Dragon Rose(17)

Truth be told, it was a very odd feast. Oh, the food was abundant enough, and uniformly excellent, although my hunger might have increased its charms. However, it was a feast for two, as only the Dragon and I sat at a long table that could have easily accommodated ten times our number.

Of the chamber in which we sat, I could make out very little, since the only illumination was a single candle located next to my place setting. The lord of Black’s Keep apparently had no need of such things…or perhaps it was more important to him that I have no chance of seeing what lay within the hood as he ate.

For he did eat, of roast waterfowl and wine-braised beef and a dish I had always loved, with apples and cinnamon and candied tubers, as well as salad of field greens and potatoes roasted with garlic. The bread was warm and fresh, the butter sweet and cool. With the meal came wine as well, as much, apparently, as I would like, and not the parsimonious half-glass my mother allowed me with my evening meal.

In the darkness I did not recognize the servant who brought us the food. It was not Sar, but a younger woman who somehow managed to safely negotiate the dim chamber as she brought in course after course. I for one was glad that I apparently was expected to stay in one place for some time, since I feared I might trip over the rug if I were required to move more than a few paces in the darkness.

At first we ate in silence, but then the Dragon asked, after pouring me a second goblet of wine with his own hands, “And what is it you do to amuse yourself, Rhianne?”

“To amuse myself?”

“Yes. I fear you may find it rather dull up here, if you do not have something with which to occupy yourself. Do you embroider, or sew, or—”

Perhaps it was the second glass of wine which emboldened me. “I paint.”

He paused, gloved fingers only a few inches away from his own glass of wine. “You what?”

“I paint. With oils,” I added recklessly. Let him know the worst. After all, what could he do? We were already married in the eyes of the goddess.

“How…extraordinary.” A brief hesitation, and he added, “I would imagine that requires a number of supplies. Tomorrow you shall make up a list, so that Sar can send out for the things you need.”

Was it possible? Had he just offered to get me whatever I needed? I let my fingers rest on the base of my wine goblet but did not pick it up. “They are not the sort of supplies one can procure in Lirinsholme. Lindell always had to send to Lystare for his pigments and canvas.”

It must have been my imagination, but somehow it seemed as if those smooth tones sharpened somewhat. “And who is Lindell?”

“A painter who taught me what he could,” I replied. “He is very good, but he made the Duke of Tralion look quite plump in his portrait, and so he has made Lirinsholme his refuge.”

To my surprise, the Dragon actually laughed at that confession. “Yes, I can imagine even his Grace would not bother pursuing a hapless portrait painter all the way here. You will not mind my saying that this is a rather unusual pastime for a young woman, however.”

“Do you mind?”

“Does it make you happy?”

I stared across the table at him, at the man-sized shape that was only a darker shadow in the dim room. No one had ever asked me such a thing. It was not usually a concern whether a young woman was happy or not, only that she did as her parents bade her and found some way to make peace with her lot in this life. And to have the Dragon of Black’s Keep, the devourer of Brides, ask such a question made me wonder exactly how much anyone really knew about him. Very little, it seemed.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “Very much so.”

“Well, then.”

Twenty years of being raised under my parents’ roof compelled me to say, “It’s all so very expensive, though. The canvas…the pigments…the linseed oil…”

“Do you think the expense concerns me?”

Oh, dear. Perhaps I had offended him. One had only to glance around the castle to know that the Dragon certainly did not lack for material wealth. I did not know him well enough—know him at all—or perhaps I would have tried to explain that my protests were not born of concern that he could not afford the supplies, but rather that one such as I did not really deserve them.

“No, my lord,” I replied, in tones so meek I’m sure they would have raised my mother’s eyebrows, had she been there to hear them.

“Theran,” he reminded me, and I nodded.

“I suppose I shall remember that one of these days.”

“We can only hope.”

I thought I heard an undercurrent of amusement in his words, and I found myself smiling. My heart seemed to lighten. Who would have thought that a day which began in such dread could end with such hope? For he sounded sincere enough. Possibly, just possibly, my tenure in Black’s Keep wouldn’t be quite as dreadful as I had imagined it would.





After dinner he walked me to my rooms, up all those endless stairs. I did not ask where his own chambers lay. And although Sar had told me the Dragon and his consort did not share a suite, still I wondered at him taking me all this way, when it would have been so much easier to bid me goodnight in the dining chamber and allow a servant to guide me back upstairs.

Outside my door we both paused. I had no idea what to do if he asked to accompany me inside. After all, as my husband he had every right to make such a request of me. The food I had eaten, which had seemed so excellent at the table, seemed to lie heavily in my stomach.