what she was doing, unobtrusive, silent, allowing him to forget she was even there at all.
    Quilla kept to the far side of the room, away from his workspace. Every so often the sharp, acrid smell of something burning made her pause to see what he was doing, but she did not go closer to see.
    She’d oiled the hinges of his door, and now she used a cloth soaked in flax oil she’d taken from the kitchen to polish the carved wood until the dust had vanished and gleaming wood remained. She used the same oil on the picture frames, the mantel, the bookcase, the chair, until the wood in the room no longer shrouded itself with dust. She ran a finger over the back of the chair. While the cloth covering the seat might be faded and patched, the wooden frame was of very high quality. Either the master had fallen into harder times than he was used to, or else he simply did not care. Likely the latter, she thought, stealing another peek at him.
    The white coat he’d put on over his clothes bore several stains. He’d donned a pair of heavy gloves reaching all the way to his biceps. A startling contraption of leather straps, eyepieces, and different-sized lenses covered his face, making one eye look twice the size of the other. As he turned, still muttering, she caught sight of the color of his eyes, magnified behind the lenses.
    Gabriel Delessan had eyes the color of Loch Eltourna, like sun-dappled water, gray and green and blue . . . and with a hint of darkness beneath.
    “ ’Twas my understanding I would not need to provide you with a list of tasks to keep your attention, Handmaiden.”
    Heatroses again bloomed in Quilla’s cheeks, but she kept her voice and expression neutral when she replied.
    “Nay, my lord. You do not. I was merely pausing to be certain you had no additional need of me. The way you turned made me think you were going to speak to me.”
    “If I had something to say to you, I’d say it, and likely without bothering to turn ’round to capture your attention.” Delessan looked around the room and took off the contraption over his eyes. His gaze flickered as he looked at the polished wood. “A subtle change, Handmaiden. One would almost not notice you’d done anything at all.”
    Quilla pressed her lips together so as not to seem impertinent by smiling. She inclined her head by way of response, instead. “It’s often the most gradual of changes that affect us most, my lord Delessan.”
    “Indeed.” He seemed about to say more, then put his lenses back on and started back to work.
    Still smiling, Quilla returned to her own tasks. Any heavy cleaning she would save for a time when he was not in the room, so as not to disturb him. Although, she thought, watching him bend over a series of beakers, it seemed unlikely she’d even be noticed.
    His concentration was admirable, but then she supposed it would have to be. Alchemy was not an easy discipline to practice. The work was complicated and sometimes dangerous,