When the same four girls came in to help Seea dress for dinner, Derand was able to go to his own apartment and do the same. When he was dressed he left orders for his few possessions and small amount of clothing to be moved to Seea’s apartment while they were at dinner, and then he went back to wait for his wife to be ready. She came out wearing a breathtaking gown of silver lace with matching slippers, and her smile of amusement at his expression looked real.

  “You’re very good at this pretending business,” she murmured as she took his arm, ignoring the chattering of the girls as the four left the apartment. “I’ll try to be just as good, of course, but I probably won’t be able to match your performance.”

  “You’re doing just fine,” he assured her in a matching murmur, showing his own amusement but for a different reason. His “pretense” would probably be flawless, but not because he was that good at it.

  Actually feeling what you’re pretending about makes all the difference.

  Derand’s parents, King Almis and Queen Rildin, waited for them in the private dining room Derand had shared with his father earlier at lunch. The room was also filled with servants now, and Derand’s mother came forward immediately to greet them.

  “Derand, how lovely to see you again, my darling,” the queen said with a laugh as she hugged her son before turning to Seea. “And Elissia is finally with you. I haven’t seen you in a few years, Elissia, and I must say that you’ve grown into a really beautiful woman. Welcome to our family, my dear.”

  Seea accepted the hug she was also given without drawing back, and then she let herself be walked away while the queen began to give her “advice” about married life. The advice was actually a listing of the failures of men and how women could overcome those failures, and in no time Seea was laughing aloud and apparently really enjoying herself.

  “I knew your mother would cooperate with the plan,” Derand’s father murmured after joining Derand where he stood. “She really does like the girl, so she’ll do her best to make Elissia feel as comfortable here as she does at home. At her former home. You’ll be leaving in the morning to take her to her new home?”

  “First thing,” Derand confirmed with a nod. “And if things continue to go as well as they’ve been going, I’m going to owe major thanks to the gods. Have you found out anything about that assassin?”

  “Only that he was friendly and pleasant to everyone but close to no one,” Almis answered, losing his satisfied expression. “And he had ‘friends’ visit him on a regular basis, people who were strangers to those who saw them. I think the man was sent here to be in a position to strike when the word came, which would mean that there’s more of a plot afoot than we can see right now. I’ve sent riders to alert your brothers, so from now on we’ll all be very aware of the people around us.”

  “And as soon as I get home I’ll set the rest of our plan in motion,” Derand said, watching Seea laugh as she joined his mother in defaming men. “With any luck we’ll know who the miscreant is before the month is out.”

  Derand’s father made a sound of pleased agreement, but Derand barely noticed. Once the threat was over Seea would expect to be allowed to leave him, but that wasn’t going to happen. Before then he would find some way to make her know that his love was real, that he wanted her to stay with him for the rest of their lives. He would find a way to do that, he would!

  Almis, one of the kings of the newly federated kingdoms of Alvin, watched his wife Rildin walk toward him where he sat relaxing in their bedchamber. It had taken her girls longer to get her ready for bed than it had taken his own valets, so he sat comfortably in his favorite wrap and sipped wine while he waited.

  And enjoyed the sight of his wife walking toward him dressed in nothing but filmy clouds of the pink night outfit she’d put on. Rildin was still a very beautiful woman, and even after all the children she’d given him her body still had the power to make him ? rise to the occasion.

  “She really is a lovely girl, Almis,” Rildin said with a sigh as she stopped not far from where her husband sat. “Are you certain she wants to leave Derand? He paid her constant attention during dinner, and she accepted that attention like a woman in love.”

  “They’ve agreed to ‘pretend,’ Rildin,” Almis answered with a sigh. “For the sake of our counterplot against the unknown enemy, they’re both going to pretend to be deeply in love. I’ll admit I wondered if Derand hadn’t gone ? strange when he told me what he intended to do, but after seeing how much more relaxed and happy Elissia was tonight than this afternoon? She’s no longer worried about whether or not Derand loves her because she knows for a fact that he doesn’t.”

  “That poor girl!” Rildin exclaimed as she hurried to Almis’s lap so that he might hold her tight. “I shudder to think what life has been like for her that she’s happier when she believes she isn’t loved. And she isn’t all that happy either. You men didn’t seem to notice that she ate less of the meal than she should have.”

  “Just because we didn’t say anything out loud doesn’t mean we didn’t notice,” Almis corrected as he stroked her beautiful black hair. “I know for a fact that Derand noticed, but he’s made so many mistakes with her lately that he would have been a fool to say anything. Elissia has to be accepted on her own terms, otherwise Derand will lose her.”

  “I don’t even want to think about that,” Rildin said, raising her head to show dark eyes filled with anticipated pain. “I’ve never seen Derand look at a woman the way he looks at Elissia, and if he loses her it will destroy him. Isn’t there anything more we can do to help?”

  “From now on it’s up to them,” Almis replied, privately wishing there was another answer to be found.

  “They’re both adults, so they have to be left alone to work out their own lives. And now that that’s settled, we can talk about you.”

  “What about me?” Rildin said after a very short hesitation, obviously letting herself be distracted. “I’m doing fine, thank you very much.”

  “Not from where I sit,” Almis returned, letting her see a scowl. “Did you think I missed hearing what you said to Elissia about men? Or did you simply think I’d accept your insults without a murmur?”

  “I wasn’t being insulting, I was telling the truth,” Rildin countered, a gleam of devilment now in her beautiful dark eyes. “All men need a woman to guide them in the proper direction, the more important the man, the more he needs the guidance. The ones who stay unmarried are beyond help, of course, but those who are smart enough to choose women like Elissia and me show a definite spark of hope.”

  “And you don’t see that remark as insulting,” Almis said with a sigh. “It’s really unfortunate that you haven’t yet learned your lesson, because now I’ll have to teach it to you again.”

  “If you think you can make me back down from my beliefs then it’s you who hasn’t learned the lesson,”

  Rildin said with a smirk of arrogance. “You won’t make me sorry no matter what you do.”

  “Let’s see if that’s true,” Almis said as he turned her face down over his lap. “I’ve been fairly gentle with you until now, but I won’t repeat the mistake. This time you’re going to learn to be a good girl with no two ways about it.”

  “That’s easy enough to say,” Rildin countered with a laugh as he raised the skirts of her pink sleep outfit.

  “Harder is actually accomplishing what you intend, and I seriously doubt if you’ll be any more successful this time than you’ve - Oh! What are you doing?”

  “I’m making use of a story I heard only just recently,” Almis answered as he kept her from reaching the string of the bead he’d put in her bottom. Derand had a fairly large supply of the things, so he shouldn’t miss the one Almis had taken. “You may take a brisk spanking better than most, my sweet, but this addition ought to make the time more ? interesting for you.”

  “No, Almis, don’t you dare!” she protested desperately as he kept her from escaping his hold. “You haven’t used something like that since we were first married, and even then you didn’t spank me at the same - Oh! Ow! No, stop it! Stop!”

  “Why would you want me to stop?” Almis asked calmly as his hand whacked that beautiful bottom again and again. “You said I wasn’t very effective at teaching you a good lesson, so what are you complaining about?”

  Rildin was so busy squirming and howling that she couldn’t seem to put together lucid answers to his questions. Every time his hand came down on her bottom with a satisfying “smack!” she kicked and writhed, her reactions more ? abandoned than they’d been in quite some time. She really was good at taking a hard spanking without losing her self-possession, so it was more than time that her complacency was rattled.

  Almis’s hand had turned his wife’s bottom a bright red before she finally gave it up. She interrupted her own yelling in an obviously desperate attempt to speak.

  “All right, you win!” she gasped out, squirming harder with every swat of his hand. “I apologize for insulting you and ask to be forgiven! Please, Almis, please forgive me!”

  “I don’t think I’m feeling very forgiving yet, Rildin,” Almis said as he paused in the spanking. “You were a very bad girl, a very arrogant girl, and both of those things demand punishing. From where I sit that punishment isn’t complete yet.”

  “If - if you take me to bed I can help you with wanting to forgive me,” Rildin tried, still squirming hard. “I was a bad and arrogant girl and I know I have to make up for it, but not with any more spanking. Please, husband, I just can’t take any more!”

  “Oh, I think you can take more of the spanking,” Almis disagreed in a lighthearted way. “In fact I know you can take more and I’m prepared to prove the contention, but first we’re going to make one small change. I’m going to let go of your arm, and then I’ll continue. If that arm comes up even once to get in my way - or if you try to get up before I let you up - I’ll go and fetch a switch before I catch you and start again. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, husband, I understand,” Rildin answered miserably, probably hating herself for the challenge she’d spoken. She also seemed to want to say something else, but very wisely kept the words unspoken.

  Almis continued with the spanking for a while, and although Rildin wailed and twisted and squirmed she didn’t try to get up and she didn’t try to protect her aching seat. After the additional few minutes Almis discovered that he was very much in the mood to do something with Rildin that didn’t include spanking, so he let her up and immediately took her to bed.

  When his wife responded more passionately and wildly to his lovemaking than she had for years, Almis silently thanked his son for the marvelous gift. And, as he lay panting beside his wife, he also promised himself that tonight’s spanking would have to be repeated very, very soon?

  Chapter 10

  Elissia stirred on the coach seat, finally pulled out of her thoughts by the approach of sundown. They would be continuing on a short time past dark, she’d been told, in order to reach the savage’s palace today. The night before they’d camped out rather than use an inn, and no matter how necessary the time had been it hadn’t also been pleasant and comfortable. Continuing on would be a better idea than doing the same again.

  The two days of travel since leaving the savage’s father’s palace hadn’t been easy because of the pace they were keeping to, but for the first day at least the countryside had been nice to look at. Now that they’d crossed over into what was considered the savage’s kingdom the story wasn’t the same. Listan had ridden near the coach earlier in the day, and when Elissia had asked about the countryside he’d told her why it looked so ? ruined.

  “This kingdom used to belong to the man who was most at fault for keeping everyone constantly at war,”

  Listan had said, looking around with less than relish. “His farmers were virtual slaves, forced to grow their crops for no other reason than to feed his fighters. No one spent any time building new things or fixing the old because the next battle would certainly destroy the new right along with the old. We’ve been working to change all that, but it’s a slow process.”

  After that Elissia was able to see a few indications that people worked to rebuild some of what had been destroyed. A barn here, a house there, fields being turned into neat growing areas from the churned-up battlefields they’d previously been. And the closer they got to the savage’s city and palace, the better everything looked.

  The savage. Elissia leaned back on the coach seat and closed her eyes, actually enjoying her memories of the man for a change. He’d moved into her apartment in his father’s palace and he’d shared her bed that night, but he hadn’t tried to touch her. His lack of interest in using her body had been disappointing, but she’d finally realized that his lack of interest had actually been for the best.

  “I would have had to keep my desire for him hidden, and if the feelings had gotten away from me he would have seen them.” Her whispered words were tinged with great unhappiness, not to mention frustration. “Last night we slept apart because there was no privacy, but tonight will be a different story.

  No assassin in the recent past, no lack of privacy? So what can I do?”

  Annoyance now touched Elissia for more than one reason. In order for their plan to work she hadn’t been able to refuse to share the savage’s bed and hadn’t even wanted to refuse. She felt herself entitled to a short time of pleasure, but not if that pleasure revealed more of her true feelings than she wanted known. The poisoned tea was safely put away among her belongings, and would not be discovered even when her trunks were unpacked. Once the man behind the assassins was discovered her future was assured, but her present was another story entirely?

  Thinking about the problem all day had given Elissia only one idea, an idea she wasn’t particularly eager to use despite the fact that she might have no choice. What she’d thought of would certainly solve the problem, but -

  Elissia was suddenly dragged back to where she sat when the day around them abruptly went from peaceful early evening to a time of vicious attack. Men shouted curses as they drove in with swords in their fists and hatred on their faces, so large a number of men that there seemed to be more of them than of the savage’s escort. Fighting broke out immediately, vicious and deadly and intense.

  Startlement instantly turned to fright for Elissia, but she was still able to see something odd just beyond the fighters on the right side of the coach. Then another force galloped into the melee, the black leather they wore telling her that they were more of the savage’s fighters. Elissia hadn’t realized that their escort had been split as they rode through this area that was mostly wooded, but obviously it had been.

  The new arrivals turned the numbers against the attackers, but it wasn’t just a matter of numbers. Elissia saw more than one encounter end quickly with the attacker killed, the attacker no match for the fighter he attacked. And there was something else odd about the attack which, when combined with the first odd thing she’d seen, gave Elissia a picture that made her insides twist even more than the attack itself had.

  Very little time passed before all the attackers were dead or mortally wounded. The defending fighters glared all around themselves in the late afternoon light to see if there were any more attackers waiting to follow the first group down to death, but no others were discovered. When that became perfectly clear, the savage rode over to Elissia’s coach and dismounted.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as he opened the coach door and offered a hand to help her down. “None of them reached you, did they?”

  “None of them was meant to reach me,” Elissia answered as she got out of the coach. It felt good to stand for a while after all those hours of traveling, but the chance to stretch would have been more enjoyable with a different reason behind the stop.

  “What does that mean?” the savage asked at once, interest rather than annoyance clear in the question.

  “You think that I was the only target this time?”

  “Actually, I think this attack was only a diversion,” Elissia said, trying not to look at all the bodies lying in their own blood. “Just as the attack started, I saw two men on horseback turn together and ride away into the woods. It was as if their sending the attackers at us took care of what they were supposed to do, and the next item on their agenda was getting away as fast as possible. I think they lied to these men, telling them that their superior numbers would win the fight for them, mentioning nothing about the fact that what the attackers saw was only half your force. The ones I saw fighting weren’t very good, and your fighters probably would have won even if they didn’t get help from the rest.”

  “You’re right, as fighters these men were on the pitiful side,” the savage said thoughtfully. “They went down like wheat before a scythe, and the fight was almost over before the rest of my guard force joined in. So what was this attack supposed to divert us from?”

  “That’s the question of the hour,” Elissia agreed glumly. “It could be anything from another attack by much better fighters to a single person coming over with smiles and a hidden dagger. This attack and the easy way you stopped it was supposed to put you off your guard, but for what purpose I just don’t know.”

  “My fighters and I probably would be off guard now, even if only unconsciously,” the savage said with a nod as Listan rode up. “We’ll have to do something to change that attitude right away.”

  “My king, there don’t seem to be any other attackers lurking in the woods,” Listan said as he dismounted.

  “If this is the best your enemy can manage, we have nothing to fear from him.”

  “What you just said proves that we do have something to fear,” the savage corrected after exchanging a glance with Elissia. “My queen has pointed out how