Nearly running into his father, who stood behind him, holding two foam cups of what smelled like coffee.
Will Donnell stared at Smith.
Smith stared at his dad—the man who’d gotten him into the Comitatus in the first place. The man who’d disowned him when he quit.
The man who very well might have helped Leigh sacrifice his own daughter, for mere rules or tradition.
He made a wide circle and headed for the elevators—but, to his surprise, his dad followed. “Smith!”
Smith slowed, turned. “What?”
“You don’t want to know the prognosis?”
Smith shrugged. “None of my business. I stabbed the
other
guy, and I finished the job.” Good. That sounded like he didn’t even care, like the light going out in Lowell’s eyes wouldn’t haunt him.
To his surprise, his father shrugged back. “Lowell deserved killing.”
“Tell that to his family.”
“I plan to.”
What—was that some kind of support? Smith snorted out a harsh laugh. “Like they’ll listen to you.”
“They’ll have to.” Will Donnell seemed to be searching his son for something, as if memorizing Smith’s health, weight, mood. “Leigh’s still in surgery, but the prognosis isn’t good. His blood loss could leave him in a coma. I’m going to be sub-lord of the area Comitatus. Reporting directly to Stuart.”
Ooh—to Stuart himself, huh? “Be sure to have a supersecret parade to celebrate.”
“We’ll honor the agreement on which you dueled,” his father told him stiffly. “Arden and Jeff are free agents. The area for five blocks around Greta Kaiser’s home will remain neutral ground, for as long as she lives. And we’re dropping the campaign against Molly Johannes.”
“Considering that we’ve got the entire afternoon’s entertainment on tape, that’s a smart move,” agreed Smith.
His father blinked, startled at the threat—then shook his head, grinned. His grin slanted sideways a little, like Smith’s. “You always were a troublemaker.”
“That doesn’t make me wrong about any of this,” insisted Smith.
His father actually seemed to consider that. “Doesn’t make you right, either. Not about the society, and not for Arden Leigh. I can hold up our end of the agreements you won, but that doesn’t do anything for your safety, or your friends. Especially if you go public with any of this. I still can’t acknowledge you. You’re no good for her, now. You know that, don’t you?”
Of course Smith knew it. He was no better for Arden than Aeneas had once proved to be for Dido, the heartbroken Phoenician queen of Carthage.
That didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Tell Mom I said hi,” he said—and left.
Just like Aeneas left.
Maybe that sword was meant for him, after all. But bonded or not, he didn’t want it.
Greta didn’t like this at all. “It’s your sword now, Smith. You keep it.”
“No.” Smith had pushed the sword and its velvet bed away from him, across the coffee table. “I’m not Comitatus.”
That again? “But you once were. You represent everything the Comitatus could be again. Perhaps
deserves
to be again.”
“I’ll keep it,” offered Trace, lifting the sword and turning it in his hands. His presence in the parlor put their number at five. Boy-girl-boy-girl-boy. If Greta could still think of herself as a “girl.”
“No,” said Smith simply—this time to him. “
You
aren’t Comitatus, either, remember?”
Trace made a rude, sulky noise.
“From what Mitch told us about the happenings at the Leigh estate, Smith, you and the sword have bonded,” insisted Greta.
She couldn’t see the annoyance in Smith’s expression as he turned to face down his blond friend, but she could certainly hear it in his voice, despite the strain of a smile tightening his words. “I’m not sure I’d trust anything Mitch said about a supersecret society’s supersecret meetings.”
“I might have mentioned what could have happened at the hypothetical meeting of a hypothetical group called the Schmomitatus,” admitted Mitch. And that was true. He’d delighted Greta and Sibyl, both, by skirting the edges of what could be confessed without breaking any assumed vows of secrecy.
Then Smith got back from the hospital and had to deal not just with Mitch and Trace, but with outsiders Greta and Sibyl crowded into the parlor as he tried to return her father’s sword. Why couldn’t he just accept it?
“First off,” said Smith, as if reading her mind, “the sword belonged to your father. You’ve got to have some second or third cousins out there somewhere. A piece as important as that should follow some kind of bloodline.”
Greta turned in the direction she’d noticed little Sibyl sitting. “Isn’t that just like a man? As if bloodlines mattered.”
Sibyl nodded.
“How’d this become anti-man?” demanded Smith, while Mitch asked, “Why wouldn’t bloodlines matter? Trace, let me see that. It can’t be that old.”
Trace passed the sword over, and went back to the cookies Greta had set out.
“Men are significantly more likely to kill stepsons than birth sons.” Sibyl, petting Dido as she talked, sounded as if she were reciting some kind of study or statistics. Maybe she was, at that. “Threatened by other men’s seed.”
“Hey!” protested Trace. “I’m trying to eat, here.”
“Women are more likely to bond emotionally, even with foundlings,” Sibyl continued. “Small children should be trained to approach females for assistance when lost, because of this. Perhaps the sword has been recast.”
Smith sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “And that bloodline stuff’s got to do with me taking the Sword of Aeneas how, exactly?”
“It’s not as if Hephaestus gave it to his descendent, either,” Greta reminded him gently—she liked to think this was exactly the same sword that had been forged millennia ago. Who knew what divine processes of metallurgy had been lost since then? “Or Achilles to his. If legend really does hold correctly.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that’s because they didn’t have kids.” Smith certainly had sounded downhearted since he’d gotten back from the hospital. “Aeneas may have been all about duty and heroism. But he sucked when it came to love. If the other two had much in common with him there…”
“No,” noted Sibyl. “Both sired sons. Both had consorts. In the afterlife, Achilles married the daughter of King Agamemnon. Her father sacrificed her to the gods. Needed wind for the Greek armies to reach Troy. Achilles was pissed.”
Ah—was that interest Greta noticed in Smith’s more open posture? In the way his breathing changed?
Was
that
why he hadn’t wanted the sword?
“And Hephaestus married Aphrodite, goddess of love. Pass a cookie?” asked Sibyl.
“Get your own damned cookie,” said Trace.
Greta couldn’t see whether Sibyl stuck her tongue out at the large man, but she clearly heard the raspberry Sibyl blew at him. And the one he blew back at her.
“Goddess of love, huh?” mused Smith. Surely he couldn’t have missed the resemblance, after all those years. If ever Aphrodite had a surrogate on earth, it was Arden Leigh.
“Besides.” Now Greta could deliver the coup de grâce. “You didn’t ask three times.”
“Okay,
what
is with the three-times business?”
“Legend holds,” explained Greta, taking the sword from Mitch and holding it out to Smith, “that if something’s truly worthwhile, it must be requested three times. Then it cannot be denied for any but the most dire of reasons.”
“It’s in all the fairy tales.” Sibyl sighed as if disgusted with his ignorance, and stood. Dido stood quickly, as well, her chain collar rattling with the movement. “I have to go now. Thank you for the food and shelter and…all.”
“Wait,” protested Trace, straightening on the love seat.
“What?”
Even Mitch asked, “Where are you going?”
The young woman made a motion Greta interpreted as a shrug, bent to kiss Dido on the head one more time—and walked out, simple as that.
“Is it just my imagination?” asked Mitch. “Or is that girl—”
“Weird,” agreed Smith.
“Unique,” suggested Greta.
Trace shrugged. “Short.”
“Okay.” Mitch helped himself to a cookie. “As long as it’s not just me.”
To Greta’s relief, Smith took the Sword of Aeneas from her hands and turned it, slowly. Eventually he stood, swished it through the air and nodded.
“Okay. As long as you asked nicely. Three times.”
Greta beamed, delighted with how this last stage of her life was turning out.
Every leader needed a special sword.
At first, Arden told herself that her other responsibilities kept her away from Smith. She spent more time at the hospital than home those first few days until her father’s vital signs stabilized. His vital signs, but not consciousness. The doctors doubted he would ever emerge from his coma.
Then she had to deal with the family attorneys, making arrangements for her father’s long-term care, for Jeff’s future, for the help’s continued employment. She didn’t miss the irony that her father hadn’t gotten around to changing his power of attorney after he’d turned on her. Better for Jeff that way, though. Only once he was old enough, and ready, would she hand everything over to him.
Then of course came the social calls—not making them, but receiving them. Flowers and teacups and air kisses and coffee cakes. When one couldn’t do anything else, one brought food and sympathy. Arden understood that.
But almost a week after her father’s “accident,” as the public version of the story somehow labeled it, Arden closed the door behind her latest clutch of visitors, leaned back against it and gave up. No more. Just…no more.
Jeff was at a friend’s house. Visiting hours at the hospital were over. Thank-you cards could wait.
She had to find out whether Smith had left. Of course, part of her hoped he had. She’d told him to, hadn’t she? Killing a Comitatus member couldn’t have done anything to improve his safety, and clearly, many of the people in her own social circle were Comitatus. And yet…
Sugar.
Selfish or not, she could barely breathe at the thought that he was gone. A year ago, she would have loved the image of
her
sending
him
away, to get back for the way he’d dumped her.
But either one of those scenarios still ended with them apart.
She didn’t dare telephone him—what if her phone was bugged, and the Comitatus somehow traced him through her? She didn’t know where he’d been staying all this time.
But Greta might. And the Comitatus already knew about Greta.
Arden drove to Greta’s house.
Her heart cramped to see the fire damage to Greta’s tree, visible even in the shadows of twilight, and the smoke stains on her house—how could she have been so self-involved as to forget what Smith had said about a fire? But it beat faster when she recognized Mitch’s primer-gray car in the driveway.
It beat even faster when the front door opened, letting out the sound of Dido’s barking—and one Smith Donnell, whole and healthy and
there.
Still there.
Even better, he opened his arms for her. She ran to his embrace—and everything was right again.
At least, momentarily right.
But so much was involved now, besides them. She forced herself to look up, when all she wanted was to stay in his arms forever. “Are we safe out here? Is there anyone with Comitatus connections around? Other than you, I mean.”
Smith neither confirmed nor denied—but he didn’t have to. She’d seen him fight a duel for her. She’d heard him bargain for her life as no outsider could have done. She knew.
“We’re fine,” he assured her—and she trusted his word and his abilities wholly, knew it must be true. “For now. I heard about your father, Ard. I’m sorry. Is there any…?”
It sounded too much like the sympathy visits she’d been fielding all week. “Not really, no. Thank you for…for asking….”
Which is when her mask crumbled. She fell into him in sudden, uncontrolled desperation. Again he enfolded her in his strong arms, drew her tight against him as she broke down in sobs. Her father had betrayed her and now lay in a terrible limbo, neither alive nor dead. His estate lay in her hands, and she had no idea if she could handle it. She’d been beaten, lied to, imprisoned. She’d seen her lover kill someone, though that someone had deserved it. Her whole world felt like a lie.
All of it, that is, except for Smith.
He smelled of salt, fresh lumber, dust—and
him.
He felt…
He felt like everything good in the world. Like security and safety. Like home. How could she bear it, when she knew he might never be safe with her, when she knew…
“Shh.” He kissed her hair, her cheeks, her eyes, not seeming to care how terrible she must look. “Arden, darling. I know, sweetness. I know. Let it out.”
And she did, her usual composure dissolving into nothing but despair and tears and confusion. Finally she could cry no more. She realized, more slowly than she should, that she was sitting on his lap. He’d settled onto the front porch, under the half-charred oak tree. In sight of the whole neighborhood. And it didn’t matter.
Only then did she recognize what he kept saying, over and over again. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m sorry. I’m—”
Her laugh came out unfortunately wet. “Whatever have
you
got to be sorry about?”
“I brought this crap down on you. I—”
But she pressed a hand to his mouth, unable to bear the shame that shadowed his handsome face. “No. I’d started looking into the Comitatus for Greta before you ever came back. This isn’t your fault—mostly it’s Prescott Lowell’s. A lot of it’s Daddy’s, and the rest of the Comitatus.
Not you.
”
He simply gazed at her, so close, so…there. She watched him in the yellow of the porch light, admiring his jaw, his cheekbones, his now-solemn brown eyes. Only when she realized that he was watching her in the same way did she consider how terrible she must look after her crying jag.
Quickly she turned away from him, covered her face with her hands, tried to wipe away any possible smears of mascara—or anything else. “I must look a mess! My makeup, and my hair, and…”