"Do I seem too good to be true?" the vision asked him. "I assure you, I cannot be accused of goodness! I know my own worth, and this is it: to give pleasure, and seek it." She tugged at his arm. "Not that I have found more than a little. I seek a man who can send me whirling to the heights of ecstasy, not the mere release that is all any have given."
"I... I know not that road, and could be of little use."
"Trust me to know your use," Honey said, "and be sure I know the road. No man will love me lifelong, this I know, so I seek whatever bond I can find with any man, and you are the fortunate one who has met me this day."
Even through the whirl of emotions, Gregory recognized the kernel of truth around which Finister had wrapped this particular lie. She believed herself to be of no real worth, especially of no lasting worth to any man, that males would value her only for her sexual attraction and not for the person inside the body.
Every instinct within him cried foul. He had grown up with a mother and a sister, neither saintly but both very dear, and could not believe that any woman was nothing but a body. Mind and soul were too precious to him. It was the person who mattered to him, not the gender, and several young women had made it clear to him that this was a failing, for he could not relate to them as he could to another man.
"Come down from your high horse, O Favored of Fate," Honey breathed. "Come lay me down, that I may lift you up to heights you can only imagine—for that is what I do best; indeed, it is all that I do well."
"Never think it!" Gregory said sternly, and indignation gave him the strength to sit up straight, clasping the reins with both hands. "Never believe you cannot love and be loved! This is the true worth of every being, to labor for the happiness of another!"
"Make me happy," she said, stretching her arms up to him and arching her back. "Happily make me, and bring me to labor."
Under the sultry words, though, Gregory sensed a secret longing, secret perhaps even from Finister herself—a yearning for love and for someone who would be so much in love with her that he would never leave her, no matter how unpleasant a companion she might be—and he was beginning to realize that Finister knew herself to be unpleasant indeed. She had, in fact, so low an opinion of herself that she didn't believe anyone else could like her. After all, she didn't.
"If I should choose your company," he told her, "it would be because you were a pleasant and trustworthy companion, not because of your beauty."
Honey stared with surprise; then her eyes flashed with scorn, but she kept them lidded, kept the sensuous curve of her mouth as she said, "No man chooses a woman for anything else."
"Try me," Gregory challenged. "Ride with me a week and do not invite my caresses. See if I reach out to you with my hands then, or only with my words. See if you would choose me as a companion for more than a night!"
"You are surely not more than a knight, nor even as much!" Honey shook with anger. "Do you think I wish a man whose hands are turned only to craft and never to me? What use would you be to me then?" Suddenly she relaxed, her body undulated again, and she stretched out a hand, beckoning as she backed away. "Come, sir, and you shall have no regrets. If you wish my companionship by day, your nights are my price."
Now Gregory was truly tempted, for she no longer pretended to be offering only but showed some sign of demanding. Still, he realized he must make her believe that one man somewhere might value her for more than her body alone. He would not reap the rewards of a loving nature that believed in itself, but some other man somewhere might, and certainly she would. "I thank you, no," he said. "I own I am lonely and would appreciate laughter and conversation, but I wish them for more than a night."
"Do you fear me, then?" Honey taunted. "Are you afraid I would suck you dry?"
"Why, how could that be?" Gregory asked with a self-deprecating laugh. "If you are truly as hungry as you say, so slight a man as I would scarcely be a morsel."
"Slight indeed!" She saw his self-control was back, saw he had slipped her grasp yet again, and let her temper flare. "A mere scrap of a man, one who could scarcely be a mat underfoot, let alone a mattress beneath my body! Go your ways, wanderer, and mourn the day you left me!" She spun on her heel and ran away. Gregory caught the sound of a sob.
That was almost his undoing. He nearly turned his horse, nearly rode after to take her in his arms and offer comfort— but he had at least the good sense to realize it was too late, that he had let the moment pass.
Now Gregory could no longer deny how deeply Finister attracted him. He had always thought that his one big weakness had been his ability to sympathize and empathize—indeed, his unwitting inclination; he had never been able to hear weeping without instinctively feeling the person's pain and, if he learned its cause, maiming their aching as though it were his own. He had worked long and hard to contain that impulse for, although the thoughts he heard from those in anguish might demand comfort, the people were not always willing to accept it—and so he thought it might be in this case. He could only guess, though, for "Honey's" thoughts had disappeared the instant she had turned and fled, leaving only the mental shield that seemed to come so readily with Finister's frustration or anger. Oh, he could read the dire, raging thoughts that came from it, as light reflected from a mirrored ball, but he could not detect the true thoughts or feelings within.
He was amazed to realize how much he desired to do so. It unnerved him to realize that Finister's projective telepathy had reached him, though not in the way she had intended. True, her sexuality had aroused a maelstrom of emotions in him, but it was her angst that had played upon those feelings, not her seductiveness. Sensibilities sharpened by a sudden rush of hormones had induced his empathy to emerge from its shielding, bringing him to sympathize with her and search for the natural good qualities in her that must have been twisted into making her the murderous vampire she had become.
Not that he thought Finister a maligned innocent; far from it. He knew quite well how poisonous she was but couldn't help sensing an underlying sweetness and vulnerability, both rigidly controlled and hidden inside an emotional shell that was virtual plate armor. He was attracted to her deeply and sharply, there was no denying it, but that attraction owed more to sympathy and empathy than to lust. Simply put, his own generosity of spirit had put him perilously close to falling in love with her.
Finister stalked through the woodlands, seething with fury, trembling with rage. Her most blatant invitations, her finest voluptuous form, and the man came away as unshaken as a plaster statue! Oh, she knew she had punched through his reserve, had grasped his nerves, that she'd had him by the glands for a few minutes there. How had he managed to recover his poise? How had he managed to refuse?
How had he managed to escape?!
Well, there was no point in any further attempt. The man had the potential for lust, but he had quashed it so firmly that there was nothing but potential left! He was a eunuch, not a man, and there was nowhere to catch him!
It would have been so much simpler if he had been as susceptible as the rest of his sex. She could have married him, enthralled him, warped him to her so thoroughly that he would not even have dreamed of protest when she failed to conceive. She could have guaranteed that he would father no children—though she might have given him one sired by another man; she was curious about the experience of pregnancy and birth. And in addition, she would have been a lady by marriage, a noblewoman of a family close to the throne, where she could take steps to ensure that the royal bloodline would end with Alain, that Cordelia would never carry a baby to term, that Quicksilver would never conceive!