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My father leaned back, placed an elbow on the back of his chair, and tapped a bent knuckle against his chin. He could hardly have looked more skeptical. "Why now?"
"I'm in a different position now," I told him. "I have different responsibilities. Different abilities." I cast a glance toward Ethan. "Different connections. I'm old enough to understand that the Merit name makes certain things easier. For one, it makes alliances easier to forge." I touched the Cadogan medal at my neck. "And now there's an alliance that I can help build."
He watched me, evaluated in silence, then gave a single nod. "I'll assume for our purposes that you aren't lying to me. But that doesn't answer my question." He slid his gaze to Ethan. "Why now? Why tonight?"
Ethan smoothed the knee of his trousers with a swipe of his hand. The move was so casual, almost careless, that I knew it was forced. "The Breckenridges may be...dabbling in our world."
"Dabbling," my father repeated. "In what way?"
A moment of hesitation, and then Ethan decided - unilaterally, I might add - to trust my father. "We were informed that Jamie Breckenridge planned to publish a very damaging story."
"Damaging to vampires?"
Ethan bobbed his head. He was playing the story off, giving my father unemotional seeds of information, with no hint of the fear and concern that he'd shown me earlier.
"And if I assumed the content of the story is too... delicate to be shared here?"
"Then you would be correct," Ethan said. "I take it you aren't aware of anything in that regard?"
"I am not," my father said. "However, I'm assuming it's no coincidence that you've made the Breckenridge home your first social stop?"
"It was a coincidence, actually," Ethan responded. "But a fortuitous one."
My father arched dubious eyebrows. "Be that as it may, I take it you noticed that Julia is the only Breckenridge at home this evening?"
"I thought that odd," Ethan said.
"As did we all," my father agreed. "And we didn't understand the reason for it." Slowly, he lifted his gaze to me. "But now perhaps we do. Perhaps they are absent because of certain... visitors in their home."
His very gaze was an accusation, and an unearned one. Neither the story nor the Breckenridges ' absence had anything to do with me. Well, nothing I'd done on purpose anyway. But he was willing, nevertheless, to assign blame.
Charming, Ethan telepathically commented.
I told you, I said back.
Ethan stood up. "I appreciate your time, Joshua. I trust the information we've shared will be held in confidence?"
"If you prefer," said my father, without bothering to rise. "I trust you'll be circumspect in your inquiries? While I understand that you have a concern, whatever it might be, these people - these families - are my friends. It wouldn't do for gossip to travel, for undue aspersions to be cast upon them."
Ethan had turned away from my father, and I saw the look of irritation cross his face, probably at the suggestion that his aspersions were "undue." Nevertheless, always the smooth player, he slipped his hands into his pockets, and when he turned back again, his expression was mild and politic once again. "Of course."
"I'm glad we understand each other," my father said, then checked his watch. That was our dismissal, so I moved toward the door, Ethan behind me.
"Remember," my father said, and we turned back. "Whatever this is, if it falls apart, it falls on you. Both of you."
It was a final blow. We walked into the hallway, and let him have the last word.
On the way back to the ballroom, Ethan and I paused in a window-lined corridor that linked the public and private portions of the house.
He stared out the windows, hands at his hips. "Your father..."
"Is a piece of work," I finished. "I know."
"He could help us... or crush us."
I glanced beside me, noticed that line of worry between his eyes, and offered the nearly four-hundred-year-old vampire a piece of advice. "And never forget, Ethan, that the choice is his to make."
He looked over at me, brow raised.
I turned away and looked out at the dark, sloping lawn. "Never forget that whatever boon he offers, whatever suggestion he makes, is calculated. He has the money and power to help or hurt a lot of people, but his reasons are usually his own, they're usually selfish, and they aren't easy to ferret out. He plays his pieces three or four moves ahead, without obvious outcomes. But never doubt they're there."
Ethan sighed, long and haggard. A dove cooed in the distance.
"Ms. Merit."
We both turned to find a woman at the portico door. She wore a simple black dress and white apron, thick-soled shoes on her feet. Her hair was in a neat bun. A housekeeper, maybe.
"Yes?" I asked.
She held out a piece of paper. "Mr. Nicholas asked me to give this to you."
I arched a brow, but walked to where she stood and took the paper. When I offered my thanks, she disappeared back through the doorway.
"Mr. Nicholas?" Ethan asked when we were alone again.
I ignored the question, and unfolded the note, which read:
Meet me at the castle. Now.
- NB
"What is it?" Ethan asked.
I glanced out the window, then back at him as I refolded the note and slipped it into my purse.
"An opportunity to make some connections of my own. I'll be back," I added, and before he could respond or express whatever doubts were pinching that line between his eyes again, I walked to the end of the hallway to the patio door.
The patio was brick in a carefully laid demilune form, which ended in an arc of stairs leading down to the lawn. I leaned against the brick banister and untied the straps of my shoes, then placed them and my purse on a step. The night was gloriously warm, white paper lanterns hanging from the flowering trees that dotted the back lawn. Relieved of the stilettos, I crept down to the lawn, the bricks cool beneath my feet, then stepped into the grass. I stood there for a quiet moment, eyes closed, reveling in the soft, cool carpet of green.
The Breckenridge estate was huge - hundreds of acres of land that had been carefully groomed and manicured to seem just this side of wild - the Brecks' primeval respite from the workaday world. The lawn led down to a wood that covered the back acres of the property, a carefully clipped trail winding through them.
I'd spent a lot of time on that trail as a child, chasing Nicholas through thick trees on summer days and through frosted, ice-tipped boughs on cold November mornings. I left the dresses and pinafores to Charlotte - I wanted running and fallen branches and fresh air, the outdoor fantasy world of a child with an expansive imagination and a constrictive home life.
