“A menu.” Seth took the cream-colored page up from the table and stared at it in the candelabra glow—real, orange-fire candles, not corpselights. “A menu with two sides. Fuck me.”
His dining companion laughed her airy laugh. “I thought I’d have to work much harder to impress you. Is this your first?”
“I mean I’ve heard of them,” Seth said. “But my usual quality of haunt is more of a get-what-you-get business. A perpetual stew or whatever meat was about to go bad. Occasionally a chalkboard’s worth of options, if I’ve really gotten a windfall.”
“Ooh, a chalkboard. Now there’s fancy living.” Lisa opened the curious little cloth bundle they’d laid in front of her and revealed the silverware gleaming inside. Seth followed suit, and oh, they shone. The weight of them. That was dark tarnish on the fork handle. Genuine silver, not plated.
The backs of his hands itched.
“This is why you must seek out the fanciest restaurant you can, every time you’re on an iron artery stop,” Lisa said. “They pass through all sorts of places, stocking up as they go. The Plainland meadows, the Tal-Ranic frost markets, the rice terraces of Rinia, the orchards of Sektorbrav. Shame that Orwiny is so far north. I’d love to feed you a good Orwinese coddle. Onions bigger than your fist. Winter savory and pomegranate.”
“Huh.” Seth was half-listening. Surely a place like this wouldn’t notice one measly little fork missing. Surely they were lousy with forks.
“Ever have a pomegranate, Seth?”
“Can’t say I have.” Seth refocused on the conversation, but he didn’t look up. He couldn’t. Past the flimsy barricade of the menu was his employer, in The Dress.
The moment they had arrived, Lisa had made a beeline for the roadhouse—they called it a hotel here, Seth had to remind himself—to get them room and board. She’d made him stay in the wagon, though she’d taken with her, in one musclebound trip, most of the stuff he was meant to be watching.He hadn’t been sure why she’d asked him to wait outside until she’d emerged in The Dress.
Seth was reading the menu. He was not thinking about The Dress. Seth had not noticed the way the shimmery fabric clung to Lisa’s midsection, nor how it draped along her broad hips, nor the solid, shapely thigh that elegantly parted the slitted satin when she sat, because he was far too busy reading the menu. He did not perceive the way its deep V cupped Lisa’s full, soft chest and pushed it upward into two plump round perfections because, as he reminded himself, there was this menu he was supposed to be reading. And he especially did not notice the mole dotting the swell of Lisa’s right breast, because of the whatsitcalled. The menu.
Over the sightline edge of said menu, a pair of merlot lips grinned, and a pair of glamored eyes tracked his. “Still pondering, eh?”
He forced his eyes to flick from the page to Lisa’s face. It took discipline and commitment not to linger his attention between the two. “Uh, a lot more options than I’m used to,” he said. “Chalkboards.”
“Would you like me to order for you?” A black-nailed finger landed on the menu and pushed it back down to the table. “I think I can guess what you like by now.”
She leaned forward across the table, neckline full to bursting, and beckoned him to do the same. He met her in the middle, across the vased foxglove sprouting from the center of the table.
“You can look, you know,” she whispered conspiratorially. “I’m not about to wear an outfit like this and then toss my drink at you for looking. I’m rather proud of them.”
“Oh,” he said, and “okay.” Smooth, il Gutierre.
She returned to her menu. “Two bitey little monsters later, and they’re still hanging in there. I don’t know why Annalise is always so reluctant to show them off. One less lace tied on the battle-tunic’s front split wouldn’t kill her. I don’t think so, anyway. The particulars of sword work get a little fuzzy when I’m Lisa, I admit.”
“You’ve got me beat,” Seth said. “I’ve only ever dueled with a broom.”
“Do we have questions, madame and master?” A man clad in evening wear as sleek and shiny as Seth’s new stiletto slid himself into the conversation over Lisa’s shoulder. “Or have we made our choices?”
Before Seth could get out so much as a syllable, Lisa was pointing out options. “We’ll split this fennel citrus salad here to start. I’ll have the dry-aged ribeye, and the gentleman will have the tenderloin with pomegranate glaze. And a bottle of the Sektorbrav red, if you please, with two glasses.”
“Lovely choices.” The waiter’s silvery pen scribbled shorthand across his little leather notebook. “All our livestock are locally sourced and we ensure on slaughter that their hexis is properly harnessed and stored in civic dynamos. And none of our crops come from mite farm adjacent fields.”
Seth didn’t know that mattered.
“Are we celebrating something?” the waiter asked.
Lisa clasped her hands together with feigned avuncular joy. “It’s my nephew’s birthday.”
The man sent a practiced smile across the azure tablecloth to the stunlocked Seth. “Happy birthday, sir.”
“Thank you,” Seth said. “Aunt Lisa’s been so excited to take me to this place. It’s where she proposed to my uncle once upon a time, Saints bless his soul. And where she met the next fiancé, after he left her at the altar.”
“A lot of family history,” the waiter said, gamely.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Lisa chuckled. “What can I say? It’s got a tether on me.”
“He was a busboy here, right?” Seth tapped his chin.
Lisa mirrored him. “Who can be expected to remember what their third husband did?”
The waiter’s ironclad smile flaked only slightly. “I’ll get us started on that salad.”
Lisa gave Seth’s knuckles a light slap as the waiter made his exit. “Cheeky boy.”
“Birthday boy,” Seth corrected.
“Very true.” Lisa topped her water glass back up. “Let’s see if we get a dessert out of that.”
“I never actually said yes to you ordering for me,” Seth said. “Just to put that on the record.”
“You don’t mind.”
“Don’t I?”
Lisa hummed a gentle mm-mm denial. “You enjoyed it, in fact.”
“Your non-Annalise heads assume a lot about me.”
“You enjoyed it,” Lisa said. “Because you’ve always made your own decisions, because you’ve never trusted anyone else enough to make them. But it’s been years of that, and you’re tired of it, and that little fox on your back didn’t fix it. And I don’t imagine he’s got advice on pairings, but I say you’ll enjoy the Sektor red. The pomegranate tenderloin I’m not wholly sure about—have to imagine this far south, this time of year, they’ll use a syrup. But I think you’re hiding a sweet tooth. Eyes up here.”
Seth’s attention shot back up to the north side of Lisa’s clavicle.
“Oh, don’t blush, Seth.” Lisa tutted. “I’m just mentioning it because you seem so concerned about it.”
“Blush? I’m not blushing.”
“I can cover up after dinner, if it makes you more comfortable.”
“I don’t want—you should wear what you want to.”
“I am,” Lisa said. “And will continue to. But thank you for the sentiment. And I was looking at your Adam’s apple, by the way. So it’s only fair.”
Reflexively he tucked his chin.
“It’s a very nice Adam’s apple, Seth. Don’t be self-conscious.”
“I’m not,” he said, self-consciously. He was all right with how he looked, for the most part, but didn’t like to think about bits like his Adam’s apple or his wrists or his ribs. The places where hunger showed through and reminded him of the mortal dross beneath his skin. “You having fun flustering me?”
Before she could reply, their waiter descended once again with a pair of fine, emberblown glasses. She tilted her head past the man’s silk-clad shoulder and mouthed YesI am.
Seth rolled his eyes in response, but he felt the edges of his mouth tighten upward.
“I enjoy flustering cute men,” Lisa said in their phantom server’s wake. “It’s one of life’s joys.”
Seth felt his nose wrinkle. “Cute, huh?”
“You don’t like that word much, I don’t think.”
“Few men under five-nine do.”
“All right.” Lisa sat back and creaked the rattan nest of her dining chair. “Handsome, then. You’re handsome.”
“Annalise said you’d do this,” Seth said.
“Do what?”
“Put the moves on me.”
She pursed her lips. “First off. Calling you handsome is not putting the moves on you. It’s just me stating objective reality. You’re a handsome man. Second, I am Annalise. So if she thought she had to warn you about it, it’s because she knows there’s attraction here, and I’m the only piece of her brave enough to admit it. And if I know what I am when I’m Lisa, and I put Lisa on anyway, with the plan to take you off alone to the big city, what do you suppose Annalise was thinking, hmm?” Her head tilted. “What do you suppose Annalise is hoping?”
Seth felt that tingling feeling again. Normally, it was in his hands, and accompanied by the urge to put something small and valuable in his pocket. This time it was in his chest.
“I suppose that was putting the moves on you, that last bit,” Lisa mused. “We can blame the head.”
Steady, Seth. You didn’t let what Anna said to you get to you. You have to keep that policy with Lisa.
“How many do you have, anyway?” He gestured to his head.
“Look at you.” She beamed. “Shutting me down, just like she asked you to. Good boy.”
Steady, dammit.
“At the moment it’s just three.” Lisa ticked them off on her fingers. “Anna, Lisa, Annalise. We’re tracking down a fourth, and I’ve had others before. I pared down to the essentials a couple of years ago—it gets tricky when you bounce around so many headspaces. Here comes our first course.”
Seth turned in his seat and watched the verdant plate bob through the amber dim. “This is a what again?”
“A fennel and citrus salad,” Lisa said. “Put a little faith in your aunt. Just slide the salad fork out of your sleeve, young man. You’ll need it.”
The waiter swanned back into earshot and Seth bit his excuse back. He slipped the silly little place setting back into his palm. Nobody’d miss it. Certainly not these rich bastards.
“Thank you,” Lisa sang, as the salad descended. “Oh, it looks just lovely.”
The way the waiter preened, you’d think he was the one who trimmed the thing’s fronds. “And the wine is on the way. Enjoy.”
Lisa smiled him off toward the kitchen and then dropped back into a conspiratorial whisper. “If you want to steal, how about this?” She nodded over Seth’s shoulder. “Men’s room is that way. We need a ticket to tonight’s contredanse. It’s quite the occasion. We’re surely not the only ones here pre-gaming it. Jacket pockets, purses. One invite is two guests. Can you do that for me?”
“Watch me.” Seth scooted his seat out. “Or don’t, actually. Don’t want anyone tracing your attention.”
“I’ll just pretend I’m checking your ass out.”
“Very incognito, Aunt Lisa.”
“Maybe I’m one of those weird aunts.”
He snorted as he stood. He was having far too much fun with this woman. This isn’t real. Remember what Annalise said. This is no more real than Anna busting your balls.
The lift was simple. A scan for gilded emerald invitations turned up a promising edge protruding from a graybearded fellow’s jacket, fanned across the back of his seat. How sprawly everyone was at a place like this. How comfortable. Every taphouse Seth had haunted, they kept their things close. But who would expect a dirty little Plainland footpad here?
He brushed past a table, set a vase on its side, and sent it rolling toward the edge. By the time it clattered to the floor, he’d moved on. He’d have liked a breaking-glass crash, but the thud it made on the plush carpet sufficed to rubberneck the mark. Seth sidled past the gap between this fellow and a neighboring guest and let his hands do what they always, always wanted to.
He strolled to the bathroom (the indoor bathroom, la-dee-da) and shut himself in a mahogany-paneled stall. He took a deep, shaky breath, willed his hands to stillness and his heart to calm. A lift wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Wasn’t supposed to thrill him. But all he could think about was how Lisa would look at him when he delivered this inconsequential little slip of card to her.
He splashed cool water across his face (the temperature control on the sink, how fancy). Then back into the restaurant, a spring in his step, to where Lisa waited, chin perched on her palm. She batted her lashes as he slid back into his seat.
He lifted the orange-tinted wineglass that had been filled in his absence. “Is this for me?” His other hand slipped under the table and nudged the card against Lisa’s knee.
The grin that broke out on her face was just as wide and proud as he’d imagined. “Is that for me?”
He nodded, and long, tapered fingers plucked the card from him and secreted them into the clutch that hung from Lisa’s seat.
“What a marvel you are, Seth il Gutierre,” she whispered. “I should have found myself a thief yonks ago.”
“I should have found an employer who called me a marvel and not you there.”
Lisa held her wine aloft. “I want you buzzed enough to really cut a rug tonight, Seth. So chin-chin, hmm?” The candle reflections glimmered in the glass’s deep garnet contents. “A toast. To finding exactly what you needed.”
Seth raised, clinked, and drank what Lisa al Ydris had chosen for him.
It was the best wine he’d ever tasted.