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“What were they arguing about? Could you tell?”
Finley looked disappointed. “No. Well, she kept saying, ‘You can’t compel me!’ and he said, ‘I assure you, I can.’ And then once he said, ‘I would like to make this as civilized as I can. Please make it possible for me to avoid doing you any harm.’” Finley looked over at him, her eyes blazing. “What could thatmean?”
Brandon knew exactly what it meant, and his heart thumped even harder. Villette’s carelessness had cost her dearly; cleared of cherloshe, her blood had proved itself to be clean and fertile. “I don’t know, but it sounds big.”
“And then she said something about how soon he expected her to move, and he said preparations were being made, and I think—Brandon, I think they’re about to take her someplace else. I don’t know why, and I don’t know where, and I don’t think she wants to go.”
Why do you care?he wanted to say, shouting the words in her face.You don’t even like her. It doesn’t matter to you if she lives or dies!Instead, he tried for the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “I don’t think she likes beinghere, either,” he said. “She doesn’t seem to have a very happy life in general.”
“No,” Finley said. “It’s hard to feel sorry for a beautiful rich woman, but I’d never want to be her.”
Brandon couldn’t keep talking about Villette, so he changed the subject. “Well, I suppose we’ll be back at the barracks in a few days, waiting for our next assignment,” he said. “Linnet will probably be glad of that.”
“Linnet,” Finley hissed. She glanced over her shoulder, but Abe was still safely kneeling in front of the house, while the two of them had reached the corner of the fence line and come to a halt. “The second caller was for her. A man.”
“That’s odd.” Neither Nadder nor Finley had ever had a friend over the whole time Brandon had been here; he’d assumed such visits were forbidden. “Was it an emergency?”
“Who knows? She’s so close-mouthed. She was sleeping, of course, and he wouldn’t leave a message, so I had to wake her up.”
“Better you than me.”
“She just rolled out of bed like she was already awake. The two of them went out into the yard and talked for about five minutes. Then he left, and she went back to her room. She didn’t way a thing.”
“It could have been news about a family member.”
“Probably. But it was still awfully strange.”
“Did she look upset?”
“Not really.”
“Maybe she’ll tell us something over dinner.”
Finley made a face. “Maybe. But probably not.” Then she rolled her eyes. “Oh, right, dinner. It’s the cook’s night off. So it will be warmed-over stew and any scraps we can scrounge from the kitchen.”
Brandon was sure his dismay was showing in his face. “Tonight? It’s the servants’ night off?Allof them?”
“Yes, all of them! Every once in a while they get to leave this place and go off and be normal people for a few hours.”
“No, of course, I know that, I just—”I just wish it had been a couple of days later!he wanted to wail. How perfect that would have been, to have all the servants out of the house the very night he and Villette needed to sneak away! Clearly Zessaya was not watching over this misadventure as closely as he had hoped. “I just forgot,” he ended lamely. “Cold stew it is.”
“And then we’ll grill Linnet and see if we can get her to tell us about her friend,” Finley said. “But I bet she won’t say a word.”
Indeed, Linnet could hardly have been less forthcoming when the three of them gathered for a meal a couple of hours later. She answered Finley’s persistent questions with shrugs, shakes of the head, and terse replies like, “Just someone I know.”
“You realize we’re not supposed to have visitors here,” Finley finally said.
Linnet looked at her a moment. “All right,” she said. “That’ll be the last one.”
Brandon toyed with his food and barely paid attention to the conversation, if that’s what it could be called. His mind was too busy going over possibilities, worrying over the details of the escape. The public chuggers ran all night, but rarely more than once an hour. He and Villette would have to start out on foot and hope a transport rattled up before she had raised blisters on her feet from the unaccustomed exercise. Did she even have the right shoes for undertaking such a long journey? It hardly mattered. Her blood had betrayed her. They had to act now.
“So what are you going to do on your day off?” Finley was asking. “Do you have family in town? Friends? You don’t talk about them a lot.”
Linnet pushed herself away from the table and abruptly stood up. “And you talktoomuch,” she said, and marched out.
Finley sneered at her back, then turned to Brandon with a grin. “Well, I guess that’s toldme,”she said.
“Just leave her alone,” he advised. “Go to your room as soon as her shift starts and leave her in peace.”
