I felt badly for Linder, standing there silently while the Dowager and Taro argued over him. I wasn’t sure what to think of him. I’d despised the Dowager’s last guest on sight, beautiful and elegant and everything I was not. But then, she’d known she was there to separate Taro and me, going so far as to show up naked in the bed I shared with Taro. Linder looked a little like he didn’t know why he was there. It made me think he was an unwitting accomplice to the Dowager’s scheme.
Because there was no doubt this was part of a scheme. Last time, she’d tried to use a woman to seduce Taro away from me. This time, she was trying a man. Never let it be said that the Dowager wasn’t thorough. She was prepared to test every option in her quest to have Taro take the title.
“Linder,” Taro said suddenly. “I won’t be sleeping with you. Neither will Lee. As long as you accept that, everything will be fine.”
I couldn’t help the small noise I made in my throat in reaction to that blunt assertion. Taro was usually more delicate.
Linder looked confused.
“Shintaro, really,” the Dowager chastised him.
“Don’t even start. You know you’ve tried it before.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” the Dowager drawled.
Taro didn’t actually roll his eyes, but he looked like he really wanted to. Neat trick.
“Are you not going to ring for refreshments?” the Dowager asked.
Taro sighed and pulled on the bell.
Really? We were actually going to entertain them? Really?
“Shall we be seated?” the Dowager suggested, and so we all sat. Hester came in and Taro asked for tea and biscuits.
“Linder’s mother gambled away her family’s entire estate,” the Dowager announced.
Yes, I was sure Linder was thrilled to have that information just tossed to strangers like that. I didn’t know where to look. Would he prefer we pretend we hadn’t heard? Would he think us disgustingly callous if we didn’t express sympathy?
The Dowager, as usual, didn’t need any response from anyone else. “I have offered him respite here, away from wagging tongues. And I thought, with all of the titleholders in the area, he might be able to find a place with a family here.”
I frowned. I almost asked what kind of place she had in mind, with him looking as he did. To my knowledge, people didn’t like hiring attractive servants. It lured the youngsters in the family away from more advantageous society.
Then again, maybe Linder would still be considered an appealing connection. That the money was all gone didn’t necessarily mean the family was considered worthless.
“What kind of talents do you have?” Taro asked him.
“I am well educated,” he said, and his voice was disappointing. Rather thin. “And I have a great deal of experience drafting documents. Correspondence, survey maps, contracts. Our family’s solicitor is—was—close to retirement, and Mother didn’t want to hire a replacement.”
That sounded surprisingly useful for an aristocrat. Although . . . was he an aristocrat? Merchants had solicitors, too.
And it wasn’t too terribly far-fetched that the Dowager was honestly trying to help him. She did have friends, hard as that was to believe. And I had no doubt she had firm connections in Flown Raven and the extended area. I could almost believe she really was acting only in Linder’s best interest.
Except, if all that were true, she would feel no need to introduce him to us.
Hester came in with the tea tray. The Dowager assumed responsibility for serving us. I was supposed to do that, as the Dowager was a guest, but she couldn’t be expected to observe the niceties when she could be dominating everyone’s attention.
“Linder has an interest in bench dancing, Dunleavy,” the Dowager commented. “I told him you were an accomplished dancer.”
Well, I was a Shield. Shields were taught to dance the benches from a very early age, an age when children were particularly stupid when it came to figuring out what was dangerous. And I was good at it, though many professional dancers could easily defeat me.
Linder smiled at me. It was a pretty smile, and it appeared genuine. I couldn’t be anything other than friendly. “I do enjoy bench dancing. There’s no opportunity to do it here, though.” And I missed it. It had been so long since I’d properly danced, I had probably lost much of my skill at it.
“Why not?”
“Well, as far as I know, there are no dancers here. No benches and no bars. No one to handle the bars.”
“As far as you know? Does that mean you haven’t asked?”
“Well, aye, that’s right.”
He grinned. “So you can’t know for sure.”
“I suppose not.”
“Lovely.” The Dowager clapped her hands together in apparent enthusiasm. “That’s something the two of you can investigate together.”
I could only stare at her.
“Seriously, she’s not sleeping with you,” Taro told Linder.
He couldn’t really think I was the Dowager’s target this time. What would I want with someone like Linder when I had Taro?
Linder looked embarrassed. No doubt the poor boy didn’t know what to say. Really, who would?
“Shintaro, you’re being impossible,” the Dowager told him coldly. Taro didn’t even glance at her.
There was a knock on the door. “It’s us,” Dias called through.
I got up and opened the door. It was my two brothers, but not my mother. “We have company.”
“So?” said Dias. “Are you ashamed of us?”
Not ashamed. Just wary about how they would behave in front of the Dowager. And what the Dowager would say to them. Insults dripped off her lips like grease, and those insults were often well aimed. My brothers would no doubt respond with insults of their own, and the tension in the room would escalate into something unbearable.
“Your Grace, Linder, these are my brothers, Traders Dias and Mika Mallorough. Dias and Mika, this is Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess of Westsea, and Linder Hart.” Did Linder have a title?
The Dowager favored them with a cool nod. Linder grinned. “I wasn’t aware Pairs were allowed to keep their family with them,” he said.
“These are special circumstances,” I told them. “My brothers are merely visiting.”
Dias and Mika pulled two chairs into the conversational circle. “Shame on you, Lee,” Mika scolded me. “I’m sure I told you to bring any handsome men to me.” He winked at Linder.
Zaire, that was ridiculous.
Linder didn’t seem to think so. Mika was another recipient of one of Linder’s pretty smiles.
And I developed a brilliant idea. “Mika, Dias, Linder is new to the area and has few acquaintances. Perhaps you can keep him entertained.”
“We wouldn’t dream of imposing on your time,” the Dowager said quickly.
Ha! Scuppered that plan, didn’t I?
“Not at all,” said Mika with a broad smile. “The more the merrier.”
Linder smiled a lot, but there seemed to be a particular warmth to the smile he gave to Mika right then. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
He sounded sincere. I still didn’t know what to think of him. But the Dowager Duchess looked irritated and sour. I was prepared to like him just for that.
Chapter Five
My brothers, Taro, and Linder immersed themselves in a discussion about gambling. Apparently my brothers were avid gamblers. I thought Linder was insane to engage in the activity that had caused his mother to lose his home, but no one was paying attention to me.
No one was paying attention to the Dowager, either. She scowled. I bit back laughter.
This was fun.
Hester returned to the room with a message from Nab Browne. The healer wanted to see me. I was a little irritated with being summoned, and I’d been enjoying the show the boys had been putting on, but I let myself be pulled away. Whatever Browne wanted, it was probably important. I made my way to Browne’s cottage with a quick pace.
I knocked on Browne’s door. I heard footsteps within the small cottage. Browne had a habit of dragging me in once she opened the door. No matter how quickly I stepped in, it wasn’t quick enough. So, as usual, she grabbed my sleeve and pulled me in. And, as usual, she had all the curtains tightly tied together. It couldn’t be because she was trying to hide the fact that I was there. I was certain everyone knew I visited her fairly often. It could only be to make sure people couldn’t see exactly what we were doing. She sold her services as a spell caster. It wouldn’t help her business if people could watch her through her windows and figure out how to cast spells on their own.
Nab Browne was younger than I would have expected a healer to be, slightly taller than I, with blond hair usually worn in a long braid. She was levelheaded and intelligent. It wasn’t long ago that the Imperial Guards had tried to have her flogged, yet here she was, continuing to use spells as though none of it had happened.
“Please, have a seat,” she said. “I want to talk to you about a few things.”
I sat at the table and accepted a mug of tea.
“There are a group of casters in the area,” Browne explained. “All within a half-day’s ride. We meet once a month in the early morning. Our next meeting is in three days, at dawn. I think you should come to the meeting.”
“Why?” Was it a good idea for casters to meet on a regular basis? I had no doubt that at some point, Imperial Guards would be coming back to hunt for spell casters. The ones who had already been here had no doubt spells were being used in the area. Surely a group of casters holding regular meetings would be easier to spot?
“You appear to have some skill at it,” said Browne. “You may be a very powerful caster. And if that’s the case, you shouldn’t be left free to stumble around on your own.”
I wouldn’t call what I was doing stumbling around. There was a certain amount of trial and error, of course, but that was to be expected in learning any kind of skill. “I really don’t think that’s necessary.”
“You are a Shield. Are there not certain rules and ethics about what you do?”
“Of course.”
“Yet you do not think casting requires similar rules?”
Well, actually, I did. Not everyone could cast, but those who could were left free to do whatever they could manage. I didn’t trust the common sense of the average person. I knew that was arrogant, but I’d seen too many people do too many stupid things.
But I didn’t need to be watched. I knew enough to be careful. However, I couldn’t say that without revealing my arrogance.
“Besides, it is a wonderful forum for learning. We share difficulties and new ideas. And gossip.”
I had to grin at that. If others were going to talk about me, it was only fair that I talk about them. “All right.”
“Good. Come here first. I’ll take you to Sonal Snow’s homestead. That’s where the meeting will be held this month.”
“Excellent. Thank you.” I set my empty mug on the table and shifted to rise to my feet.
“Just one more matter,” said Browne.
I settled back on the chair.
“You will recall that the first time you came to me for assistance, we came to an understanding that I would provide you with supplies and advice, and in exchange you would help me when I asked for it.”
“Aye,” I said uneasily. I hadn’t been thrilled with the agreement when we’d made it. I wasn’t even sure why I was driven to make it. I had found the idea of casting interesting, but not essential. I hadn’t known at the time how helpful being able to cast would prove to be. Yet I had made the agreement. I couldn’t renege.
Browne rose to her feet and took a small bag from a shelf. “This was found on the shore.” In the bag was a small rock, about the size of the last joint of my pinky. It was a translucent blue. “You’ve seen something like this before,” she guessed. Possibly from my lack of reaction.
“I might have,” I said.
She chuckled. “You might have. How convincing. The rumor is that there is a whole cave full of stones like these.”
There was. I had been to that cave. I’d been stuck in that cave, with Fiona, in the dark, for hours. Academic Reid had explored the cave as well. I wondered if he had been the source of the rumor. I doubted Fiona would have told anyone—she’d been determined to keep it a secret—or Dane, and I knew I hadn’t. Well, other than Taro. That didn’t count.
“There is also a rumor that you and Her Grace spent some time in that cave.”
Really, why did people talk about us so much? “Half the ridge collapsed. The cave might not even exist anymore.”
“If you look for it and can’t find it, then of course nothing more can be done.”
“And if I find this cave?”
Browne pulled another bag from the shelf, this one the size of a person’s head. “I want you to collect some more rocks for me.”
“I can’t do that,” I objected. “Everything in that cave belongs to Her Grace. I refuse to steal for you.”
“This is not a precious stone. If the others in the cave are like this, they’re of no value to Her Grace.”
“How do you know whether it’s a precious stone or not?” Fiona didn’t even know that.
“I just do.”
What an irritating response, but if I asked her again, she would probably just give the same answer. I disliked conversational circles. “Then what do you want them for?”
“Look.” She blew on the stone, and then she whistled at it, a long, low, single note.
To my utter shock, the stone began to glow. A moment later, an aura developed around it, white light slightly tinged with blue. Browne reached up and took a hair pin from her hair. She stopped whistling to draw breath, and the aura blinked out, but it appeared again as soon as she resumed whistling. She put the tip of the pin against the aura and pushed. The tips of her fingers whitened with the effort of pushing the pin, but it didn’t penetrate the aura.
I’d never seen anything quite like it. It amazed me, the different things casting could do. “How did you learn to do that?”