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All the parts he was allowed to know about, I’d be happy to ramble on about. “I came up with the menu and Mrs. Gainsley put out the order for the groceries we’ll need. Lots of hors d’oeuvres to start, and then for the big dinner I decided on goose, just to make it extra special. I arranged for a band to come for a little live entertainment, and…”
I went on for a few minutes about my various plans, which Ihadput a fair bit of thought into. When I started to wind down, Dad brought his hands together in a brief round of applause.
“I didn’t know you had that kind of event planning aptitude in you,” he said playfully. “You seem awfully keen on celebrating this deal of mine. You hardly know what it’s about.”
I shrugged. “I know it’s something that’ll bring more money into the witching community, to make it easier for us to survive without relying on the unsparked. And I know it meant a lot to you. That’s enough.”
He studied me a little longer than I really liked. I jumped to a change of subject. Something I was going to have to bring up eventually anyway. “I was thinking… We could show off that artifact you brought back. Use it as a centerpiece on the dining table. If that’s all right with you? I’d make sure none of the unsparked staff handled it—I’ll set it out myself.”
“I like that,” Dad said with a nod. “I picked it up on my way out of the city. None of the others have seen it yet.”
“Are many of your colleagues going to be able to make it?” I asked. “I know it’s short notice…”
I held my breath waiting for his answer. He smiled again. “Most of them were more than happy to make the trip, considering they’ve been hassling me to do something like this for days.”
“Anyone I’ve met?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve met most of them at one time or another. The Wilkinsons, the Hardings, the Frankfords, Evelyn Kingsley…”
He kept going, but my mind caught on that one name. Frankford. The man who’d advised Dad on hiring Mrs. Gainsley, who’d been eagerly looking forward to the results of the bastardized consort ceremony, would be here in this house in just a few days.
My jaw set. He’d get a show all right. They all would. Just not the one they’d been imagining.
“That’s great,” I said when Dad finished. “I’m preparing for lots of guests. Invite as many more as you’d like.”
The more witnesses, the faster he’d fall—and the sooner my consorts and I would be safe.
Chapter Thirty
Rose
The rumble of a car engine reached my ears all the way in the dining room where I was laying out the decorations. My pulse skipped. I slipped down the hall to the sitting room to look out the front window.
A sleek silver sedan had just pulled past the gate. Another car, longer and even more stately, drew up beside it. The passengers, one couple that looked around Dad’s age and another older, stepped out.
Dad came into the front hall. “Did you tell people to arrive this early?” I asked him. It was only mid-afternoon. I’d been working around a supposed six o’clock cocktail hour start.
He shot me a smile. “They’re not your responsibility yet, Rose. Don’t worry. A few of my closer associates are coming a little early so we can discuss other business before we begin our celebrating.”
That was just like Dad. Squeezing work into every spare minute he could. Proper etiquette dictated that I should stick around and say my hellos before they all holed away in Dad’s office.
Mrs. Gainsley appeared, moving past Dad to open the front doors, which was somehow more dignified than him doing it himself. The two couples came up the front steps, murmuring in quiet conversation with each other. The younger couple both had gray sprinkled in their light brown hair, the man’s tousled and ash-brown, the woman’s a cinnamon-brown bob brushing her jaw. The man in the older couple had gone completely slate-gray, the woman’s hair ivory-white and cropped close to her head. His eyes were a paler gray. Something about them and his thin, angular face struck a chord of recognition in me.
“Rose,” Dad said with a sweep of his arm, “Diana and Renato Almeida all the way from Lisbon. And I’m sure you’ve met Helen and Charles Frankford at least a few times. Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter Rose.”
“A pleasure to meet you, dear,” Mrs. Almeida said. She shook my hand, and then the others in turn. My skin crawled as Mr. Frankford’s cool, dry grip closed around mine. I smiled at him as well as I could manage.
Here was the man who’d encouraged my father to enslave me. My gaze slid to his wife, her faintly lined face nearly as pale as her ivory hair. Didhersmile look a little stiff as she accepted my hand? Had he harnessed her magic to his will somehow—or his daughters, if he had them? Nausea crept through my belly at the thought.
“Lovely to meet you too,” I said on autopilot. “I’m so glad you could make it. I know what a great win this deal was for everyone who was working with Dad.”
“An even more delightful young lady every time I see her,” Frankford said, slapping Dad on the back. I wanted to vomit.
Another engine sounded outside. I stayed where I was, greeting and offering compliments and thanks, ignoring my queasiness as another couple, then a solitary witch and an unpartnered man, arrived in quick succession. They all smiled and complimented me, our house, and the idea of this party in return. My quick searches of their expressions gave me nothing to go on. How many of them knew what my dad intended to do to me? How many of them encouraged it?
Couldallof them know? These were his closest associates, he’d said. Perhaps in more ways than one.
When they went up to Dad’s office as I’d expected, I drifted back into the dining room. Almost everything there was already in order. Dark blue silk table cloth, candles in silver holders waiting to be lit, white roses spaced down the length of the long table and on the side tables around the room. Jin’s little artworks lay under them, the hidden glyphs ready to help channel any magic I cast their way.
