“Please, go in,” Aleatha said, extending her hand.
Haplo entered the drawing room. Aleatha came behind him, shut the door, and leaned up against it, studying him.
Located in the center of the house, away from the windows, the room was secluded and private. The fan on the ceiling above rotated with a soft whirring noise-the only sound. Haplo turned to his hostess, who was regarding him with a playful smile,
“If you were an elf, it would be dangerous for you to be alone with me.”
“Pardon me, but you don’t look dangerous.”
“Ah, but I am. I’m bored. I’m engaged. The two are synonymous. You’re extremely well built, for a human. Most of the human males I’ve seen are so big, with hulking bodies. You’re slender.” Aleatha reached out, laid her hand on his arm, caressing. “Your muscles are firm, like a tree branch. That doesn’t hurt you when I touch you, does it?”
“No,” said Haplo with his quiet smile. “Why? Should it?”
“The skin disease, you know.”
The Patryn remembered his lie. “Oh, that. No, it’s only on my hands.”
He held them out. Aleatha gave the bandages a look of faint disgust.
“A pity. I am frightfully bored.” She leaned up against the door again, studying him languidly. “The man with the bandaged hands. Just like that old looney predicted. I wonder if the rest of what he said will come true.” A slight frown marred the smooth, white forehead.
“He really said that?” Haplo asked.
“Said what?”
“About my hands? Predicted … my coming?”
Aleatha shrugged. “Yes, he said it. Along with a lot of other nonsense, about my not being married. Doom and destruction coming. Flying a ship to the stars. I’m going to be married.” Her lips tightened. “I’ve worked too hard, gone through too much. And I won’t stay in this house any longer than I have to.”
“Why would your father want to go to the stars?” Haplo recalled the object he’d seen from his ship, the twinkling light, sparkling brightly in the sun-drenched sky. He’d only seen one. There were more, apparently. “What does he know about them?”
“. . . lunar rover! Looked like a bug.” The old man’s voice rose shrill and querulous. “Crawled around and picked up rocks.”
“Know about them!” Aleatha laughed again. Her eyes were warm and soft, dark and mysterious. “He doesn’t know anything about them! No one does. Do you want to kiss me?”
Not particularly. Haplo wanted her to keep talking.
“But you must have some legends about the stars. My people do.”
“Well, of course.” Aleatha moved nearer. “It depends on who is doing the telling. You humans, for example, have the silly notion that they’re cities. That’s why the old man-”
“Cities!”
“Goodness! Don’t bite me! How fierce you look!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. My people don’t believe that.”
“Don’t they?”
“No. I mean, it’s silly,” he said, testing. “Cities couldn’t rotate around the sky like stars.”
“Rotate! Your people must be the ones rotating. Our stars never change position. They come and go, but always in the same place.”
“Come and go?”
“I’ve changed my mind.” Aleatha leaned closer. “Go ahead. Bite me.”
“Maybe later,” said Haplo politely. “What do you mean, the stars come and go?”
Aleatha sighed, fell back against the door, and gazed at him from beneath black eyelashes. “You and the old man. You’re in this together, aren’t you? You’re going to swindle my father out of his fortune. I’ll tell Callie-”
Haplo stepped forward, reached out his hands.
“No, don’t touch me,” Aleatha ordered- “Just kiss me.”
Smiling, Haplo held his bandaged hands up and out to the side, leaned down, and kissed the soft lips. He took a step back. Aleatha was eyeing him speculatively.
“You weren’t much different than an elf.”
“Sorry. I’m better when I can use my hands.”
“Maybe it’s just men in general. Or maybe it’s poets, yammering about burning blood, melting heart, skin on fire. Did you ever feel like that when you were with a woman?”
“No,” Haplo lied. He could remember a time when the flame had been all he lived for.