Soul of the Fire

"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."

No one was going to think her "prissy." They were going to think she was proclaiming herself available to invitation.

'Teresa, you can wear another. The red one with the V neck. You can still see… see enough of your cleavage. The red one is hardly prissy."

She showed him her back, folding her arms in a pout. "I suppose you will be happy to have me wear a homely dress, and have every other woman there whispering behind my back at how I dress like the wife of a lowly assistant to a magistrate. The red dress was what I wore when you were a nobody. I thought you would be happy to see me in my new dress, to see how your wife can fit in with the fashion of the important women here.

"But now I'll never fit in around here. I'll be the stuffy wife of the Minister's aide. No one will even want to talk to me. I'll never have any friends."

Dalton drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He watched her dab a knuckle at her nose. "Tess, is this really what the other women will be wearing at the feast?"

She spun around, beaming up at him. It occurred to him that it was not so unlike the way the Haken girl, down in the kitchen, had beamed at his invitation to meet the Minister of Culture.

"Of course it's like what the other women are wearing. Except that I'm not as bold as they, so it shows less. Oh, Dalton, you'll see. You'll be proud of me. I want to be a proper wife of the Minister's aide. I want you to be proud.

I'm proud of you. Only you, Dalton.

"A wife is crucial to a man as important as you. I protect your station when you aren't there. You don't know what women can be like — petty, jealous, ambitious, scheming, treacherous, traitorous. One clever nasty word to their husband, and soon it's on-every tongue. I make sure that if there is a nasty word, it dies quickly, that none dare repeat it."

He nodded; he knew full well that women brought their husbands information and gossip. "I suppose."

"You always said we were partners. You know how I protect you. You know how hard I work to make sure you fit in at each new place we go. You know I would never do anything to jeopardize what you've worked so hard to gain for us. You always told me how you would take me to the best places, and I would be accepted as the equal of any woman.

"You've done as you promised, my husband. I always knew you would; that was why I agreed to marry you. Even though I always loved you, I would never have married you had I not believed in your future. We have only each other, Dalton.

"Have I ever made a misstep when we went to a new place?"

"No, Tess, you never have."

"Do you think I would recklessly do so, now, at a place as important as this? When you stand on the brink of true greatness?"

Teresa was the only one in whom he confided his audacious ambitions, his boldest plans. She knew what he intended, and she never derided him for it. She believed him.

"No, Tess, you wouldn't jeopardize all that. I know you wouldn't." He wiped a hand over his face as he sighed. "Wear the dress, if you think it proper. I will trust your judgment."