Dangerous Exile by K.J. Jackson
{ Chapter 7 }
Ness looked up from the book she was reading and watched Verity come into the room and set a tray of roasted beef, bread, asparagus and parsnips on the small table. The food here at the Alabaster was always cooked to perfection, seasoned to make her tongue curl around the morsels, and heavy.
Men’s food, thick in her stomach.
She’d already added a reasonable layer to her frame—the bones that had started to poke through her skin weeks ago after eating so little were now receding. Useful, for she didn’t know what her future held and lean times could very well be her lot once she was safe to leave the Alabaster.
Ness smiled as Verity stood straight, smoothing her apron as she turned to the door. She liked the young woman—close to her age, if she were to guess. Verity had been nothing but kind to her, bringing her the finest soaps, ribbons and pins for her hair, a hairbrush, and books to read. She was always unassuming, but saw details that needed to be tended to.
Verity was pretty with delicate features—something one could only see when her head lifted from the bow she always held it in. Her green eyes were almost always downcast, and the first time that Ness had seen them straight on she’d been startled. A green so pure and bright it looked like a springtime field under the full sun. The dark cap she always wore on her head covered her hair completely, but Ness had occasionally noticed a few strands of dark red hair poking out from under the brim of the cap. Verity would probably be not only pretty, but quite beautiful if her hair wasn’t severely pulled out of view and the innate sadness lifted from her cheeks.
Ness stood from her chair by the fireplace, holding her book against her belly. “Verity, if I may?”
Verity stopped and turned around, her head tilted down but her look lifted to Ness with her eyebrows raised.
“I have a question about the Alabaster. Are there other women here?”
Verity’s head tilted to the side, her eyebrows drawn together to indicate she didn’t understand the question.
“Other women with big bosoms.” Heavy with the splint and bandages that wrapped her elbow to palm, Ness’s left arm lifted, the tips of her fingers motioning to the air in front of her own breasts.
Verity lifted her shoulders.
“Whores?” The word came sour off Ness’s tongue, but she had no other name for it. She didn’t want to use the word, as she’d been pondering it ever since she’d learned that Juliet had been the madame of a brothel. Knowing Juliet and where she’d come from, yet what a decent and kind woman she was, had made Ness start to rethink a lot of things she thought she knew about the workings of life. The word whore now seemed crass to Ness, a label uttered in haste as a slur against women who were, in reality, just trying to find a way to live into the next day with what little assets they had.
Verity’s green eyes widened and she shook her head. Shook it vehemently.
Ness’s forehead wrinkled. “No women work here for…sexual favors?”
Verity continued to shake her head.
Ness exhaled, nodding, confused. “I see.”
What kind of a gaming hell didn’t have women available for pleasure? She’d assumed all the women she could see in the main gaming room from high in Talen’s office were for hire.
Maybe they were just for looks. Men did like women fawning over them. Genuine or not, men didn’t seem to much care.
The door opened and a head poked into the room. Declan.
“Verity, I was looking for you. We need you in the fleur-de-lis room to ready the bed, if you would, please?”
Verity’s head immediately bowed and she nodded toward the floor, stepping out past Declan into the hallway.
Confusion still etched Ness’s brow. “Declan?” She blurted out before he closed the door and disappeared.
He half stepped into the room, the rest of his body staying behind the heavy wooden door. “Yes?”
She hadn’t spoken much to Declan, but from what she had, she guessed that she might get answers from him that Talen had been vague about. “I was curious—I assumed this was a whorehouse as well as a gaming house, but then I guess I was wrong. Or am I right?”
The right side of his face pulled back into almost a cringe. “That would be a better question for Tal, Ness.”
“But I’m asking you.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Fine, then let me ask you a different question since you’re here.”
To her surprise, Declan didn’t scamper from the chamber like he did every time she was in a room with Talen. In this bedroom, in Talen’s office. Instead, he moved into the chamber, closing the door, and then sat on the arm of the plush chair by the doorway, his hands landing on his thighs. Not committing to staying for more than a moment, but at least giving her the courtesy of his attention.
That he did so reaffirmed her like of him. He was easier than Talen. Lighter.
His right hand on his thigh flipped up. “Hit me.”
“You have known Talen for a long time?”
“Yes, since our time on the Royal Navy ship together.”
“Were you there when he first appeared on the ship?”
Declan paused, his eyes slightly narrowing at her, instantly cautious. “Yes.”
She ignored his guarded voice. “Where did he come from?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Where do any of us come from? The streets. Parents that drop us off at the docks then never come back. Or stolen from a field and stuffed in a sack. We come from everywhere. We come from nowhere.”
“How did you end up on the ship?”
His mouth closed, his stare went blank on her—not answering that question.
The exact same blank stare Talen gave her when she asked questions he wasn’t going to answer. The two of them must have practiced the look at each other when they were young to have perfected it so.
She nodded to herself, turning half around to set the book on her chair, then spun back to him. “So Talen appeared and you became friends?”
An easy smile came to Declan’s face. “I had to. No one can fight like him. I knew early on it’d be better to have him as my best friend than my enemy.”
“You’re scared of him?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “No. Not now. Maybe once upon a time I was. But that was before I knew him. What he can destroy with his fists didn’t much matter to me a long time ago. To me, he’s just Tal and he’s earned my loyalty a thousand times over in the years I’ve known him.”
Her chest suddenly felt lighter.
For all she was trying to navigate just who exactly Talen was now, that he had at least one loyal friend made her breathe a bit easier.
Her breath wouldn’t hitch at all if he would just admit he knew her once upon a time. She wasn’t even sure if he was lying about remembering his past or not. But it made no sense to lie about it.
So that left her with one question. Why had Talen forgotten everything of who he was?
But his friend couldn’t help her there.
She smiled at Declan. “Thank you. Thank you for staying for the moment and talking to me.”
He inclined his head to her, then pushed off from the chair and left the room.
Ness stood, staring at the door for a long time.
There was only one person that could answer her questions about Talen’s past.
Talen.
And he wasn’t talking.