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At Dalton’s instructions, the Directors’ office was immediately informed of the book’s disappearance—hours before the culprit was apprehended. With the report, Dalton had sent his personal assurance to the Directors that he would not rest until the malefactor was found, and that he intended to launch an immediate public investigation to discover if such a cultural crime was the precursor to a treasonous plot. The stunned silence from the Office of the Directors had been thunderous.
The magistrate in Fairfield, the one for whom Dalton had once worked, was an admirer of the Minister of Culture, serving as he did at the Minister’s pleasure, and of course did not take lightly the theft from the Anderith Library of Culture. He recognized the theft for what it was: sedition. The researcher who had been caught with the book was swiftly put to death for cultural crimes against the Anderith people.
Far from quelling the scandal, this caused the air to become rampant with ugly rumors of a confession, taken before the man was put to death—a confession, it was said, that implicated others. The Director who had sent the man to the estate to do “research,” rather than be associated with a cultural crime, as a point of honor and in order to end speculation and innuendo, had resigned. Dalton, as the Minister’s official representative looking into the whole affair, after reluctantly taking the Director’s resignation, issued a statement discrediting the rumors of a confession, and officially closed the entire matter.
An old friend of Dalton’s had been fortunate enough to earn the appointment to the suddenly vacant seat for which he had been working nearly his whole life. Dalton had been the first to shake his hand, the hand of a new Director. A more grateful and joyous man Dalton had never met. Dalton was pleased by that, by seeing deserving people, people he loved and trusted, happy.
After the incident, Bertrand Chanboor decided his responsibilities required a closer working relationship with his aide, and designated Dalton as chief of staff as well as aide to the Minister, thus giving him authority over the entire household. Dalton now reported only to the Minister. The position had also accorded them their latest quarters—the finest on the estate other than those of the Minister himself.
Dalton thought Teresa had been even more pleased about it than he—if that was possible. She was in love with the apartment that came with the elevated authority. She was captivated by the people of noble standing among whom she now mingled. She was intoxicated with meeting important and powerful people who came to the estate.
Those guests, as well as people of the estate, treated Teresa with the deference due one of her high standing, despite the fact that most of them were nobly born and she, like Dalton, was well born but not noble. Dalton had always found matters of birth to be petty, and less consequential than some people thought, once they understood how auspicious allegiances could be considerably more significant to a providential life.
Across the room, Teresa cleared her throat. When Dalton turned from the desk, she lifted her nose and with noble grace and stepped out into the sitting room to display herself in her new dress.
His eyes widened. Displaying herself was exactly what she was doing.
The fabric glimmered dreamlike in the light from lamps, candles, and the low fire. Golden patterns of leafy designs swirled across a dark background. Gold-colored piping trimmed seams and edges, drawing attention to her narrow waist and voluptuous curves. The silk fabric of the skirt, like new wheat hugging every nuance of the rolling lowland hills, betrayed the shape of her curvaceous legs beneath.
But it was the neckline that had him speechless. Sweeping down from the ends of her shoulders, it plunged to an outrageous depth. The sight of her sensuous breasts so exposed had a profound effect on him, as a rousing as it was unsettling.
Teresa twirled around, showing off the dress, the deeply cut back, the way it sparkled in the light. With long strides Dalton crossed the room to catch her in his arms as she came back around the second time. She giggled to find herself trapped in his embrace. He bent to kiss her, but she pushed his face away.
“Careful. I’ve spent hours painting my face. Don’t muss it, Dalton.”
She moaned helplessly against his mouth as he kissed her anyway. She seemed pleased with the effect she was having on him. He was pleased with the effect she was having on him.
Teresa pulled back. She reached up and tugged the sequined gold ribbons tied to her hair.
“Sweetheart, does it look any longer yet?” she asked in a pleading voice. “It’s pure misery waiting for it to grow.”
With his new post and attendant new apartments, he was moving up in the world, becoming a man of power. With that new authority came the privileges of rank: his wife was allowed to wear longer hair to reflect her status.
Other wives in the household wore hair nearly to their shoulders; his wife would be no different, except perhaps that her hair would be just a little longer than all but a few other women in the house, or in the whole land of Anderith—for that matter, in the whole of the Midlands. She was married to an important man.
The thought washed through him with icy excitement, as it did from time to time when it really sank in just how far he had risen, and what he had attained.
Dalton Campbell intended this to be only the beginning. He intended to go further. He had plans. And he had the ear of a man with a lust for plans.
Among other things. But, no matter; Dalton could handle such petty matters. The Minister was simply taking the perks of his position.
“Tess, darling, your hair is growing beautifully. If any woman looks down her nose at you for it not yet being longer, you just remember her name, for your hair in the end will be longer than any of theirs. When it finally grows, you can then revisit that name for recompense.”
Teresa bounced on the balls of her feet as she threw her arms around his neck. She squealed in giddy delight.
Intertwining her fingers behind his back, she peeked up at him with a coquettish look. “Do you like my dress?” To make her point, she pressed up against him while gazing into his eyes, watching deliberately as his gaze roamed lower.
In answer, he bent to her, and in one swift motion slipped his hand up under her silky skirt, along the inside of her leg, up to the bare flesh above her stockings. She gasped in mock surprise as his hand reached her private places.
Dalton kissed her again as he groped her. He was no longer thinking about taking her to the feast. He wanted to take her to the bed.
As he pushed her toward the bedroom, she squirmed out of h
is lustful grip. “Dalton! Don’t muss me, sweetheart. Everyone will see the wrinkles in my dress.”
“I don’t think anyone will be looking at the wrinkles in the dress. I think they will be looking at what is spilling out of it.
“Teresa, I don’t want you to wear such a thing anywhere but to greet your husband at the door upon his return home to you.”
She playfully swatted his shoulder. “Dalton, stop.”
“I mean it.” He looked down her cleavage again. “Teresa, this dress is… it shows too much.”
She turned away. “Oh, Dalton, stop. You’re being silly. All the women are wearing such dresses nowadays.” She twirled to him, the flirt back on her face. “You aren’t jealous, are you? Having other men admire your wife?”
She was the one thing he had wanted more than power. Unlike everything else in his life, he entertained no invitations for understandings where Teresa was concerned. The spirits knew there were enough men at the estate who were admired, even envied, because they gained for themselves the courtesy of influence, inasmuch as their wives made themselves available to Minister Chanboor. Dalton Campbell was not one of them. He used his talent and wits to get where he was, not his wife’s body. That, too, gave him an edge over the others.
His forbearance was rapidly evaporating, leaving his tone less than indulgent. “And how will they know it to be my wife? Their eyes will never make it up to your face.”
“Dalton, stop. You’re being insufferably stodgy. All the other women will be wearing dresses similar to this. It’s the style. You’re always so busy with your new job you don’t know anything about prevailing custom. I do.
“Believe it or not, this dress is conservative compared to what others will be wearing. I wouldn’t wear a dress as revealing as theirs—I know how you get—but I don’t want to look out of place, either. No one will think anything of it, except that perhaps the wife of the Minister’s right-hand man is a tad prissy.”
