The anticipation added to his excitement. Unlike her other men, he was in no rush to have it over. Once it began, it would be over all too quickly. He could never stop himself, once it began. For the moment, he would relish all the little details, so that he could capture them in his memory for all time.

She was more than simply pretty, he decided. She was a creature possessed of features that would fire men's minds with obsessive memories of her, and make them return time and time again to try, if only for fleeting moments, to possess her. The confidence with which she carried her body told him that she knew this. The frequency with which men spent money to have her was a constant reinforcement of that confidence.

Those features, though, no matter their grace and haunting beauty, had an acidic edge to them, a harshness that betrayed her true character. No doubt other men saw only the sweet face and never noticed.

He noticed. He noticed such subtle things, and he had seen this detail often. It always looked the same. It was a baseness her fair features couldn't hide from one such as himself.

"Are you new?" he asked, even though he knew she was. "First day here," she said. He knew that, too. "Aydindril is big enough to mean clients for me, but with a huge army here, it's all the better. Blue eyes around here aren't all that common; my blue eyes remind the D'Haran soldiers of girls from home. So many extra men mean women like me are in greater demand." "And it insures a better wage."

She allowed herself a small, smug, knowing smile. "If you couldn't afford it, you wouldn't be up here, so cut the complaints."

He had only meant to make an observation, and regretted the way she took it. Her voice betrayed an underlying, acerbic temperament. He sought to smooth away the ripple of her displeasure with him.

"Soldiers can sometimes get rough with a young woman as attractive as you." The compliment didn't register in her sky-blue eyes. She had probably heard it so often that she was numb to such praise. "I'm glad you came to Silas Latherton," he went on. "He doesn't let any of his clients rough up the young ladies. You'll be safe, here, under his roof. I'm glad you came here."

''Thanks." Her tone carried no warmth, but the ripple, at least, had been smoothed. "I'm glad to hear his reputation is known to his clients. I got slammed around, once. I didn't like it. Besides the pain, I couldn't work for a month." "That must have been terrible. The pain, I mean."

She tilled her head toward the bed. "You going to take off your clothes, or what?

He said nothing, but gestured to her robe. He watched her slip loose the knot from the satin belt.

"Have it your way," she said, as she shrugged the robe open just enough to tempt him into getting on with it. "I'd like. . I'd like you to enjoy it, too."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Darling, don't you worry about me. I'll enjoy it just fine. You'll no doubt thrill me. But you're the one who paid for it. Let's just worry about your pleasure."

He liked to hear the tempered thread of sarcasm in her voice. She cloaked it well with a breathy tone, and others might have missed it, but he had been listening for it.

Carefully, slowly, one at a time, he placed four small gold coins on the washstand beside her. It was ten times what Silas Latherton, downstairs, charged for his women's company, and probably thirty times what he gave her for each man. She watched the coins as he withdrew his hand, as if counting them to herself to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing. It was a great deal of money. She gave him a questioning look.

He liked the twitch of confusion in her eyes. Women like this weren't often confused by money, but she was young, and probably never had a man bestow such largess on her before. He liked it that it impressed her. He knew that few things would.

"I'd like you to enjoy yourself. I'm wiling to pay to see you enjoying yourself." "Darling, for that much, you'll remember my screams until you're an old man." Of that, he was sure.

She smiled her best smile, and slipped off the robe. Gazing at him with her big, sky-blue eyes, she blindly hung the robe on a peg in the back of the door.

She stroked his chest and then circled her arms around his waist. Gently but deliberately, she squashed her firm breasts against him.

"So what is it you want, darling? Some nice clawmarks down your back to make your young lady jealous?"

"No," he said. "No, I just want to see you enjoying it. You're so fair of face and figure. I think that if you're paid will enough, you'll enjoy your part, that's all. I want to know that you're enjoying yourself."

She eyed the coins and then smiled up at him. "Oh, I will, darling. I promise. I'm a very talented whore." "That was what I was hoping."

"I want you to be so pleased with my charms that you will want to return to my bed."

"You seem to be reading my mind." "My name is Rose," she whispered in her breathy voice. "A name as beautiful as you are." And as unoriginal. "And yours? What should I call you when you call on me regularly, as I'm already aching for you to do?"

"I like the name you've already given me. I like the sound of it on your lips." She licked her lips for him. "Glad to meet you, darling." He slipped a finger under the waist of her panties. "Can I have these?"

She ran her fingers down his belly, performing a moan at the feel of him. "It's the end of a long day. These aren't exactly. . clean. I have some clean ones in my trunk. For what you've paid, you can have as many of them as you wish. Darling, you can have them all, if you wish." "These will do fine. I only need these." She smirked up at him. "I see. Like that, is it?" He didn't answer.

"Why don't you take them off me," she teased. "Take your prize." "I'd like to watch you do it."

Without hesitation, she slipped them down her legs as dramatically as she could. She pressed herself up against him again and, looking into his eyes, stroked his cheek with her panties. She smiled wickedly and then pushed them into his hand.

"Here you go. Just for you, darling. Just the way you like them-with the scent of Rose."

He worked them in his fingers, feeling the warmth of her still in them. She stretched up to kiss him. If he hadn't known better, known what she was he might have thought she wanted him more than anything else in life. But he would please her.

"What do you want me to do for you?" she whispered. "Name it, and it's yours-and I don't make that offer to my other men. But I want you so badly. Anything. Just tell me."

He could smell the sweat of the other men on her. He could smell the stink of their lust on her.

"Let's just see how things work out, shall we. Rose?" "Anything you say, darling." She smiled dreamily. "Anything." She winked at him as she swept the four gold coins from the washstand. She swayed provocatively as she went to the small trunk. She squatted down before it. He had been wondering if she would squat, or bend at the waist. He was satisfied at the detail, at the remnant of a demure past.

As she pushed the coins under some of her clothes in the chest, he saw atop her things a small pillow decorated with a dash of red. Such a detail intrigued him. It seemed out of place.

"What's that?" he asked, knowing that the money had earned her indulgence. She held it up for him to see. It was small pillow, an item of decoration, a frivolity. It had a red rose embroidered on it.

"I made it, when I was younger. I staffed it with cedar shaving, so it would smell nice." She glided her fingers lovingly over the rose. "My namesake-a rose. For Rosa. My father named me. He was from Nicobarese. Rosa means 'rose' in his language. He always called me his little Rosa, and said that I grew in the garden of his heart."