The Providence Rider (40 page)

“Hello, Miss Cutter,” said Mrs. Herrald, offering her hand. Minx took it. “I’m interested in hearing about you. Interested as well in hearing your story, Matthew. Your letter skimped on details. After I have a glass of wine and determine what I’d like to eat, I want to know everything.” She sat across from him, the better to read his expressions.

Matthew nodded. He was thinking that in two hours or so, after his story and Minx’s had been told, Mrs. Herrald was going to aim her eyes at the princess of blades and say, “You seem to have taken a few wrong steps in your progress through life, Miss Cutter. Yet here you are now, on a straighter path. It took great courage for you to know I was coming, and to know my history with the professor, and to sit at the table with me. I have a feeling you are never lacking for courage. I must ask: are you at all interested, Miss Cutter, in the process of
discovery
? For if you are—and if you are interested in continuing along your current path and possibly righting other wrongs—then…you and I should talk a little further.”

Before that, though, there was food to be ordered. Sally Almond herself came over to take their requests.

Matthew had been thinking. About predators, in particular. About the sea of life, and the creatures that roamed it. About the dangerous currents his business—now his calling—put him into. It was, really, sink or swim. He still had so much hurt in his heart for Berry. Yet he felt he had to leave her to protect her, to move forward, to prepare for his next meeting with Professor Fell. It would be upon him, likely sooner than he thought.

The next thing on his ticket, however, was to respond to the latest letter from a certain Mr. Sedgeworth Prisskitt of Charles Town who was asking for a courier to escort his daughter Pandora to the annual Sword of Damocles Ball, held in Charles Town in late June. He wondered why a father would have to pay for an escort for his daughter. Was she that ugly? He wondered also what sort of events the trip might offer, for with a name like Pandora…surely there was a box somewhere that once opened, out escaped…

…what?

It remained to be seen.

But the matter of predators was still on his mind. The matter of terrible and evil things gliding in the dark, perhaps circling him even now.

He was famished. Such thoughts would hold until after dinner and wine.

Matthew studied the blackboard for a moment and then told Sally what he would like.

She replied that it was freshly-caught, was excellent, and that forthwith she would bring him the platter of roasted shark.