“I don’t actually know what happened,” he said after a moment, looking into the mirror with enough of a furrow in his perfect brow to fill her with satisfied warmth. “I went to find us a table and the next thing I knew, a brawl had broken out. I came back out to the bar, extracted them with some effort, and took them to the beach to cool off. Every time I asked whathad caused it, they just giggled at me. Though I suppose they could’ve been addled from having their heads bounced around, I got the impression they simply did not want me to know.”
She frowned at him. “You are usually more persuasive.”
“I know!” he snapped, frowning right back. “I assume it had to do with me and that is why they will not say. It was a scuffle with some dockyard lads. You know how they can be.”
She hesitated, gooseflesh rising on her arms.
She did know.
“You think that’s what it was?” she pressed, furrowing her brow. “Rhys isn’t usually… prone to fisticuffs.”
“Rhys is hardier than he looks,” Malcolm assured her dryly. “If you’d grown up in the boys’ wing, you’d know that perfectly well.”
“Did Jasper stay in the parlor again?” she asked, refusing to indulge in the half-dozen questions that had erupted in her mind at that lure. “Why does he never take a guest room?”
Mal shrugged. “Habit? But yes, he’s there. Errol managed to scrounge up some ice from the private store, and there’s not a chance in Hades that there’s any back at his flat in town. That alone was worth staying for.”
She nodded and left him to his own midnight rituals at that, passing Rhys and Lem in the hall, where the former was showing off his battle wounds to the latter.
“You impress me,” Lem said, nodding. “These will be fine scars.”
“Oh, do you really think so?” Rhys asked hopefully.
“Rhys,” Libba snapped, striding up to him with her dressing gown billowing. “If you do not tell me what happened, I will go to Miss Persephone’s tomorrow and spend twenty quid. In your name.”
His bruised jaw dropped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I think you know that I would,” she returned, low and menacing.
He made a face. “Is this about the scarf?”
She pressed her lips together. “It can be.”
“I think it is time for me to slumber,” Lem decided, stretching his massive arms out over his head and feigning a yawn. “Good night.”
“Yes, go,” she said, without looking at him.
“Don’t,” Rhys muttered weakly, his brow glistening and shiny from the salve over the tiny cuts above it.
“I could spend fifty,” she said. “I’ve got the savings.”
“‘Fifty’!” he repeated, aghast. “To that charlatan?”
“She could expand,” Libba taunted. “Set out more of those illusion kits that sell so well. Some of those are the same tricks you perform for coin, aren’t they? Isn’t that funny?”
“How much will you give me if I tell you?” Rhys asked, something canny glinting in those green eyes of his. “Surely, a pound or two?”
“I’ll let you keep the scarf,” she said. “Bloodstain and all. Ask Monica what angora costs if you doubt the value of that.”
He frowned. “I was going to keep it, anyway.”
She flashed her incisors at him. “Were you?”
They stared at one another for a long moment. The candles in the hall flickered, seemingly changing them in the stutters of light between the two adults facing off against the faded wallpaper to the children they’d once been doing the very same thing.
And then he sighed in defeat. “It was Jasper’s fault, really. He lets people talk until there’s no choice but to punch.”
“Fine,” she said. “Jasper’s fault. Proceed.”
