"Dance of the Rings 2 - Ring of Intrigue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fancher Jane S)

quote it for you?"
Somewhere beneath the city of Rhomatum, Kiyrstine
romGaretti, estranged wife of Ringmaster Garetti rom-
Maurii of Mauritum, leaned against a stack of hay bales
and watched the Trisini gatekeeper squirm.
"Better yet," Mikhyel continued, and he held out his
hand. "I'll read it to you."
The gatekeeper stared at him.
"Naturally you have the paperwork you are by law re-
quired to hand out to every individual entering the city
without proper identification, do you not?" Mikhyel asked,
and Kiyrstin bit her lip to keep from smiling, then winced
as her teeth encountered the bruise left there by Deymor-
in's parting kiss.
His adrenaline rush, or her ownhard to recall, in retro-
spect, which was responsible. They were still learning each
other's limits.
As her exploring tongue found the misaligned tooth re-
sponsible for her bruised lip and marked it for future refer-
ence, the brown-eyed visage that lurked constantly at the
back of her mind crept forward. Kiyrstin made no effort to
push the image back. Mikhyel didn't need her at the mo-
ment. Mikhyel's keen mind was back on track, now they
were out of the storm, and she had total confidence in his
ability to win so minor a skirmish.
And as it had a tendency to do these days when relieved
of other distractions, Kiyrstin's mind, like a pubescent
schoolgirl's, turned to Deymorin Rhomandi dunMheric.
Deymorin presented an intriguing dichotomy. She'd
known the man only two monthsless than two months in
Rhomatum's odd calendarand yet it seemed, at times, as
if she'd known him all her life. At others, it seemed that
three lifetimes wouldn't be long enough.
Raised to be the head of the Rhomandi Family, premier
Family in the Rhomatum Web, Deymorin exuded a confi-
dence and power to command she'd witnessed in only a
handful of individuals in a lifetime among the rich and pow-
erful of Rhomatum's rival nation, Mauritum.
There could be no doubt, at times such as this, where
men seeking an anchor in time of crisis reacted with instinc-
tive trust to his deep-voiced confidence, that he was com-
fortable with that fate.
And yet he was a virtual stranger to his own people.
Years ago, for a complexity of reasons that no one outside
the family could ever understand in their entirety, Dey-
morin had abdicated his inherited responsibilities to Mikhyel
and retired to the Rhomandi country estates. Consequently,
while Deymorin was still in every legal sense the Rhomandi
of Rhomatum, Mikhyel's face was far better known to the
Rhomatumin populace.