1.22. Fond Old Fool

The next lady in line nearly bumped into Lisa’s brawny arm. “What gives?”

Seth stepped back and spun Lisa out from the interchange. “Next guy,” he said.

The woman huffed and paired up with the next man in line, who was busily clearing his throat to hide his disappointment.

“Well, now.” Lisa rested her hands on him. “Hello again, Mr. i’Lynnok.”

“Hello again, Miss i’Lynnok.”

“Miss, hmm? So many marriages and none of them stuck?”

“Not yet, I don’t think. Elizabeth must have halitosis or something.”

“Better take a deep breath, then, young Seth.” Her hips swayed back as she leaned forward to his ear. “Because when I want to dance with a boy, I dance with him.”

He felt young and untested and very brave. “Then dance with me.”

“Shall I lead, then, or will you?”

His hand couched at the small of her back, right above the outward curve where muscle gave way to softness. He pulled her in, and she let out a quiet, delighted gasp, and they twirled and two-stepped across the floor.

And Seth forgot all the formalities and tips that the pretty young dancers taught him. This was a woman who would not stumble when he yanked like a yokel. He danced with Lisa like it was some spontaneous imperative. Like they were inventing it.

Lisa did not look at him like he was a pauper in a cheap suit. And he realized, with some surprise, that her barely disguised desire felt different from Rumia’s. In that girl’s grip, he had felt like a choice cut of meat.

In Lisa’s, he felt like a man.

“One second,” she whispered, halting her feet and breaking the spell. “Incoming.” Her touch solidified at his shoulder into a surely held tether. She turned him round toward that Marston customer, who was approaching with an imperious woman in a silver sheath dress. He’d danced with her, he recalled. Not well. By the look on her face she didn’t treasure the memory either.

“Elizabeth.” Marston bent a knee and planted a kiss on Lisa’s gloved knuckle. “I don’t mean to interrupt you and your gentleman, but I thought I might extend that invitation formally.”

“Of course.” Lisa’s voice tuned itself a semitone higher. “This is Marston il Molacq. That magnate I was telling you about. And Marston, this is Seth i’Lynnok, the nephew I was telling you about.”

“Magnate.” Marston clucked his tongue fondly. “You flatterer.”

“That’s nothing,” Seth said. “She called me a nephew.”

Marston delivered a confused chuckle.

“I can’t let the men get all the prettiest words in, can I?” Lisa said. “And who is this vision in silver?”

“Luka,” the unsmiling woman said. “Marston’s wife.”

The woman’s obvious disapproval for this tall, tawny siren, and the oomph with which wife was consequently delivered, glanced harmlessly off Lisa as if she were in steel, not silk. “Luka,” she said. “Such a lovely name. So, Seth. Marston was telling me he’d just love to host us—”

That syllable us knocked a hole in Marston’s practiced joviality, and it began to take on water.

“—for lunch tomorrow, at his home. It’s in the garden district, you know. Very chic. Beautiful water features.”

By the time Lisa turned back around on that pronouncement, Marston had bailed himself back to smiling seaworthiness. “I would be delighted indeed,” he said. “As would Luka.”

There were several words one could use for Luka’s expression, unambiguous as it was. Delighted was not one of them.

“A generous offer,” Seth said. “How can I turn it down?”

“Splendid.” Marston chuckled paternally. “Your aunt was telling me all about you, you know.”

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Seth gave Lisa a look. “Oh yes?”

“All good things, my boy. All good things.” Marston squeezed his shoulder. “Studying for the officers’ exam, eh?”

“Yep,” Seth said. “Up at the Necropolis Academy. I’m just itching to get out there beyond the dome and scythe some seraphs.”

Marston’s ebullient laugh turned a head or two along the promenade. “There’s the spirit. Keeping the walls, minding the mages, sallying forth in the Winter War to harvest the feathered fiends’ hexis. Earning yourself a commission, eh? Turn that il into an al.”

“If it’ll make my dear old auntie proud,” Seth said. “She could use a win.” Lisa’s toe prodded his.

Marston’s attention had drifted to Luka. There was an element of desperation to his burgundy elbow nudging her thin arm. “Hear that, Luka? This boy’s got pluck, eh? A red-blooded warrior of the United Territories.”

“Perhaps he’ll find a soulless seductress up at the Necropolis,” his venomous wife said. “Who can turn that red to black, before a seraph does.”

Marston’s smile tightened. “Go cheerful, Luka, go cheerful. It’s a lovely night.”

“Oh, yes.” Luka’s eyes were fixed on the serenely smiling Lisa. “Lovely.”