The Girl in the Brothel Ch. 01

Thara was both relieved and disappointed. The latter emotions surprised her. He clearly frequented the brothel enough to be on a first name basis with Hermu and Jonan, which meant that he was a lout, a man of ill morals, or at least one prone to material excess. Why she would desire someone like that she couldn't say. Perhaps it was those eyes. She'd never seen eyes that shade of blue. Or maybe it was that scar on his chin. She wondered how he got it, if it was from an accident as a boy, or from a skirmish as a Hunter. She imagined him fighting with pirates on a cerulean sea, shiny black boots gleaming in the bright sun.

She realized she was imagining again, and that the Hunter was watching her with amusement.

"My name is Ardon." He extended a hand. "I don't think we were properly introduced when we first met."

Thara looked suspiciously at him, but was only met with an innocent smile. Against her better judgement, she put her hand his hand larger one and they shook. A patron with manners. That was different.

"You didn't tell me your name."

"Thara."

He still hadn't made a move toward her. Why is he here, Thara wondered, if he has no interest in bedding me? She was growing impatient. Her plan would never work if he didn't start mauling her this instant. She angled herself to be closer to the chair and the clay pitcher that sat upon it.

"I don't suppose," Ardon drawled, watching her edge sideways, "You have any interest in remaining at The Rosey Bush for the foreseeable future?" He had fully turned to face her, silhouetted in the meager moonlight shining through the window behind him.

Thara made a face. "Not particularly." It wasn't a disagreeable establishment, and some of the ladies were quite delightful to banter with. But she couldn't remain here now that Hermu had promoted her. She had no intention of becoming a seductress and wearing those wispy bits of fabric that barely covered anything.

"How exactly did a young woman such as yourself end up wandering through the bogs and marshes of Grogom anyway?" Ardon asked.

Thara suppressed an exasperated sigh. Did the man always insist on making conversation like this with all his whores? "I was running away," she said simply.

"I gathered as much the night we first met," the man prodded. "What, pray tell, were you running away from?" He sank his bulk onto her thin mattress, jumping up with a curse when an obstinate bit of straw poked him in the rear. He leaned over to press it flat. "How do you sleep on this? It's like a rag stuffed with brambles."

Thara ignored him. "I was running away from my employer." The moment the words left her mouth she realized that remark would soon ring true with The Rosey Bush as well. There was a word for that...not irony...oh, she couldn't remember it now. "I was maid to her children. But I didn't like it there and thought I'd be better off taking my chances elsewhere." The chandler's wife was too liberal with her beatings, and for such paltry indiscretions, too.

"Were you employed with them for very long?" Ardon asked.

He was sniffing around for something, Thara was sure of it. She eyed the pitcher longingly but didn't answer. He was going to have to be sitting on the other end of the bed to make this work.

Ardon had gotten up while Thara was thinking, and she found, much to her consternation, that he was directly in front of her now, taking up all the available space, and much too close for comfort. She stumbled back with an audible squeak, hitting the wall. She would have darted sideways but quick as a flash, he planted both hands on the wall on either side of her arms, preventing escape.

Up close, he quite stole her breath away. Thara couldn't break away from his gaze, it was as though she were hypnotized. His eyes flicked down, briefly, to her mouth. She unconsciously wet her lips, breathless. "I think," Ardon murmured, and a delightful little zip of electricity hit below her belly button, "That perhaps we had best get started."