She shook her head, frightened by his bitterness. His changes of mood were throwing her completely off balance.
“And Shandie can’t imagine cataloguing reports all day. I learned both worlds. But it was easier for me.”
Then he just looked at her under his lashes and her heart missed a beat. If he thought she was a giddy village maid who would fall for a man’s good looks, then he had a big disappointment coming. He was far too handsome.
“I must go!’.” she said.
“You just got here. You haven’t discovered what I’m doing yet. Princess—brat, why don’t you stick that in your mother’s ear instead of mine? You’ve been warned that I’m a terrible womanizer?”
“Yes I have.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want to sneak up on you.” He grinned. She had returned his smile before she saw the implications. “You hate the pomp,” he said. “No, don’t deny it, Eshiala. I know as much about women as any man can. Far, far more than Shandie ever will. Nobody ever taught him to play, I think. How often has he made love to you in a bathtub?”
“Signifer!”
“Well?”
“No gentleman would put such a question to a lady!”
He leered at her. “But I’m not a gentleman, I’m a legionary. You’re a grocer’s daughter. Does he ever just tickle you? Tickle you till you scream? I bet he treats you like a drill squad. On the count of three . . . Has he ever recited a naughty poem in bed? Has he ever spread jam on your breasts and licked it off again?”
“What! Are you serious?”
“Of course not! We’re talking fun here!”
She sprang to her feet and was about to lift Maya . . .
“I know him much better than you do,” Ylo told the silver bowl. ”I’ve studied him carefully for almost two years now. He spoke of you a lot.”
She froze. “I will not believe that the prince gossips.”
“That’s the odd thing! All he ever remarked about you was how beautiful you were and how gracefully you moved. He never mentioned your taste in food, or art, or music. When he wanted to buy a gift for you, he had no idea what gems you preferred. Maybe he didn’t think you would have a preference.” The dark eyes turned to her. She tried to hold his gaze, and couldn’t. She sat down again, feeling a little shaken at hearing her fears voiced so callously.
“Eshiala, Shandie married you because of your looks—you look like the perfect storybook princess. Beyond that, he doesn’t know what he wants in a woman, and he assumes that wealth and power will satisfy you. It isn’t only you—he’s tongue-tied with women. He doesn’t seem to understand them. I know exactly what a woman wants and what I want of her. I am a skilled and ruthless hunter of women. I have six different approaches and I rarely fail.”
She gasped. “This is the most disgusting, insulting—”
“I’ve watched you at mealtimes, talking about forthcoming events, and you can barely swallow. I’ve watched you preparing to leave for a ball and known your insides were knotted like pinewood. I’ve watched your husband kiss you when he comes home, and you don’t hate him.”
His rudeness shocked her speechless. “But you don’t love him.”
“How dare you!”
“If you say you love him, you’re lying. He’s totally besotted with some ideal impress of his imagination, but he can’t love a woman as a person in her own right. He should have realized by now. If he has realized, then he doesn’t have a clue what to do about it.”
“If I tell him what you—”
“Don’t. He has enough worries at the moment. I know all about you. You were married at seventeen. Your family twisted your arm until it twanged.”
So this was what happened when a notorious womanizer made a pass, was it? She was not very impressed so far. She was more angry than shed been in years.
“You are being very offensive!”
“But in the end, you married Shandie out of a sense of duty. Do you spread your legs for him out of duty, too?”
Feeling her face flame, Eshiala leaped to her feet and reached for her baby.
“That’s what your sister told me.”
She said, “Huh?” in a gasp that left her lungs empty, and slumped down on the bench again.
Ylo had a twinkle in his eye now. “I’m having luncheon with the senator today—he has a colt in his stable I’m interested in.” Maya was attempting to fix a rose in her own hair, without success. The senator always had a nap after lunch. Oh, Ashia, you fool! Fool! Fool! Fool! No child of Ylo’s would look like a baboon.
“A duchess is fair game,” Ylo said, coming to the final rose, ”but normally I would never be so crazy as to seduce the future impress. I’m sure it’s a capital offense and probably involves an especially lingering demise. Red-hot anthills, or something.”
“You will not have occasion to find out.”
“I certainly hope not. Remember the story of the preflecting pool?” He tossed the last stalk over his shoulder.
“I remember my husband asking us not to discuss . . . Oh, no!”
He leaned back and laid an arm along the back of the bench. “I’m afraid so. With daffodils.”
This should be laughable, it was so absurd, but she was too furious to laugh. ”Is this Number Six, or are you developing Approach Number Seven? It must be a recent invention. And remember that my husband asked us . . .” She was stopped by Ylo’s smile. “It was you who mentioned those prophecies!”
“Would you ever have heard of them otherwise?”
Of course not. Shandie never talked business. “You were planning this even then, right after you got back?”
“I began planning it as soon as I set eyes on you. This is a unique situation. As I said, I am not normally a hero in such matters, nor crazy. I can bull almost any woman I fancy, so why play with the only fire that can hurt me? But it would seem that I have no choice. It is prophesied for daffodil time.”
“Daffodil time?” By daffodil time she would be shaped like a bolster, she hoped.
“I saw you in a garden, with daffodils.”
“In a state of undress, of course?”
“Stark naked on a blanket.”
“And smiling.” He rose before she could. Clutching the big silver bowl, he stepped in front of her.
“I swear to you that is the truth,” he said sadly, “but I am an utterly unscrupulous liar, so you’d best not believe me. I hope for my sake that the pool was playing tricks, because I have no desire to be hanged, quartered, or drawn, just to add an impress to my score sheet. But I hope for your sake that the prophecy is fulfilled.”
This was obscene! “You are too kind, sir.”
“There was a girl like you down in Qoble, married too young to a rich man. I showed her what the act of love could be. She told me later that it had helped a lot.”
“After three years at court, I thought I knew how arrogant men can be. I see I was mistaken.”
“Just inexperienced.”
“You imply that I should find adultery with you a wonderfully enjoyable experience?”
Ylo looked exasperated. “Of course you would! Why else do they consent, do you suppose?”
“I have no idea!”
“There’s your problem, then. Tonight, take the jam pot to bed and explain to Shandie what he has to do.”
She opened her mouth to protest . . . She was smiling. The more she thought about it, the more outrageous the notion seemed. She chuckled unwillingly.
“Why you laughing?” Maya demanded, coming to her along the bench.
She pulled herself together. “Ylo said a funny thing, darling.”
“Don’t try it on him, though,” Ylo added. “It doesn’t work the other way.”
She looked at his grin, had a vision of Shandie’s hairy chest . . .
“Why laughing?” Maya shouted, beating her mother’s shoulder with her little fists.
Eshiala caught her breath and wiped tears from her eyes and looked up to see the triumphant glint under those dark lashes. “How long since you laughed like that, Gorgeous? Try again!” Ylo tipped a blizzard of petals over her. They went in her hair, on her lap and shoulders, all over the bench and the grass at her feet. They were damp and they stuck. Maya could understand that joke. She shrieked with delight.
Eshiala squealed and brushed helplessly at her bodice. “You idiot! Oh, you . . .”
“Idiot.” He smiled blissfully. “This is my Number-One Approach—make her laugh. Darling, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever dreamed of, but of course I tell them all that. I did want to hear your laugh, and it’s lovely. You can keep the bowl.” He handed it to her and walked away across the grass, whistling.