by Wren Weston
He stepped toward her, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his forehead against hers. “Be the prime heir, then, but don’t go to that party tonight. Stay with me.”
His body, his warmth, tempted her.
“This is all very easy for you to say. You’re asking me give up everything while you lose nothing. Neither does your family. Dixon said once that you have trouble asking for what you want. I have the opposite problem. I have trouble wanting what I’ve got. Perhaps I don’t want to be prime, but this is my life. I have to learn to want it.”
“Lila, don’t.”
“I’m sorry, Tristan. You want too much.”
“If you do this, if you go tonight and sleep with one of them, then I’ll never forgive you for it. I’ll never speak to you again.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
Tristan turned on his heel and opened the door.
He didn’t look back.
Chapter 17
Lila did not hear the knock, nor did she notice the door open after. Instead, the casters woke her as they rolled against the hardwood floor. A rack of clothing glided across her bedroom. The crimson fabric blurred as Alex swiveled it into position.
Heels clacked.
The bathroom lights switched on.
Water crashed against the bathtub.
Lila’s eyes burned at the light. She looked away, her eyes puffy and sore from crying. She’d kept the tears at bay while searching for the Baron, abandoning her swath through his highborn victims in favor of digging into the name Freiherr.
She’d found millions of hits. It turned out that Freiherr was the name of a German pop singer in the empire. A recording company had launched his first single five years before. The hacker had opened his bank account a year later.
Her blackmailer had concealed himself in a crowded room.
Lila had given up the search to take a nap, or more correctly, she’d given up because thoughts of Tristan had finally overwhelmed her.
“Rise and shine,” Alex said gently as she reentered, straightening the distance between the hangers.
Lila thrust her head underneath a pillow. In the past, she hadn’t wanted to go to balls because they were an annoyance, but this time was different. There’d be no coming back from her actions if she attended the ball.
Tristan wouldn’t be coming back.
How on earth had she let herself get so wrapped in one person?
Lila pulled up her covers. Every part of her was sore and stiff from the surgery and the wreck, and now she had a headache from her crying jag.
“You have a ball tonight,” Alex reminded her. The mattress shifted as she sat. “I heard you earlier. I know you’re upset.”
“I’m not upset,” Lila mumbled, hating that someone knew she’d cried. Heirs didn’t do such things, or at least they weren’t supposed to do them, and lately it felt like that was all she did.
“This is about the man who came into the great house earlier, isn’t it? He’s the man you’ve been seeing?”
Lila’s head shot out of her covers. “What are you talking about?”
“How do you think he got up here? He came through the tunnels, found me, and asked me to help him the rest of the way up. I had no idea he’d be able to fit into a dinner cart.”
“Someone tried to shoot me earlier, so you naturally thought it would be the perfect day to let a stranger into my bedroom?”
Alex shrugged. “He was hot. I gave him a Lila quiz, and he passed. I figured if he wasn’t supposed to be up here, then you’d tranq him. He’s your lover, isn’t he?”
“So attractive people can’t be—”
“Ha! You admit he’s attractive? You’re totally fucking him. Is he good in bed? A man flexible enough to fit in a dinner cart has to be good in bed.”
Lila swallowed and turned her gaze to the floor. He had been good in bed. He’d been really, really good.
“Oh gods,” Alex said, her face falling. “You really like him. You quarreled, didn’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Lila shrugged, pulling her covers back over her head. “We don’t work. He wants more than I can give him. We’re not together any longer.”
Alex nodded slowly, taking Lila’s cue. “Good. He wasn’t worthy of you, anyway. He was attractive, but lots of senators are far more beautiful. You’ll find someone new to take your mind off him. Someone worthy of a prime.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Tough.” Alex slapped her ass with a loud pop. “Hop in the bath and be quick about it. You don’t have much time left to get dressed, and you’ll definitely need time to work on your eyes. They’re a puffy mess.”
Lila didn’t move. “There’s always time to get dressed later. I’ll be fashionably late.”
“Yes, there’ll be plenty of time if you want to go to the most elegant ball of the year dressed in your pajamas.”
“Depending on the pajamas, it might improve my chances considerably.”
“Chances of what?”
“Of becoming pregnant due to an erection alone.”
“I don’t think it works like that, but I could perhaps find something.” She ripped Lila’s blanket off her body and tossed it onto the ground. “I suppose I’ll have to. There’s no erection in the world that could get through those.”
She jerked her chin at Lila’s torn militia tank and cargo pants. “Out of bed, now,” she ordered.
“No one is going to fuck me tonight based on how I look. I’m a childless heir. I could go in a burlap sack and still get mobbed.”
“Then get out of bed and put on your damn sack.”
Lila didn’t budge.
“Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph,” Alex crowed, her hands on her hips. “You will get out of bed this instant.”
“I might be tempted out of bed if you brought me something to eat,” Lila said, her stomach choosing that moment to growl. “Did you bring me something to eat?”
“No.”
“Well, then go away until you do.”
“Oracle’s wrath! This is like rooming together at Bokington all over again. Who knew that four years as your college roommate would prepare me for my future life as a housemaid?”
Lila grunted in reply.
“Chef put aside a plate for you at lunch. I can bring it up while you’re in the bath. Soak for a little while. Perhaps it will wash away your mood and all the red in your eyes. Go,” Alex said, flipping through the rack full of crimson dresses and coats.
Lila trundled off into the bathroom. Pinning her hair, she sank into in the water, moaning as her muscles unclenched in the tub. She let her arms fall into the water and stared at the soap on the lip of the tub.
It was much too far away to bother.
Everything was too far away to bother.
Her bedroom door opened and closed several times.
Still she did not bother.
“Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph, you get out of that tub this instant!” Alex shouted, smacking on the door much too soon. “You’ve been in there for twenty minutes!”
“All right, all right,” Lila answered. She washed quickly and hopped out, grabbing a robe on her way back into her room.
Alex pointed at the plate on her desk.
Lila forked a few bites of chicken salad, surreptitiously making sure that all her Liberté data had been hidden away in her secret compartments between Alex’s suggestions. Then she stepped forward to inspect the crimson coats and dresses, all stitched with the family coat of arms in white thread. Such garments had less to do with fashion and more to do with status, though no one had ever told the designers. “There won’t be a single surprised eyebrow among the entire bunch when I show up in one of these.”
“You suspect that they’ve been warned that you’re attending?”
“Not all of them, just enough. Senator Dubois’s political career might be finished after he marries Jewel, but it would still look bad for him not to warn his brethren against committing too early for the season. He would either be labeled a fool for not knowing or selfish for withholding it. Too many would be slighted. You know how it is.”
“He won’t be a senator much longer.”
“Old habits die hard. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few know that I’ll be prime,” Lila said, wondering about her own habits: hacking, snooping, and breaking into places she did not belong.
How would she manage those in a whitecoat?
The answer was simple.
She couldn’t. It wasn’t punishment from the gods. It was merely time to put away childish pastimes.
That would be her life, as soon as she wrapped up her father’s case with the Baron.
“Senator Dubois will never have children,” Lila said. “The only thing he has, will ever have, perhaps, is his reputation. He wouldn’t want to ruin it.”
“Your mother will make good use of him.”
“So will I. He’s far too good a politician to waste, and his connections in the senate cannot be ignored. It’s too damn bad he never made it into the Saxony High House, but many of his cousins and friends are well placed. He even has a few in Unity. Jewel made a useful match.”
Alex suddenly wrapped her arms around her friend and brought her in for a rare embrace. Lila did not pull away. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want this.”
“I know you didn’t want to end up here either.” Lila held her friend tightly, her lips twitching in a smile. For the first time, she felt like Alex might forgive her someday. “I’m sorry I was a beast earlier. I’m throwing a tantrum, just like a child.”
“Yes, you are.” Alex nodded, giving her one last squeeze before pulling away. “But I remember what it’s like to be suckered into doing what your mother wills. Our lives aren’t that bad, are they? Neither of us lack for anything. Even though I’m a slave, I’ll never have to sit in a nursing home at the end of my life, half senile, wondering what might have happened if I had just dared to strike out on my own. I’ll know that I tried to break free and that I got what I wanted, at least for a little while. I’ll smile to look back on it. You will too when you think of the security office.”
“No regrets, then?”
“No. My mother might have done what she did anyway, without the excuse of producing an heir. Perhaps I’d be in a Bullstow holding cell right now because she made me do things against my will. If I do have a regret, it’s that I wasn’t a better businesswoman. Grace Medical might have survived its first few years if I’d just been smarter, if I had moved farther away, if my elder sisters hadn’t died and painted a target on my back. I should have sold Grace Medical the second I heard the news. You offered to buy it and let me run it. I should have listened.”
“Alex—”
“I didn’t realize the scope of the game at that point. I was too young to understand, even though I’d watched my mother all my life. I’d seen what you did with Randolph General, what you were still doing, and I wanted to do the same. I thought I could. You always made it look so easy. I thought that if I was focused as you were, if I skipped all the parties that you had to skip, that it would all just happen somehow.”
“I had a lot of help that you didn’t have.”
“I had help, too. I just didn’t listen to anyone. I was too eager and impatient. I kept pushing. I wanted to show you up, to prove that I was worthy of your friendship. We could have done great things together, my medical research company paired with your hospital.”
“We are doing great things. I kept the name.”
“I know.” A sad smile broke over Alex’s face. “I took off at a run before I knew how to walk. There’s some small part of me that’s relieved about the whole thing, though. I wouldn’t have been able to do it in the end, Lila. I wouldn’t have been able to take over the family and bring it to prominence. Call it what you want, call it my own temperament, call it poor training on my mother’s part. Whatever excuse you devise for me, I know that I would have been the reason that it all came tumbling down. I have some sympathy for Jewel in that respect. Try to remember that when you look at her. Cut her some slack now and again, will you?”
“I would have helped, you know. You could have come to me whenever you needed. The Wilson family and the Randolphs would have become better allies under your leadership.”
“I know.”
“The biggest mistake your mother ever made was driving you away. She was a fool for it. My mother and I might not get along, we might not understand each other, but she’s never driven me away. Going to the security office never had anything to do with her or the heirdom,” Lila said, turning back to the rack.
“You and your mother respect each other. She treats you as an equal because you are her equal. Perhaps her only equal.”
Lila traced her fingers down a silken sleeve and shook her head. “That’s not true, it’s—”
“I won’t ever forget what you did for me. I suspect if you hadn’t convinced your mother about my uses, then I would be cleaning toilets or worse instead of helping you dress right now. It’s what the other families would have done. They would have thought it a fitting punishment.”
“My mother favors boldness, as do I. It did not take all that much convincing for her to see your potential. When it’s in my power to decide, you won’t be carrying trays anymore. One of the few good things to come out of this whole affair is that I’ll have more of a voice now. I’ll be able to offer you more, perhaps get your mark back even if the Slave Bill doesn’t pass.”
Lila could not read Alex’s expression. Her friend stared at the floor with a small smile on her face as though she didn’t dare say a word and spoil the promise.
“I’ll be late,” Lila said, nudging her friend after a time. “Help me pick a dress.”
The two women turned back to the rack of clothes and stared at Lila’s choices. It was as though they were back in the dorms at Bokington, getting ready for the first party of the school year. Alex shook her head at Lila’s plain selections and dug back into the fray, managing to find a luxurious crimson dress that suggested it might not be too uncomfortable for Lila’s pragmatic sensibilities, yet still seemed to be one of the most expensive of the bunch. “This one is far more elegant and fitting for a prime. You’ll have to get used to leaving your militia clothes behind, Lila. You’re not storming a rival’s compound.”
“Are you sure?”
“Okay, fine. You’ll be doing a different sort of storming, then you’ll tell me all about it later.”
Lila donned the silk dress, a comfortable sheath that showed her arms and legs to good advantage and would not compete against any of the coats on the rack. She shimmied out of it a moment later so that Alex could put her hair into a loose, intricate bun and finish her makeup while she ate her salad.
Then Alex tried on a few dresses too.
When Lila had no more time left to dawdle, Lila donned the dress once more. She tried on several long crimson coats until Alex stopped her with a cartoonish whistle of approval. Lila laughed and spun in front of the mirror, agreeing on the heavily tailored coat. It was so beautiful and elegant that she could have buckled it and worn it alone. It actually didn’t look that dissimilar from her blackcoat.
“Now for heels,” Alex said, rummaging through Lila’s collection of barely worn dress shoes.
“Heels, why heels? I want to wear boots so I can dance.”
“Oh, Lila, we were doing so well. Don’t you want to look your best?”
“I told you, no one is going to want to fuck me for my looks. Certainly not for the shoes I’m wearing.”
“No, they’ll want to fuck you for your giant and occasionally obnoxious brain,” Alex grumbled, pulli
ng out a pair of heels that matched Lila’s dress and the style of her coat. “You’re fit and not that bad to look at, Lila.”
“Gee, thanks. You’re not that stupid.”
Alex dropped the heels in front of her. “Occasionally obnoxious might have been optimistic. Put on the damn shoes.”
Lila did as she was bid and twirled around in the mirror, her shoulder and hip and knuckles still sore, but glad the woman in the mirror didn’t look like it. Perhaps a glass or two of wine would relax her muscles.
She pulled on a pair of full-length kidskin gloves and slipped on her Randolph silver pendant. It dangled fetchingly above her breasts.
Alex brushed her fingers longingly over the coat. “It will be a shock tonight, regardless of Senator Dubois’s warning to the others. People will gossip, believing you might formally accept your role as heir. Some will guess you’ll be prime soon. I wish I could go and see their faces.”
“It won’t be that shocking. I’ve played at being an heir for a long time.”
“Well, soon it will be official, with no confusion to cloud it. Pay heed to the Red Baron tonight,” the slave warned with a chuckle.
Lila’s face fell immediately, and she snatched up Alex’s wrist.
Her friend cried out, looking startled.
“What did you just say?”
“Pay heed to the Red Baron tonight,” Alex said, wincing. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Where did you hear that name?”
“Jewel left her palm on speaker while talking with Senator Dubois a few hours ago. I overheard the senator mention someone named the Red Baron. I never caught his real name, but apparently, he’s expressed a great deal of interest in you over the last couple of weeks.”
Lila let go of Alex’s wrist, finally realizing how hard she’d gripped it. “You were lingering outside Jewel’s door? Accidently?”
