Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Romilly blushed, and looked away; reared among animals, she knew perfectly well what Darissa was talking about, but Luciella was a strictly-observing cristoforo and did not think it seemly to speak of such things among young girls. Darissa mistook her blush. She said, almost defensively, “Well, I bear children without much trouble – I am not like Garris’s wife; she left no living children, and died in childbirth just before Midwinter. He has worn out three wives, Dom Garris, trying to get him an Heir, and I have marked that all his children die at birth – I have no wish to get myself with child by him or I should follow his wives into death, no doubt.

“My older sister went for a time to Tramontana Tower when she was a girl, and she said she had heard there about the days of the old breeding-program, when the Aldarans had some strange gifts of loran, but they were bound, in their line, to lethal genes – do you know what those are? Yes, of course, your father breeds his own horses, does he not? And Cathal has them not, but I think Dom Garris will leave no heir, so one day my sons by Cathal will inherit Scathfell-” Darissa rattled on.

“And you will rule the roost as their mother,” said Romilly, laughing, but then Rael came up and pulled them into the set-dance, saying they had not enough women to make up a second set, and she dropped that line of thought.

The dancing and feasting went on all day, and before midnight The MacAran and Lord Scathfell and the rest of the older people, with their ladies, retired to rest, leaving the young people to their dancing and merry-making. Rael was taken away by the governess, also the protesting Mallina, who was comforted only by seeing that her friends Jessamy and Jeralda were also being sent to bed. Romilly was tired, and almost ready to go with the children – she had, after all, been awake before daylight. But Alderic and her brother Darren were still dancing, and she would not admit that her brother could stay awake longer than she could. But she saw, with a little sinking awareness, that Darissa was leaving the hall – pregnant as she was, she said, she needed her sleep.

I will stay close to Darren. In my brother’s presence Dom Garris cannot come too near for comfort . . . and then she wondered why she was worrying; he had, after all, offered her no word out of the way, and how could she complain, after all, of a mere look? Nevertheless, the memory of his eyes on her made her squirm; and now she thought about it, she realized that all this day and evening she had been somehow, in the back of her mind, aware of his eyes on her.

Is this, then, laran?

I would rather not dance at all, I would rather sit here and talk about hawks and horses with my brother and his friends….

But Cinhil claimed her for a dance, and then she could not in courtesy refuse Dom Garris. The dancing was a little wilder, the music faster, now that the elderly and more staid people had left the hall. He whirled her about till she was dizzy, and she was conscious that his hands were no longer decorously on her sleeve but that he was holding her somewhat closer than was comfortable, and when she tried self-consciously to squirm away from them he only chuckled and eased her closer still.

“No, now, you cannot tell me you are so shy as that,” he said, and she could tell from the flushed look of his face and the slight slurring of his words that he had drunk over long of the stronger wine at the high table, “Not when you run about with those lovely long legs showing in breeches, and your breasts showing through a tunic three sizes too small, you cannot play Lady Modesty with me now!” He pulled her close and his lips nuzzled her cheek, but she twisted indignantly away.

“Don’t!” And then she said, crossly, “I do not like the stink of too much wine on your breath, and you are drunk, Dom Garris. Let me go.”