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Imogen:Kai’s at the bar, and he asked me to text you to ask you where you are.
Matteo:I had to drive Ms. Delaney to Riems. I told him that.
Imogen:He says, “When did you tell me this?”
Matteo:I emailed you. Him.
Imogen:You emailed him! LOL!
ThatLOLhad no doubt been intended as Imogen’s commentary on the matter, as Kai did not speak in internet slang. Matteo did realize that emailing Kai, who checked his messages every once in a while on an ancient desktop that took ten minutes to wheeze to life and connected to the internet via dial-up, probably hadn’t been sufficient. But Kai hadn’t answered his phone, and the last-minute nature of this trip hadn’t left Matteo with any other options.
Matteo:Ms. Delaney was called away on an urgent matter at the last minute.
An urgent matter she would not speak about, which annoyed him. He realized that he wasn’t on Morneau’s board, that much of his knowledge about the company was the result of the board trusting him—by not ejecting him from closed-door meetings, for example. Seeing him, as the king did, as an extension of the palace. As an asset.
It irritated him that Ms. Delaney did not also see him this way.
Imogen:He says: “And you had to be the one to drive her?”
Yes. Well, no. But yes. He huffed a sigh. Ms. Delaney had said a version of the same thing, had in fact already made arrangements through the palace for a car when he caught wind of herplans.I didn’t want to pull you from your work at the last minute, she’d said. He wondered if what she actually meant wasI didn’t want you driving me.
He had insisted. He wasn’t even sure why, except that he felt he should be the one to do it. Not least because it was snowing something fierce. The drive back was going to be difficult.
Imogen:Kai says to tell you it’s eight days until Christmas.
Matteo:I am aware.
He was also aware that by telling Imogen to convey all these impatient messages, Kai was very likely tipping his hand about the Christmas baskets. Matteo assumed Imogen already knew—Imogen knew about everything that happened in the village. Still, there was no need to call unnecessary attention to themselves.
Matteo:Tell Kai I’ll call him when I get home this afternoon. And tell him to answer his phone for once.
He eyed the door Ms. Delaney had gone through more than an hour ago. What could she want with Mrs. Hauser? The Hausers were an old Eldovian family and were friendly with the royals. They’d had someone on the Morneau board for generations, but their current representative was not Mrs. Hauser but her great-nephew, Daniel. Ms. Delaney had, of course, met with Daniel, as she had all board members, but going so far out of her way tointerview long-retired members, especially this late in her visit, seemed to him to be taking her consulting mandate to unnecessary extremes.
He started thinking about that layoff list. Would she tell him who was on it? If so, perhaps he could begin making plans ahead of time. If—
She appeared suddenly outside the house, just as a great gust of wind did. She struggled to make her way down the drive, and Matteo got out of the car to help her. The wind blew off her hat before he made it to her side, and he went after it. They both struggled toward the car, almost comically.
“Whew!” she exclaimed when they’d both managed to make it back to the car and closed the doors against the elements. Ms. Delaney’s cheeks were pink, and her hair was covered with snow from the minute she’d spent outside hatless. She must have found the struggle amusing, too, because she was laughing. “This is some country you have here!”
It was strange to see levity on her face. Relations between them had not improved since their encounter upstairs at the Owl and Spruce. Matteo had avoided returning to the pub since then—he was busy with the baskets anyway—and the ride over the mountains today had been mostly silent. Unlike their last trip to Riems, Ms. Delaney hadn’t seemed interested in the view. She’d spent so much of her time absorbed in her phone that he’d been forced to conclude she was studiously ignoring him.
Now, though, he could feel his mouth mirroring hers, making him smile against his will. “Yes, you can get these sorts of sudden storms in the mountains.”
“Would this be a bad time to ask you if we can make one more stop before we head back?”
“Where would this stop be?” She handed him a piece of paper with an address written on it. “That’s not far from here, and it’s on the way home. I don’t see a problem with a brief stop, as long as the weather doesn’t get any worse.”
The weather got worse.
“This isn’t looking good, is it?” she said a few minutes later.
“Can your errand wait? I will gladly take you back another day.” Because he had so many of those to spare before Christmas. But Christmas wasn’t going to happen if he flipped the car.
“Yes, of course. I don’t want to do anything rash. It’s just that I was hoping the element of surprise would work in my favor.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, who were you planning to see? To surprise?”
She waited a beat before saying, “Daniel Hauser. At his house.”
