“Oh,” Libba said, her bones going to jelly in her arms. “That.”
“That,” he confirmed. “I… might have invited them…”
“To the house?” she shot back, eyes going wide.
“ToRomeo,” he said, wincing. “And Juliet.”
She stared at him for a long, stretching moment and then slid bodily down the front of her desk until she was seated in one of the opposing chairs. “Oh, Mal,” she muttered. “That is bad.”
“You’re not in it,” he said, his voice gone small and childlike. “They won’t see you.”
“I take a bow at the end,” she said, shaking her head. “And they’ve met Lem. He’s playing Tybalt.”
“Oh,” said Malcolm. “‘A curse.’”
“‘On both our houses,’ yes, I know,” Libba said back, frowning. “They’ve seen the costuming. I wore Juliet’s clothes to both of my encounters with them, as Xandine. It is not… They are distinct pieces, Malcolm. Unique.”
“‘Unique,’” he echoed, still as wide-eyed as an owl. “What… Why? I don’t… Why did you…?”
She held a hand up. “Where is Jasper right now? Where are the Templeton-Raths?”
“Cauldron,” he said immediately. “Lunch. But, Lib…”
“No. Not now,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Don’t curse,” he said, half-drowned in his own state of stunned disbelief. “Explain?”
“No!” she snapped again. “I… What do I do? What dowedo?”
Malcolm only gaped at her, his cheeks still pale and chalky.
She threw up her hands and collapsed forward onto the desk, her forehead connecting with the polished wood.
There was only one thing to do, and they both knew it.
They had to wait.
*
It took damnnear two hours before Jasper was free and could double back toward the Odalisque.
He was still carrying his folio. And the damned pie.
But Mr. Harcourt had received the Templeton-Raths warmly and Jasper was certain the barrister could handle their petition about the Rusty Reaper without him present. They had, of course, invited him to stay, but he’d said, truthfully, that he’d had urgent obligations elsewhere.
It wasn’t his fault if they thought those obligations were related to EIC. Not his fault at all.
And he certainly didn’t waste any time wondering why he cared if he was being technically truthful about this irrelevant detail after all the other lies.
He walked into the theater just as Juliet drank her poison and slumped forward over that flirtatious fellow who’d batted his lashes at Jasper at the pub a lifetime ago.
“‘For never was a story of more woe…’” said an actor perched on the edge of the stage.
Jasper frowned at him.
Little didheknow.
He hesitated in the aisle, searching the faces of the seated cast members who were not in this scene, scattered throughout the front rows.
