The Claiming (17 page)

"I think it's patently obvious she's an adventuress," the elder woman put in sharply.

Jana blushed miserably and glanced from the woman’s stony countenance to Alain's swinging watch, staring at it for several moments as she tried to collect her scattered wits. Somehow, she found it singularly unnerving. It brought to mind the angry twitch of a cat's tail as he crouched to spring for the kill. She moistened suddenly dry lips. "I suppose I should start at the beginning?"

"By all means," Alain returned dryly. “I’m in no rush. I’ve had weeks to ponder the puzzle, after all.”

"I received the message your attorney sent that Jana. My name is Jana. I was having some difficulties at the time." She paused and flicked a glance up at Alain. He looked so very forbidding that she found she simply could not summon the courage to tell him the entire, sordid truth.

“Difficulties?”

“She is most likely a fugitive from justice!” the woman snapped angrily.

Alain’s gaze never left Jana. “Are you?”

Jana gaped at him. Until that very moment, she had not even considered that she was just that, a felon. She was bound to Marty, legally, irrevocably, until and unless he decided to dispose of her. “I … uh … broke contract by leaving,” she said weakly.

The watch stopped its swinging and Alain pierced her with a hard stare, his face darkening with anger for the first time. "You were bound to someone else?”

"Yes. At least … not as companion," Jana said hesitantly.

"How, exactly?"

“Don’t!” Blane said.

Three pairs of eyes turned toward the voice.

Blane, who’d entered so quietly no one had noticed, felt his nerve falter once he had everyone’s undivided attention. After a moment, however, he smiled encouragingly at Jana and moved into the room, halting protectively beside her. “It wasn’t her fault, if you must know. I was the one that sent the message to her.”

Alain stared at his younger brother. “Why?”

Blane found he could not hold his brother’s gaze. “Because … well, I knew the moment I saw Jana that she would be perfect for you. She is so beautiful, sweet, gentle. I know you said a warrior would be far more suited to Orleans, but … my God, Alain! For companion? The mother of your children!”

“You saw her?” Alain asked, puzzled.

Jana jumped to her feet. “Blane, don’t!” She turned to look at Alain. “He’s only trying to protect me. He didn’t do anything. It was all my idea.”

Alain glanced from his brother to Jana and back again. “Is it at all possible that we could sort the guilt later? For the moment, I would be satisfied with enlightenment,” he said sardonically.

The door burst open. A slender man of no more than medium height stormed into the room, shaking the tenacious butler loose. “There you are, you iniquitous little slut! You just thought I wouldn’t be able to find you here! I told you, there is no where you can go that I can’t track you down!”

Jana clutched Blane’s sleeve spasmodically, staring at Marty in horror. Blane placed his arm around her protectively, pulling her close.

Alain had come to his feet. Something exquisitely painful passed through him when he saw Blane pull Jana into a protective embrace, intensified by Jana’s trusting acceptance of it. With an effort, he pushed it from his mind and focused his attention on the annoying little man.

“What the hell…!”

“Marty!” Jana exclaimed faintly.

“You know this man?” Alain demanded.

“I,” said Marty, placing a hand to his chest and mincing forward, “am Marty, of the House of a Thousand Courtesans. She is a runaway!”

Jana buried her face against Blane’s chest.

“Jana!”

Reluctantly, Jana turned to look at Alain. He held out his hand. “Come to me.”

Jana stared at his hand uncertainly. After a moment, however, she pulled away from Blane and went to him. He pulled her protectively against him, but tucked his fingers beneath her chin and forced her to look up at him. “Is this true?”

Tears filled her eyes despite her best efforts to curb them. “I was going to tell you.”

“Exactly when did you plan on telling him?” Jana WVTF366 demanded angrily.

Everyone turned to stare at her as if surprised to discover she was still there. Before Jana could answer the woman, however, she continued.

“You have stolen my passage, my identity … you forged your signature on a contract meant for me. You are a felon! A thief, a forger--”

“She did nothing of the sort!” Blane snapped. “I did!”

Alain stiffened. “You did?”

Blane reddened. “I sent the message to Jana … that Jana. I told Dees I’d take care of it. She didn’t steal the passage. It was sent to her. And she doesn’t know how to write. For that matter, she doesn’t know how to read. I held her hand and helped her write the signature. So, you can not say she’s a felon. If anyone is, it would be me!”

“She is still an escaped bound woman!” Marty snapped. “And I have come to retrieve my property!”

Alain’s eyes narrowed. “Unfortunately for you, her contract as my companion supersedes yours.”

Chapter Nine

Pandemonium broke out at that calm pronouncement.

Jana WVTF366 cast a look of loathing at both Alain and the woman in his arms. "You would allow that … that whore to usurp the agreement we contracted!” she gasped in outrage.

Alain’s expression hardened. “Watch your tongue, woman! I will not allow my wife to be referred to in those terms.”

“But … but, that man told you…!”

“He said she had escaped his service. What service she performed is none of your affair!”

“You’ll hear from my attorney!” Jana WVTF366 snapped and stalked from the room, slamming the door resoundingly behind her.

Marty fairly foamed at the mouth. His fists clenched threateningly at his sides, he started forward as if to wrench Jana bodily to his side. "Impossible!" he ground out. "She's mine!"

"I wouldn't," Alain murmured softly, his eyes resting with a mocking challenge on Marty, who halted in his tracks as abruptly as if he'd encountered a brick wall.

Marty stamped his feet. “I paid for her! She hasn’t even begun to earn her price back! I’ll consult with Confederation! My contract states that she is mine, to do with as I please, until I sell her elsewhere!”

“Your contract is not valid on Orleans. My contract with Jana was signed, and notarized by an Orleans official. The Confederation will not overturn it. They can not interfere with Orleans law without breaking the law of non-interference.”

“But ... but ... but … He said he signed her name! And I happen to know for a fact that she can not read or write. Bound women are not educated!”

Alain glanced at Blane. “Did you or did you not witness my companion signing her name to the contract we agreed upon?”

Blane grinned. “I did witness the signature.”

Alain returned his attention to Marty. “As you see.”

Marty glared at Jana, then looked at Alain. “I will find a loop hole.”

“You may look.”

When Marty had left, Jana pulled away from Alain.

“Well,” Blane said jovially. “Guess I’ll be going now, too.”

“Not so fast,” Alain said coldly.

Blane paused at the door and turned, lifting his brows questioningly.

“I believe you and I need to talk.”

Jana sent Blane a look of sympathy. “Then I should go?” she said hopefully.

Alain’s eyes narrowed upon her face. “You and I also need to talk. Don’t leave the house.”

Jana’s heart skipped a beat, but she didn’t argue. She stopped at the door. “Was it true? What you told Marty about the contract?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t look very happy about it. “You could break it though, couldn’t you?”

"On what grounds?" he queried glacially.

"That it was a mistake?"

"No."

It was said quietly, but quite firmly nevertheless. "But.... But.... Why? You don't even like me. Why would you want to keep me?”

“You want me to turn you over to that worm of a man?” Alain asked coldly.

Jana felt the blood leave her face. “No … but. I don’t really belong here, do I?”

“You should have thought of that before you signed the contract. For better or for worse, you are, irrevocably, mine."

***

Jana sat at her dressing table staring blindly at her reflection, her hair brush forgotten in her hand. Everyone else had long since retired for the night.

It was Alain who occupied her thoughts, however.

Despite his threat/promise, he had not come to speak to her. She supposed he had learned the answers he’d sought from Blane.

She, however, was still a little confused about Blane’s role. Undoubtedly, it had been Blane who’d come into the room when Alain was leaving, but he could not have caught more than a glance of her. How could he have arrived at the conclusion that she was ‘perfect’ for Alain? Particularly when Alain so obviously disagreed.

At any rate, whatever part Blane had played, it had been her decision to seize the opportunity. Alain wasn’t likely to overlook the fact that the fault of this mess all came back to her.

A slight movement at the periphery of her vision caught her eye. She turned her head, freezing mid-stroke with the brush as she stared in wide-eyed horror at Alain's reflection in the looking glass.

In all the time she had been on Orleans, Alain had not once entered her bedroom. To see him standing here now was unnerving to say the least, and would have been even if not for the fact that he’d entered the room so silently she had thought she was alone until she’d caught his reflection.

His feet were bare of boot or stocking. He had removed his coat, his waistcoat and cravat and wore only his trousers and his shirt, which was open to the waist.

She could tell nothing about his intent in his expression, but his near nakedness seemed to speak for itself.

She remained frozen in place, her eyes round with trepidation as she watched him advance into the room until he stood directly behind her. A shiver raced along her spine as their gazes met in the reflecting glass.

Dozens of questions skittered through her mind. Foremost amongst them, of course, was the reason for his presence. However, her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, making speech impossible. He took the brush from her nerveless fingers and began to brush her hair. And although her tongue became unglued sufficiently to moisten her parched lips, her mind had gone completely blank.

Try though she might, she couldn't drag her gaze from the exposed expanse of chest and the dark mat of hair that covered it.

After a few moments, he set the brush on the dressing table and placed his hands gently on her shoulders, almost as if he thought she was so fragile she might shatter at his touch. She didn't break at the contact of his warm hands, but she very nearly jumped out of her skin.

"There's no need to be afraid of me, Jana," Alain murmured gently, rubbing his hands along her arms in a way that raised goose bumps on her flesh. It also caused her nipples to pucker and stand erect. As if they had somehow become magnetized, his gaze locked onto the twin points lifting the sheer nightgown she wore into tiny tents.

"I'm not," she croaked in a barely audible whisper.

His lips curled into a faintly mocking smile. "Then come," he said softly, taking her cold hand into his and urging her to her feet.

"Where?" she asked faintly.

"To bed."

She threw him a startled look. She’d suspected as much. What she didn’t understand was why he had decided to become intimate now, when he had shown no real interest in doing so before.

Somehow, she didn’t think that he would appreciate a barrage of questions at the moment, however. Perhaps he had not done so before because of his suspicions?

He stopped when they reached the bed. Turning her to face him, he removed her gown and tossed it aside. She stood perfectly still while he studied her, but a shiver that was part apprehension, and surprisingly, part pleasure, skated through her as he placed a hand on the curve of her waist. Slowly, he slid the hand upward until he cupped one breast. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured in a husky voice.

“I was genetically engineered….”

He placed a finger to her lips, silencing her. She looked at him questioningly, wondering what she was supposed to do now. He hadn’t told her and when he released her and tugged the shirt from his breeches, she wondered if she was expected to climb onto the bed and await his pleasure, or stand and watch, or help him undress.

Finally, she decided to simply wait until he gave her some sort of instructions.

She found that she was fascinated by his body. It was unlike any of the other men she had serviced and although she had serviced Alain before, the room had been so dark she had not really been able to see him at all well. The room they now occupied was filled with the golden glow the oil lamps produced.

His skin, all of it that she could see, was surprisingly dark. She had assumed that the light from the sun had browned his face and hands, but now saw they were very little darker than his arms and torso. She saw also that the hair that had caught her attention before did not grow as thickly as she’d first thought. It had only seemed so because of the dark skin beneath. It sprinkled his upper chest, but narrowed to a trail running across his belly and disappearing beneath the waistband of his breeches. She had not seen hair on a man’s chest before. Either the clients she had served had simply not had hair on their bodies, or they had had it removed as the hair was removed from her own body. Or perhaps it was only that Earth men did not have hair on their bodies?

She was equally fascinated by the body beneath the hair. His skin seemed to be stretched tautly over hard, rolling flesh. Curious, she reached out to see if the flesh was as hard as it looked. He jerked when she touched him. Startled, she snatched her hand back and looked up at him.

He smiled at her wryly, then reached for her hand and placed it against his chest. She transferred her attention to her hand when he released it, but she thought he had meant that he did not mind if she explored him. She moved her hand experimentally, discovering the flesh beneath his skin was as hard as it had appeared. His skin, however, felt as soft, or nearly so, as her own.