“How’d you break your specs?”
“Let’s see, how was it?” Rory tapped his lips thoughtfully. “Oh, right. None of your business.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. The cute ones were always little shits.
A waiter came by their table and looked at Rory expectantly. Rory bit his lip and turned his pretty eyes on Arthur, wide and helpless, and Arthur couldn’t bring himself to make the prickly brat scramble to remember what he used to drink.
“Try the Brandy Alexander.” They were good here, made with French cognac and real cream, so sweet they’d go down like dessert.
“Oh.” Rory still hesitated. “Is it—how much—”
“On me. No, no,” he said, waving a finger as Rory started to protest, “I insist.” Springing for drinks was a laughable bargain. Arthur would have paid a small fortune for the information Rory might hold.
Arthur ordered the cheapest whiskey for himself, vile panther sweat he’d have to have been dared to drink. From the stage, Stella had noticed Arthur—and noticed he was with someone. She tossed him a wink, and a moment later the band struck up a scandalous version of “The Man I Love.”
Clever. She thought he was on a date.
Not hardly. This was an interrogation.
The waiter left their drinks and Rory picked his up, hesitation written all over him, and suddenly he didn’t look prickly, he looked young and vulnerable.
As much as Arthur needed that tongue loose, he found himself blurting, “Youhavehad a drink before, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have,” Rory said with a vicious snap. “It’s just—been a while. Still not your business.”
Sheesh. “Cheers to you too,” Arthur muttered, and clinked his glass against Rory’s.
He pretended to sip as Rory took too much at once and coughed like his throat was on fire. “Need something tamer?” he said sweetly. “Glass of juice? Warm milk?”
“Go chase yourself,” Rory predictably snarled, and took another drink. And then another.
Right, then. Let’s find out what you know about Mrs. Brodigan’s magic.Arthur snagged a passing waiter.
“Bring as many brandies as he wants, on me,” he said, eyes never leaving Rory.
“The thing about antiques. Thething.” Rory waved his glass emphatically, sending Brandy Alexander number three sloshing up the side to splash his wrist. “They have toactuallybeold.”
Arthur rested his elbow next to his untouched whiskey and hid his smile behind his hand. He really was cute, there was no denying that. “Rather by definition.”
His companion’s surliness had melted away somewhere around the second sugary drink, and without the porcupine quills Rory was softer, pink-cheeked from the drink and warm room, and as chatty as Arthur had hoped.
“No, but—” Rory paused. Slurped from his glass. “What was I saying?”
“That antiques have to be old,” Arthur supplied. “It’s groundbreaking.”
“Right, thanks,” Rory said sincerely. Was he already too zozzled to catch sarcasm? “They gotta be old, and people want us to tell them they’re old.”
Arthur’s pulse jumped a beat. “That’s why they hire Mrs. Brodigan,” he said carefully.
“Exactly!” Rory raised his glass, drank again. “But sometimes, see, sometimes the thing isn’t old. Sometimes it’s a counter—counterfo—fake. Counterfake.”
“Counterfake.”
“And no one wants to hear that, right? They get all out of sorts. No one wants to feel like a fool, even if the blame belongs on the perp—the perptray—the bad person who took advantage.”
The bad person who took advantage. Something in Arthur’s chest twisted, and he heard himself say, “That brandy is going to your head very fast.”
Oh, well done, Arthur, alert him to your whole scheme. You can’t afford to be soft with the bleeding world at stake. He’s plenty old enough to handle his drink and he has information you need.Use this moment. Ask him questions.
