Wen Spencer - A Brothers price

In the last year of his life, Jerin’s father had told him how one man could keep ten women happy. It had been a frank, embarrassing, sometimes mystifying set of discussions. There hadn’t been an opportunity for Jerin to try any of the techniques outside of his increasingly erotic dreams. It was somewhat satisfying, judging by the princess’s reaction, to discover he remembered a goodly portion of his father’s lessons.

They could have taken the last step. They lay on the warm flagstones before the cooking fire, glistening with sweat. She reached for him, his body responded as before, but this time, the edge taken off his desire, he was able to stop her.

“No.” He kissed her to soften the refusal. “To go this far was foolish. To go on would be stupid.”

She gazed at him, her hair reflecting back the flame-red firelight. “It was wonderful.”

That pulled a wry smile out of him. He caught her hand before it could cause more mischief, and kissed her palm, nuzzling the sensitive spot on her wrist. “We can’t do more. It would ruin me.”

She looked away, watching instead the dance of firelight on the whitewashed ceiling. She was silent for many minutes, to the point that he was afraid he had angered her. “You are right. You are not yet old enough to marry, and I seduced you in your mothers’ kitchen. It would be best that I don’t take your virginity on your mothers’ Hearth.”

She gave it the old name. Jerin vaguely remembered that there were ancient rules of hospitality tied to the Hearth, remnants of days when starting a fire didn’t mean just using a match, and homes consisted of just one large room.

“Please”-Jerin reached for his abandoned nightshirt-“let me go back to my room and you go back to yours?”

“I could come tuck you in,” she murmured.

“We’d wake my brothers.”

She startled. “There are more?”

He told her his brothers’ names and ages. “Please don’t tell my sisters that I’ve told you. They’re afraid that you’ll carry me off.”

“Or seduce you in the kitchen.”

He blushed. “Well, yes.”

She giggled and then sobered. “Run up to bed, love, and be careful not to wake your brothers.”

He slipped reluctantly out of her arms. “It’s my sisters that I worry about.”

The black, bitter cold snow tasted of soot, mud, and blood. Ren slowly levered herself up, spitting out the tainted snow, puzzled by the odd flickering shadows, the endless, shapeless roar that beat on her ears, the heat across her back. Why was she facedown in the slush-covered street? A loud crack made her turn, and she gaped at flames towering up into the night sky, consuming the broken timbers of a building. The theater! What had happened? She had been standing on the theater stairs a moment before – had it been just a moment? But surely it must have been longer

– the whole building was engulfed. Then realization struck her. The others were still inside. She opened her mouth to scream when the shape of a crumpled human finally found meaning in her mind. Her sister Halley lay at the top of the steps, half in the doorway. Ren tried to stand, but something was wrong with her legs. She struggled on anyhow in a haze of pain, crawling, frantic.

She had to get to Halley. Had to get Halley away from the fire. No matter how hard she tried, though, she could not get closer. The doorway itself was on fire now, about to collapse in burning timbers onto her sister. Oh, merciful Mothers, let her save Halley!

Ren snapped awake, whimpering in fear, the smell of smoke thick under her nose. She sat up in alarm, instantly disoriented by the placement of the window, the low rough-timbered ceiling, and the plain lines of the furniture.

Oh. yes, the Whistler farm!

The events of the last few days must have triggered her old nightmare about the explosion at the theater.

On impulse, she had decided to visit the armory upriver at North Branch. It had been a leisurely six-day trip from Mayfair on the royal stern-wheeler, but they had arrived to find the armory plundered and set afire. As they were still docking, the flames reached the gunpowder room. Great flowering blooms of flame rose in the night with a sound that could be felt, a heat that seared the skin even at a hundred feet away.

The scorching heat, the thick black smoke, and the charred bodies curled into the fetal position. Old impressions of the theater explosion that had killed her elder sisters and Keifer joined with new. No wonder her old nightmares were resurfacing.

Her cold rage at her helplessness reawakened too. Without thought to Odelia’s and her own safety, Ren had led a pursuit of the escaping thieves from the armory back downriver. When the royal party found the thieves’ barge run aground, she ordered a landing against Raven’s advice. Stupidity at its highest order: going into unknown territory after an unknown force. Only Odelia’s amazing luck had kept her safe.

At least there wouldn’t be new nightmares to join the old one.

Dawn gleamed in the window, small noises indicated a house awakening to a normal day, and the smell of smoke vanished. Maybe, Ren rationalized, the stench had been the tail end of her nightmare.

She stretched, stiff after a night in a strange bed. and caught another whiff of smoke. She pulled the shoulder of her nightshirt to her nose and sniffed. Woodsmoke. No wonder she was dreaming about the fire. With a curse, she yanked the nightshirt over her head, wadded it into a ball, and was about to throw it across the room when she caught the smell of him. Ren buried her nose into it. Jerin. Beautiful, talented, sexy Jerin. She let the memories of him crowd out the nightmare. His sweet kisses. His warm skin. His long, silky hair. The delight he triggered in her body. The last made her giggle, hugging the shirt to her.

Oh, she must be insane-as insane as Odelia! Making love to a farmers’ son on the kitchen floor. Her mothers would die! His mothers would kill her!

Raven’s tap came at the door.

“Enter,” she called, trying to control her grin and failing.

“We are in a good mood.” Raven used the royal plural. The captain carried a steaming pail of water.

“We are.” Ren unrolled the nightshirt and carefully folded it, vowing to herself never to wash it. A farmers’ son, no matter how beautiful or talented, could never be prince consort. Last night, though, had been glorious, and stopping where they did made it all the more pure.

Raven lifted one eyebrow in question and poured the water into the washbasin bowl. “The Queens Justice rode in with the false dawn. They spent the last of yesterday sweeping the woods and the neighboring lands for five miles. A lot of tracks, many from us when we were searching for Odelia. No sign, though, of the guns or Odelia’s attackers. They’ll be combing them again today.”

“I didn’t expect any.” Ren stashed the folded nightshirt into her travel bags. “The thieves had since the night before last to tuck the guns away. The Whistlers found Odelia hours before we arrived, and we waited about an hour for Queens Justice to arrive. Odelia’s attackers would have been complete fools to wait around for a second chance.”

“So you think they’re gone?”

“Certainly it’s a far more comforting thought than the idea of them lurking behind every bush, looking for an open shot.” Ren splashed warm water onto her face.

“Bounder had a theory on why the attackers didn’t use pistols. She says that the Whistlers are notoriously rough on poachers. A shot fired would have brought them out in force, and no one in their right mind would want to take the Whistlers on.”

Water dripping from her chin, Ren looked at Raven. “Only locals would know about the Whistlers. She thinks one of the locals had a go at Odelia?”