Scholar of Decay (11 page)

“Are you trying to get us in trouble with Herself?” Annette added incredulously.

“The trouble with you lot is, you never think. Point one: Herself is interested in the lad. Point two: he’s out without his brother. Point three: something’ll chew his face off in less than a week if we just let
him wander around the city by himself.” Yves flicked a finger into the air to mark each point. “Point four: if we take him under our wing, so to speak, he’ll survive and Herself will be happy.”

“Point five,” Georges muttered around a mouthful of half-chewed food, “when Herself is happy, we’re all a lot happier.”

“My point exactly.” Yves leaned forward and glared at Chantel and Annette. “So, go and get him.”

“Why us?”

“Because with you two hanging on his arms, he’s not likely to start thinking with what’s between his ears.”

Dmitri saw the two young women approaching through the gathering dusk and wondered, briefly, if he should turn around and walk the other way. Then warm, yielding flesh pressed itself up against both sides of his body and it was too late.

“Are you all right?” Chantel asked.

“We were so worried about you,” Annette added.

Chantel leaned closer. “You were out too far for us to reach so we ran for help, but when we got back your brother had already rescued you.”

“You went away,” Dmitri said slowly. His memory of what had happened the night before was foggy, but that, at least, he was fairly certain of. All six of them had gone away and left him alone.

“A stupid joke that almost went terribly wrong,” Chantel placed soft fingers against his jaw and turned his face toward her own. “Please say you forgive us.”

Staring down into her eyes, Dmitri suddenly realized they weren’t brown; they were red, and hair he’d seen in candlelight as a pale blonde—paler even than Aurek’s—was actually a completely colorless white, as were her brows and lashes. Rising out of memory
came an image of a white shape in the water, a white shape that held him as he struggled to reach the surface.

“Please,” she repeated, her hand closing like a heated band around his arm.

He had to swallow hard before he could assure them both that they were forgiven. The next thing he knew, they were leading him into an outdoor café built on a landing carved into the side of the riverbank. It was crowded in spite of an autumn chill in the air. Then Yves was standing and clasping his hand, Georges stopped eating long enough to shove food and drink toward him, and the twins were shuffling chairs to make room for him at the table.

A few moments later, after apologies and reassurances had been exchanged all around, Yves asked him if he was attending the evening’s party.

“Another party?” Dmitri asked around a mouthful of pastry. He noticed that the waiters were all extremely attentive of his friends, and he very much liked being included in that attention.

“There are always parties at this time of the year in Pont-a-Museau,” Chantel told him. “In the summer it’s too hot and in the winter it’s too cold, so in the spring and fall we make up for lost time. Don’t you like to party, Dmitri?”

“Of course I do.” He flushed. “But I haven’t been invited.…”

Yves clapped him on the shoulder just a little too hard. “We just invited you. You’ll come with us.”

“Aurek …”

“You don’t have to ask his permission, do you?”

Dmitri bridled. “Of course not.”

“Good.” With a fastidious thumb and forefinger, Yves pulled Dmitri’s brocade vest a little way from his body. “This might be the height of fashion in Borca,” he sniffed derisively, “but it doesn’t work here. First thing we’ve got to do is get you some decent clothes.”

Cinching a broad cloth-of-gold belt around her narrow waist, Louise preened in front of her mirror. Over the course of the afternoon, as she’d thought about what had happened in the cellar of the abandoned house, her fury had turned to speculation.

A mere scholar could not have avoided the collapse of the cellar floor. A mere scholar would have fallen into the sewer and under her claws and would, at this moment, be providing sustenance for any number of lesser creatures.

Therefore, Aurek Nuikin was not a mere scholar. All the evidence suggested he was something far more—which not only explained his survival in the cellar, but also her twin’s interest in him. Jacqueline had always been drawn to power.

It was, in fact, a family weakness.

And it was time for a change of lord in Richemulot.

If Aurek Nuikin was more than he appeared, she had a use for him.

Smiling, she hung gleaming gold balls from each ear, then twitched the shoulders of her gown just a little lower. Until she had more information, she would not approach Nuikin himself—the potential risk was too great, and she was too fond of her skin to risk any of it. Touching her throat lightly with scent, she decided he would have to be reached through those around him.

Right through those around him, if it came to it. Someone else could clean up the mess.

Throwing a gauzy shawl around her shoulders, she hurried out of her suite and nearly ran over her nephew in the hall.

Jacques looked at her critically with emerald eyes irritatingly like his mother’s and finally smiled.

“You look very pretty, Tante Louise.”

He was obviously sucking up. Louise wondered what he wanted.

“Where are you going?”

“Hunting,” she replied with a cold, unencouraging smile.

“May I come?”

“No.” She swept the gold-bead-encrusted hem of her skirt around his small body and continued along the corridor.

Right after I remove my sister, she vowed silently, I take care of her brat.

Occasionally, the fates are willing to cooperate, Louise thought as she watched the golden-haired young man swirl past on the dance floor, his arms around a third—no, fourth—cousin. Dmitri Nuikin was attending the evening’s festivities without the protection of his older brother. How nice.

Absently accepting a glass of wine from one of her regular circle—a circle made slightly smaller by the absence of Geraud—Louise noticed Dmitri’s new clothes. It appeared, given the familiar appearance of the glittering rags and tatters now fluttering from broad shoulders and smoothly muscled arms, that certain younger members of the family had decided to play with him for a while. The white hair of the girl he danced with was unmistakable: Chantel. And if Chantel was involved, could the rest of her little clique be far away?

She crooked a finger and a portly man, his face gleaming with sweat, leaped forward. “Find Yves Milette,” she commanded. “Tell him I want to speak with him.”

Nearly babbling in his amazement at being asked to serve, the portly man hurried off, almost knocking over a stout matron in a purple turban who happened to be in his way. He returned a moment later, a sullen Yves in tow.

A curt gesture and the circle faded back, giving Louise and
Yves as much privacy as possible. Those who were not able to go far enough, given the press of the crowds, immediately fell into covering conversations with their neighbors. Those who overheard Renier family business seldom profited by it. Or survived it.

“I didn’t do anything,” Yves announced, scowling.

“Of course you did, you always do, but as it happens, I don’t care.” Louise smiled poisonously at him. “I want to talk to you about your new little playmate.”

“What? Dmitri?” His eyes narrowed. “What about him?”

“I don’t want him hurt.”

“We weren’t going to …”

She reached out and lightly closed her hand around his arm. “Don’t treat me like a fool, Yves. You wouldn’t enjoy the consequences.”

Yves swallowed and hastily shook his head. “I’m not. I wouldn’t think of it. We just thought that we should protect him, you know, from things, because Jacqueline seemed interested.…”

“
I
am interested.” Her grip tightened, and the points of her nails pierced his skin through a rent torn in the wide sleeve of his shirt. “I am interested,” she repeated, “and that should be all that concerns you now.”

“Yes, Louise.” He wanted to jerk his arm away, but he knew better. His defiant posture softened to submission. “But I thought, that is, we thought you were interested in the other one.”

She shook her head, ebony curls whispering across the back of her neck. “Don’t think. You’ll live longer.”

“Yes, Louise.”

“As it happens, I am interested in the other one. I’m interested in both of them.” The delicate arch of one brow lifted higher. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, Louise.”

“Good.” A final squeeze for emphasis, then she released his arm. “Continue protecting him. He’s just the type to attract disaster, and I can’t be with him all the time.” She bestowed an approving smile on her young cousin. “You may even play with him if you like. I’ll ignore the odd scratch or bruise, but I don’t want him hurt. Do you understand?”

Yves nodded. “Yes, Louise.”

“Bring him to see me a little later. Prime him. I want him … malleable before he gets here.”

Malleable? He thought of how Chantel and Annette had maneuvered Dmitri into the café without really trying. How the human accepted everything said to him at face value, questioning nothing. “That shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Good.”

Recognizing a dismissal, Yves bowed, thankful to be getting off so lightly, and hurriedly retreated.

“What was all that about?” Chantel demanded as Yves finally threaded his way back through the crowds surrounding the dance floor. Although she tried to sound imperious, her voice squeaked out, tight with worry. Attracting that much attention from either of the Renier sisters was never a good idea and usually not entirely healthy.

Having handed Dmitri over to the fawning care of Joelle when she saw Yves summoned to an audience with Louise, Chantel had joined the protective clump the others had formed in a defensible corner. For the younger members of the family, no longer afforded the neutrality of children but with their positions not yet established within the hierarchy, numbers were their only safety.

Wishing that he were closer to the buffet, Georges took a fortifying swallow of wine.