Today was not the day to ease up on control of the heat, so he ruthlessly snugged the leash to where it had been the day before, ignoring the nip of pain that came from choking back a part of himself too much.

Having leashed every part of himself as tightly as possible, Daemon went downstairs to do what he could to reassure his wife before she fled from their home.

THREE

Lord Dillon found a dimly lit nook behind a curtain near the main ballroom. He opened the window a crack to breathe in some cool fresh air and give himself a quiet moment before throwing himself back into the bright and sometimes brittle sounds of instruments and voices, the flash of jewels and Jewels and women’s gowns. A typical aristo party in a Rihland city. He’d never been outside the Territory of Askavi—not yet, anyway—but he imagined that aristo parties were pretty much the same in every Blood city in the Realm of Kaeleer.

Maybe he should find out. There was no reason for him to stay in Askavi and plenty of reasons to go.

If you loved me . . .

He’d been nineteen years old when he made the Offering to the Darkness and came away with the Opal as his Jewel of rank. He’d been in his second year of training to be an escort who could serve in a Queen’s court, and had one more year to go. Many young men received their education in District courts while they served in the Third or Fourth Circle. Youngsters weren’t paid for their service, but they were given room and board, which was regarded as sufficient compensation. His father, however, had wanted him to study at a school, claiming that the escorts who served in a court and were responsible for training the young men sometimes undermined those potential rivals for the Queen’s attention. Much better to be trained at a school and have the polish necessary to be offered a place in a Second Circle and rise to an important position that much faster.

He hadn’t cared about a fast rise through the levels of a court. He had wanted the adventure of going away. His father had wanted him to go to the school, so he went, and at one of the dances that gave escorts-in-training a chance to gain some experience, he’d met Lady Blyte. She’d been a couple of years older than he, the daughter of a Warlord and a witch whose bloodlines were far more aristo than his family’s modest claim to that label, and he’d been flattered that she had singled him out for a second dance.

He hadn’t realized at the time that she’d chosen him because she hadn’t expected him to give her any trouble when she tired of him and tossed him aside.

He’d been dazzled the first time she kissed him—although, at the time, he’d believed he’d initiated that first kiss. He’d believed he’d initiated quite a few things—until she started wanting things that wouldn’t do any harm to her reputation but would sully his. He’d balked the first time she tried to get him into bed, not because he didn’t want sex but because he wanted to serve in a Queen’s First Circle someday, a position that required the ultimate trust not only of the Queen but of her Steward, Master of the Guard, and Consort.

A man who damaged his honor and respectability by having sex outside the marriage bed would never receive that trust anywhere but in the meanest kind of court, where trust and honor could be bought and sold.

But most young men from good families received some formal sex instruction, since learning to be a good lover was considered essential for any man who wanted to serve as a consort in a Queen’s court or wanted to please a wife. The men sat through frank discussions and some demonstrations of how to please a lover. That instruction was usually followed by one or two lessons with a woman who was qualified to train young men in the skills required in and out of bed. Despite the marks he’d been spending on Blyte, he’d saved enough from his quarterly allowance to pay for the formal instruction.

When he told Blyte that he had signed up for sex training at a reputable establishment, she had led him to a shadowed spot on the terrace just outside the ballroom and had said the fatal words for the first time. If you loved me . . .

If he loved her, he would forget about the training and use the money to take her to . . .

He couldn’t remember what she’d wanted that first time, but it had sounded reasonable, and he had loved her, so he’d canceled the instruction and taken her to some expensive event.

Then, if he loved her, he would let her instruct him in the art of sex and lovemaking. After all, she’d had her Virgin Night, so taking an inexperienced lover wouldn’t be a risk to her power or her Jewels. And she couldn’t stand the idea of him being with another woman, even for instruction, and if he loved her, he wouldn’t ask her to endure that.

When he still balked about having sex—after all, it wasn’t her reputation that would be harmed if anyone found out—she asked him to handfast with her, to be her husband for a year. If he loved her, he would do this for her, to please them both.

If you loved me. If you loved me. If you . . .

She taught him a great deal about sex while she stalled about making the handfast official. After all, they were married in their hearts, weren’t they?

And then, finally uneasy enough about the delays and Blyte’s desire to keep their arrangement secret—for his sake—he told his family that Blyte had asked him to handfast and he wanted to proceed with the ceremony.

When his father met with Blyte’s father to negotiate the terms of the handfast, Blyte hysterically denied making such a commitment to Lord Dillon. She tearfully confessed she’d been having sex with Dillon, but she was entitled to a lover, while he . . .

Scandal. Accusations and counteraccusations. When his father threatened to take the matter to the Province Queen, who, unlike the District Queen who ruled their city, was not related to Blyte’s family, Dillon had received “compensation” for the “misunderstanding”—enough gold and silver marks to buy his silence and end the accusations.

His family didn’t quite disown him—that would have negated the claim of Dillon being the wronged party—but his parents made it clear that it was in everyone’s best interest for him to settle in another city and start fresh. After all, he was twenty now and old enough to stand on his own, and there were his two younger brothers to think about. If he stayed at home, the smear on his reputation might stain his brothers, and he wouldn’t want that, would he?

Of course not. But leaving home to serve in a court or to accept a position in another city to do one’s chosen work wasn’t the same as being asked to leave because he’d made the mistake of believing a bitch’s lies.

Deeply wounded when his father, pressured by his mother, had given him a week to find another place to live well beyond their home ground, Dillon hadn’t been able to think, hadn’t known where to go. He blindly chose a Rihlander city on the coast of Askavi—a place where his family often took a “cottage” for a month in the summer as a way to show they were affluent even if they were a minor branch of an aristo family tree.