Just what he didn’t want to discuss, but he met her gaze steadily. “You do know that I will be my own man, don’t you?”
Her smile faded, her eyes grew serious. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He still felt that she accepted that idea in general but would disapprove of what he planned on doing in specifics.
“Honor is important.”
Expression frozen, she stared at him. “I know that more than you understand.”
He dipped his head. “Of course.”
They looked at each other.
“The Hollys asked you to do something you’re unsure of,” she said slowly, puzzling it out.
“Yes.”
She fiddled with a writestick. “I don’t have to tell you how important allies are, especially these allies.”
“No.”
Inclining her head, she said, “Very well.” But she sounded doubtful.
“What if I told you that I have an idea about how I can stay my own man, keep my honor and my allies. Would you trust me?”
She studied him, then nodded. “Yes.”
He smiled. “Good.”
Yet over the next three days, Walker still saw doubt and shadows in her eyes. A few septhours before the ball, he met with his allies in the social club again. And he brought with him the prophet, Vinni T’Vine.
“Walker?” asked T’Ash.
Walker smiled slightly, sincerely. “The FirstFamily histories and stories I learned are still floating through my mind.”
“And?” prompted Holm HollyHeir.
“I considered the circumstances of the last prophecy of the previous GreatLady D’Vine.”
They all went immobile. The former D’Vine had spoken the prophecy just before a terrible tragedy, worse for the FirstFamilies than the Black Magic Death Cult.
“Her words regarding Ruis Elder were not heeded.” Walker put a hand on Vinni’s shoulder, squeezed in support, though Walker thought he was less poised than the prophet. “I asked GreatLord T’Vine if he had been consulted in this matter regarding D’Yew.”
“I haven’t been,” Vinni said. No one met his eyes. “It’s a bad precedent to declare a FirstFamily dead. I don’t like it. More, I would strongly advise against that.”
“And D’Yew herself?” snapped Holm.
There was a long moment’s silence. Then Vinni said softly, “I suggest you table the matter for, say, three months.”
A chill whispered through the room like death’s voice itself.
“Three months,” Saille T’Willow repeated flatly.
Vinni nodded.
“Good idea,” T’Ash said, a little too loudly. He gestured to the sideboard bar against the wall. “Want a drink, Vinni?”
Vinni smiled and walked to the liquor cabinet. “Sounds great.”
Holm Holly looked at Straif T’Blackthorn. Straif strolled over to Walker as the rest of the men eased into a more casual group. “Clever maneuver, Walker. Well done.”
“Thanks.” Walker wanted a drink himself but wasn’t going to get one unless everyone else drank.
“I didn’t like the idea of stripping D’Yew of her title but thought it had to be done,” Straif said.
Walker grunted.
“Would you have voted for that?”
No harm in being truthful. “Yes.”
“And worked with us in the NobleCouncil?” Straif pressed.
“Yes.” Though Walker might not have worked as hard as the others would have wanted.
“But our group would have been solid in declaring the Yew Family dead. And you wouldn’t have gone along with that, would you have?”
Walker met the man’s blue eyes, wanted a drink all the more since his throat was dry. “No.” He looked at the others. “All of you know and should remember how important Family is.” As the words pushed from him, they fell into the pause of silence. Every man’s stare locked on Walker. He stood stiff, didn’t show that sweat was trickling down his spine. He’d need more bespelled shirts if he was going to face off with nobles.
He repeated what he said. “All of you have had experiences that made you value your Families. You should remember that.”
Holm nodded, lifted a short, thick tumbler with beads of condensation on it toward Walker. “Touché, Walker Clover. You have a point. You’re right.”
T’Ash grunted. His gaze met Walker’s, then glanced aside. “The Captain of the FirstFamilies Council and all the councils, T’Hawthorn, has announced a special session of All Councils. The afternoon of Yule, of all times. You can pick up the Clover ceremonial sword in the Guildhall then.”
“Fine with me.” Walker smiled and made it sincere. “So how many of you are going to the ball at Straif’s tonight?”
This time T’Ash growled before saying, “Every last one of us. Our wives insist.”
Walker grinned and got a small glass of whiskey, toasted them. “See you later.”
“They won’t ever underestimate you again,” Vinni T’Vine said as they teleported onto the pad in the Clover Compound’s courtyard. Vinni had often fought and tumbled and played with Clover youngsters in previous years, and knew the area well. A smile curved his mouth, too. “And neither will the older generation, nor mine.” He buffeted Walker on the shoulder. “Better prepare to be a moving force in the NobleCouncil, maybe even Captain of All Councils.”
Walker refrained from asking whether Vinni had seen such a future for him. “Just what I always wanted.”
Vinni raised his hands, and bottles of ale smacked into his palms, translocated from somewhere. He handed one to Walker.
“Walker, you’re a natural.”
Walker entered T’Blackthorn Residence with Argut and Sedwy. He was proud to have her on his arm. They’d arrived a good twenty minutes before the ball, but Clovers were rarely late.
Argut said, See you later, FamMan. Drina the cat is holding a big Fam party. All sorts welcome.
I’m going too! Lucor squeaked.
They’d already heard about this several times on the glider trip over. Sedwy chuckled. “Do you want me to take you upstairs?
Fams only! Lucor insisted.
Private party, Argut said. Gently he set his teeth on the scruff of Lucor’s neck. I will take him up.
“Thank you,” Sedwy said. But she’d tensed. Walker took her arm again, and they both watched as the young fox carefully mounted the stairs.
When Argut was out of sight, Walker returned his gaze to the great hall. And saw Pink, in formal clothes, standing before them. No other guests were there, a footman stood at the end of the chamber with the door open. “Greetyou, Walker. Greetyou, GrandMistrys Grove,” Pink said with an air of determination.
An alarm buzzed in the back of Walker’s mind. He’d miscalculated. He’d planned on enjoying the ball with Sedwy, being courteous to other women, but spending some romantic time on the terrace pressing his suit with her.
Pink said, “We’ll be expecting a decision, Walker.”
“No.”
Pink’s gaze narrowed at Sedwy.
Walker put his fingers over Sedwy’s. “I’ll see you in a bit, Pink.”
“You’re supposed to be in the receiving line,” Pink said.
“The longer you talk, the longer it will take for me to get there,” Walker pointed out. “Now I’d like to speak with Sedwy alone.”
Pink glowered at them both, then stalked away. Walker drew Sedwy away to a lovely salon. He closed the door behind them, turned, and took her hands. “Stay with me.”
“You have other obligations tonight,” she said.
“I didn’t mean just tonight.” He lifted both her hands and kissed them, one after the other. “Stay with me.”
“I...Let’s not talk about this now, tonight.”
“It’s what I want, Sedwy, you must know that.”
She swallowed. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“No?”
Her lips pressed together, she glanced in the direction of the bal
lroom. “I’d like to see how I’m treated, whether the scandal around me has diminished.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. We can overcome all.” He kissed her fingertips. “You’ve obviously succeeded in your latest venture to turn a Commoner into a Nobleman.”
She relaxed a little, her eyes warm. “It wasn’t a difficult task.”
“That’s what you say; others might not. Come, I want to dance with you. Let’s enjoy the ball.” If there was anything he’d learned to do with his Flair, it was to judge the mood of a room or an event. And he was discovering how to act to influence people, change the mood. His pleasure in Sedwy’s company, the support and respect of all the Clovers, could do that for her. He was sure there’d be a time to lead her to the terrace and kiss her...and cement their relationship.
The ball had been a strain for Sedwy. Most particularly watching Walker dance with other women. It was fascinating, his manner was so smooth, his smiles genuine, his conversation easy. Yes, he could go very far.
Sedwy continued to receive strange looks.
Finally she went for a break to a suite that had been set aside for the ladies. She was the only one there. She soaked up the quiet a bit, then left the chamber.
Halfway down the corridor toward the ballroom, Pink Clover stepped from a room. “I’m glad I found you here,” Pink said.
A tingle of dread shot through her. “I don’t think you just found me here.”
His smile was cheerful, a nice Commoner salesman smile. “No, you’re right. I wanted to talk to you.”
“About Walker.”
Pink nodded. “About Walker and you. I want you to leave him alone.”
She thought of the tenderness in Walker’s eyes. “That’s not what Walker wants.”
Pink rocked back and forth on his heels, jerked his head toward the ballroom. “How many times were you snubbed in there?”
“A few.” But not as often as she’d been three weeks ago, and not by people she cared about. She’d had genuine conversations, had seen welcoming smiles.
“You’ll always have scandal attached to your name,” Pink said, almost gently. “You know how high Walker could rise—to the very top, the Captain of All Councils. But can he do that with you by his side?”
All the talk about ambition between her and Walker, her own attitude, came back to strike blows to her heart.
“He’s charted his course, would you drag him down?” Pink cleared his throat. “And there’s more. Walker needs a good, supportive wife.”
Sedwy glared at Pink. “No one has supported Walker as much as I.”
“He needs a woman who will make his career her career. Someone who’ll entertain. Someone he can talk to and rest with. I’ve known the boy all his life, and you aren’t the woman for our Walker.”
“I think you don’t understand Walker’s needs,” she said.
“And I think that makes two of us. Know this”—Pink paused heavily—“we don’t believe you’re the right woman for Walker. Not me, and not his parents. You want to ask them?”
She recalled all the worried looks that Nath and Fen had sent her way lately. Sedwy’s mind whirled. If the Clovers didn’t accept her as a wife, they could make Walker’s—and her—life completely miserable.
She drew on her haughtiest manner, stared Pink down. He fidgeted, looked aside. “You aren’t the woman for our Walker,” he repeated. “Would you put him in front of your career?”
“Yes.”
Pink shook his head. “You say that now, in the first flush of infatuation. I know you have had offers to research in foreign lands. Walker wouldn’t be able to get away to do that with you.”
“The councils aren’t in session all the time. They have breaks.” But even as she protested, she knew that whatever arguments she put up, Pink would demolish. There was always an answer for everything.
A woman turned into the corridor from the ballroom. Fen. She stopped behind Pink. “Do you love my son, Sedwy? Enough to overcome all the trials of life together?”
Sedwy hesitated and the silence stretched. Yes, she loved Walker, but was it enough? Especially enough to fight his Family on a daily basis?
“I think you should leave as soon as possible,” Fen said.
Another blow.
“Tonight,” Pink said. “Now.” He jerked his head toward the ballroom. “There are women in there who’ll fit Walker and the Family better than you.”
Fen’s expression crumpled into sadness. “I know you had an excellent offer to research towns in Chinju. That you were excited about it.” Her gaze pinned Sedwy. “That you were considering it.”
“You should leave. Now,” Pink repeated.
Walker’s mother put her hand around Pink’s biceps and tugged. “Come along, Pink. Sedwy knows what she needs to do—for Walker and the Family and herself.” Fen’s gaze met Sedwy’s own, slid away. “Better a quick, clean break, don’t you think?”
They faded into the shadows down the hallway.
Sedwy blinked. She thought she had a black hole where her heart should be, and painful devastation radiating from it. The older Clovers were right. She doubted herself, what she could give to Walker. She had—did—want that Chinju job. She should do the right thing.
Walker, can you come to the terrace? Sedwy’s mental touch caressed his mind. He smiled and excused himself from the small group of nobles with whom he’d been talking about parenting.
The party was going well. He’d danced with Sedwy twice, and then watched her mix and mingle. People were willing to be charmed by her, set aside the scandal of the past. Every now and then he’d followed in her footsteps to a clique or two and gently reminded folk that scandals hit every Family.
Yet as he neared the terrace, his steps lagged and apprehension slid along his spine.
He strode through the weathershield across the open doors to the terrace and turned toward her before his eyes adjusted to the night. When he saw her, he stopped, and everything inside him clenched.
“Going somewhere?” he asked. She had her knapsack ready and was dressed for traveling, and Lucor’s carrier was on her hip.
Sixteen
You don’t need me,” Sedwy said.
The idea that she was so wrong and didn’t know it stabbed through him. “I do.”
She shook her head, though she didn’t take a step down the terrace.
“What if I told you that I’d work to become Captain of All Councils for you?” he asked. He’d already decided that he would have to aim for that job. It was the best way to protect his Family, to be at the top, to be a power. Alliances or not, newly made noble Families had to be safeguarded just as much as any other newborn, and that was now his job.
Sedwy stared at him, eyes wide in the dark, and the emotions in her eyes as shadowed. “Pursuing a career to please someone else is not wise.”
He inclined his head. “That’s very true.” He wanted to hook his thumbs in his belt, but the stupid clothes didn’t have a good belt. “Why are you leaving me, since I do need you?”
Again she shook her head. “You don’t.”
He strode right up to her, so their toes touched, well within her personal space. “Yes, I do. I need you and I love you. But that’s not enough for you? My qualities aren’t something you want in a husband?” He let anger bleed into his voice, then stepped back, gestured widely to the staircase down to the grounds, the whole world beyond. “I can’t give you what you want?”
She remained silent and it goaded him beyond bearing. “Or maybe you’re just running away again. That’s what you do, run? After the fiasco with the Black Magic Death Cult, you ran from Druida, didn’t stay and stick out the rumors, the gossip, the rough times.”
Shock widened her eyes now, gasped in her breath. He’d hurt her and hurt himself by hurting her, and what kind of a man was he to do that?
Not a decent one. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
&
nbsp; “No,” she said thinly.
“Do you love me?”
When she didn’t answer, he turned on his heel and left to return to the too bright lights of the ballroom and people he didn’t want to see and things he didn’t want to do. Nothing new in that.
Sedwy doubled over with the pain. He’d been so hard.
And so right.
And whatever ambition he might or might not have, he was a strong man that didn’t run but accepted his responsibility. He stood up to adversity.
She hadn’t been strong. At twenty, all her hopes and dreams, even her judgement and concept of herself had been destroyed. It had been easier to leave, to abandon her study of the dark side of Flair and return to the study of people and culture.
Now she’d let Walker’s Family run her off. That wasn’t strong. That wasn’t the person she thought she was. Wasn’t who she wanted to be. She loved Walker and would fight for him and their love against all odds every damn day.
Walker needed a drink and time to compose himself. He left the ballroom for the suite that had been assigned to the men. There were plenty of nobles laughing and noisily conversing, and that sure didn’t suit his mood. So he poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into a short, heavy crystal glass, nodded to the others, and stepped back into the hallway.
Pink caught Walker’s sleeve, pulled him down to an alcove.
“Good thing she’s gone,” Pink said.
Walker understood it all. He spun on his uncle in fury. “You talked to her, didn’t you? Told her not to stay with me.”
“It would be wrong.”
“I’m done with you,” Walker said. He drank the whiskey, saw nowhere to put the glass, and translocated it back to the bar. There was a crash of glass. He ignored it.
“What?” demanded Pink.
“I. Am. Finished. With. The. Clovers. T’Vine has consulted with Trif. Her second child has good Flair, the babe can be the next GrandLady.”
“You can’t leave us!”
“I can. You’ve pushed me too far, Pink. I was willing to give up my career and everything else for you and the Family. But I won’t give up Sedwy.”
Hearts and Swords: Four Original Stories of Celta Page 43
