Aelliana smiled. If it pleased? Of course it pleased! The inevitable presence of Scouts in her Math for Survival seminar had never failed to delight her. To be offered an entire student contingent composed only of Scouts and those whom the Scouts thought it worthwhile to train—
“Now there's the smile of a conqueror,” Daav murmured. “One rarely sees so much delight on a single face.”
“I have cause, I think,” she said. “Scout Academy writes to ask if I would consider teaching the advanced seminar there.”
“A coup, indeed! Will you accept?”
“Certainly, it is tempting. I very much enjoyed working with Scouts. At least I must speak with Scholar pel'Quinot and see what she envisions.”
“If talk comes to contract, recall that you have dea'Gauss to call upon.”
She began to say that she would scarcely trouble the gentleman with so trivial a matter, but pressed her lips together without uttering the sentence. Only see how well she had done with her other employment contract!
Perhaps it would be a . . . good idea to ask Mr. dea'Gauss if one of his staff might be available for the task.
“I will remember,” she said, picking up Scholar pel'Quinot's letter once more.
“I swear that the man is prescient,” Daav murmured, his tone an interesting mixture of humor and resignation.
She looked up. “Is there something amiss?”
“Likely not,” he said, giving her a half grin. “Mr. dea'Gauss has a matter which requires my personal attention, and asks that I meet with him at my earliest possible convenience.”
Aelliana glanced toward the dark-filled windows.
“Which will be,” Daav said, folding the letter back into its envelope and placing it on the smaller of his two piles, “tomorrow.” He lifted an eyebrow.
“We have finished reading our mail,” he said, his voice low and intimate.
Aelliana felt her belly tighten, and her breath came ridiculously short. She tried not to let him see these things, however, and calmly put her letter with the others.
“Your geas is lifted,” she said coolly, raising her glass for a sip.
Daav smiled. “Then I am no longer required to be a gentleman.”
Effortlessly, he came to his feet and approached her comfortable corner, his eyes on hers. She could not look away from his face; she could not move . . .
Gently, he took her glass and placed it on the table, keeping her hand in his. She found that she could move, after all; he raised her and she stood shivering and breath-caught as he loosened her sash. The robe fell open and he bent to kiss her breasts.
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Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon
Chapter Twenty-Four
Love is best given to kin, and joy taken in duty well done.
—Vilander's Proverbs, Seventh Edition
They had breakfast on the balcony overlooking the inner court, at not a particularly early hour. Daav had gone in to dress while she dawdled over her second cup of tea; he returned, overneat in his town clothes, to join her for a third.
“Is there anything that I might bring you from the city?” he asked.
“Nothing springs immediately to mind,” she answered. “Please convey my best regards to Mr. dea'Gauss.”
“Certainly. It may be that I will return in time for lunch; it may be that I will not. Mr. dea'Gauss was not as plain as he might have been regarding the nature of our business.”
“Mr. pel'Kana will see that I don't stint myself,” she said, smiling at him from a vast inner contentment. “In the meanwhile, I have my letters to write, and an appointment to fix. After that, I may walk in the garden, or find Lady Dignity and stroke her.”
“It sounds a full day, yet not overly fatiguing,” Daav acknowledged with a grin. He rose and kissed her, sweetly, on the cheek. “Will you sleep with me tonight, beautiful lady?” he whispered, his breath tickling her ear.
Aelliana shivered.
“Eventually,” she said.
He laughed at that and went away. She finished her tea as she wrote out her acceptances, taking especial care with the note to Kareen yos'Phelium, then dressed and placed a comm call to Scout Academy.
By the time she came belowstairs, port comm under arm, it could fairly have said to have been midday. She stopped in the kitchen to ask for an apple, some cheese and a bottle of cold tea, and carried these out into the garden, where she made camp on the bench surrounded by gloan-roses. She opened the computer and was very soon lost in the complexities of sub-rational mathematics.
