Page 23 of Bared

“The part about you fretting over something that should have happened a long time ago. A long time ago.”

The grimace she finally allowed across her lips was Emme’s. Finally, Emme softened. At least a little. “I am not trivializing your pain, Highness. Being kept from this enormous truth as you were…”

“But this is not entirely about that either.” Jayd could say it and mean it. “The man has a right to know about what has happened. The secret that has been leaked. His secret.”

Requiemme drummed a finger on the top of their table, eventually hard enough to make the flames dance inside the votive candles. “On that, we are agreed,” she murmured. “I only wish the timing was—”

“What?” Jayd prompted. “Different? Would that make this any better? Easier?”

Emme was clearly heading into an answering fume but schooled her features when the waiter reappeared. Or so Jayd assumed—until sensing the second body mass in the air.

She looked up, at once observing that she was being watched. Neither of the men next to the table was the waiter. The new visitors were dressed in tailored but casual attire. It appeared like they had been someplace more formal but had taken off their ties and jackets. Their shirtsleeves were rolled up. Their slightly scruffy jaws couched charming grins.

“Bonsoir, ladies,” greeted the one closer to Requiemme. The one next to her pressed in, leaning his thigh against the side of her chair.

“We noticed you both over here, looking much too tense.” He tutted before lifting his drink, something in a highball glass that was a rose-gold color.

“As gentlemen, we thought we could assist somehow,” his friend proposed.

Requiemme straightened her posture. She was dressed as plainly as Jayd, except that her shirt was green instead of black, which actually lent to her formidable aura. She always teased the woman about liking the color so much, saying Emme looked ready to take cover in the island bushes on a moment’s notice, but tonight it made her friend look like a protective forest goddess.

“We are in no need of assistance,” she said, her tone stiffer than a coastal pine. “Our gratitude to you both, all the same.”

Highball Glass did that tsking thing again. “Come now. You must allow us to help, mademoiselles. Remy and I consider it our…mission…to do so.”

“Mission?” As soon as the man made the word a special entity, Jayd pushed to her feet. “Why do you say that, monsieur?”

“Gervais,” he corrected, dipping his face in order to directly meet her gaze. His eyes were dark blue or brown; she could not accurately gauge in the room’s dim light. In contrast, his smooth smile was very white. Practically too perfect. “Let us spare the formalities of last names, yes? If we are to be…adventuring…together tonight?”

Again, the man’s separation of one word from his others. Jayd sharpened her scrutiny at him, putting physical action to her intensifying instinct. “Adventuring,” she repeated.

He stepped closer, edging in on her personal space. “Do you…like the sound of that?”

“If you are here on behalf of LaBarre, then I definitely do.”

“Highne—errr—Hildegard!” Emme rasped with scalding syllables.

“What?” Jayd retaliated. “How do you propose we continue this exchange, then? With more cloaked codes and spy subtexts?”

“And yet that might be fun,” Remy drawled. “Depends on what we might be…cloaking.”

Once more with his word distancing trick—though this time, not from Gervais. It was not a coincidence. Jayd was sure of that now. “So LaBarre did send you.” She bounced her gaze between the men. “But why?”

“Ahhh.” Gervais wagged a finger that seemed more admiring than admonishing. “What a clever, clever girl you are, Hildegard. And LaBarre sends his sincere regrets, but he was…ehmmm…”

“Detained,” Remy filled in.

“By what?” Emme was persistent, clinging to every inch of her open suspicion. “A business meeting? On a Sunday? Besides, the man has enough money to keep him in paint, clay, and canvas for three lifetimes. What business could he possibly need?”

“And so much for any more subtexts.”

Jayd was past the point of withholding a punctuating giggle. When Gervais joined in with his own chuckle, she let some tension ease from her shoulders. By every saint in the everlasting, it felt good.

“So…ehmmm…LaBarre is actually nearby.”

“What?” Jayd pounced toward the man as soon as he stated that much. She hoped her eager smile made up for her rude interruption. “Where? Why did you not tell us sooner?”

“Highness!” So much for Emme remembering the Hildegard part of this. “Please. We cannot attract undue attent—”