Pimpernel_Royal Ball

by Sheralyn Pratt

  “The blowback,” he clarified. “The cost of your help.”

  “Oh. That. We get to find out if your girlfriend is the phoenix.”

  “You’ll find that out even if you don’t help me.”

  “Yeah. Like, in a hundred years,” she pouted, sounding dangerously close again. “I’d rather know now, and I’m not going to get any real information out of her until you two start talking. Until then I’m going to be bored. So let’s get you two talking.”

  He wanted to believe her. He knew it was stupid—it’s what everyone thought when they accepted a gift from a fae. That it would be fine and the fallout worth it.

  Jack glanced at Ren, then to the boy pulling a ring of fire out of the air and back into a pristine rope. His eyes kept moving to the line of challengers behind the boy, potentially ten-deep, and he knew he wouldn’t make it that long.

  Jack couldn’t believe he was about to say this, but, “What do you want from me?”

  Tiki nodded Ren’s direction. “Just tell your friend to read the note in his breast pocket.”

  That sounded like a terrible idea. “What does it say?”

  “Something that will buy you about twenty-five minutes with Claire very quickly.”

  Please don’t let this be a mistake, Jack thought as he locked eyes with Ren before glancing down at his breast pocket.

  Ren furrowed his eyebrows as if he’d misunderstood. Jack repeated the look and this time Ren reached into his pocket and Jack saw the flash of surprise on his friend’s face when he found something.

  Jack hoped for both their sakes that it was something reasonable.

  Ren read the writing on the envelope, sent Jack a crisp nod, then walked away.

  “What did I just ask my friend to do?” Jack asked, only to realize the prince was looking at him and Tiki was back in her seat.

  Seriously. How did fae move like that? One day Jack would learn and get some tricks up his sleeve that would redefine the pimpernel reputation. Tiki was just as human as he was so it had to be physically possible.

  Somehow.

  But first things first. If the prince was looking at him, it meant the guest doing the rope trick was all done and it was time to send him packing.

  Standing from his seat, Jack walked down the six steps to the presentation platform.

  Chapter 12

  Claire

  For a woman who walked the world with an aura of chill, Claire couldn’t help but notice Margot sure had a lot of barbs stored up for Malachi. The man knew how to find Margot’s tripwire into hotheadedness. No effort required.

  All he had to do was open his mouth.

  “It’s not that simple,” Margot was saying, choosing wine over eye contact, but Selene swiped the glass away from her mouth half-way up.

  Claire silenced a sigh of relief. She really needed Margot sober but didn’t have the courage to grab the glass herself.

  “I don’t see the complication,” Malachi said, not helping Claire catch up to what they were even talking about. They seemed to have a whole code going on how to talk around things, and Claire had yet to crack it.

  “That’s because you don’t deal with people,” Margot said, releasing the glass to Selene. “Things are a little less complicated when you’re just looking at charts.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Malachi muttered, but Claire seemed to be the only one who heard him.

  “People have feelings that need to be accounted for,” Margot continued, this time squaring off with him. “I don’t want to answer a thousand random questions about the future. I want to live how I choose while I can. I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

  Malachi nodded thoughtfully. “But in fifteen months—”

  “Three,” Margot snapped, resentment clear on her face. Selene and Ethan shared a nervous look and Claire felt her grip tighten on her glass as the tension in the conversation ratcheted up a notch.

  Malachi’s head tilted, his face the model of innocence. “So soon?”

  Margot glared while Ethan and Selene nodded.

  Claire had no idea what they were talking about.

  “Still, Claire must know that you’ll be stepping away from Jack’s team soon … for obvious reasons.”

  “What?” Claire said, clearly confused. “Rewind. What was that?”

  Malachi’s green eyes locked onto Claire, making her feel self-conscious for a moment before he looked Margot’s way again. “Does she know about you selling the business?”

  Margot’s glower was enough of a confirmation that something was in the works. Claire felt herself panic.

  “Why? Are we moving?” Claire regretted the words the moment they were out of her mouth. She sounded like a hopeful child, even to her own ears.

  But a girl could hope.

  “No,” Margot clipped out.

  Or not hope.

  Margot studied Claire like a patient parent trying to find a fun way to tell a child mommy and daddy wouldn’t be living together anymore.

  This wasn’t going to be good.

  “We use words like king and queen, which is a bit misleading when it comes to explaining things,” she began. “But what Malachi is alluding to is that, in a year, I will step into the role of queen and take over other responsibilities while another prince or princess takes over my company. It’s all very standard.”

  Yep. Super standard. Nothing to see here. That’s what Margot’s tone said as she spoke, but her words had Claire’s chin hanging.

  Margot. A queen? Was that why all her dates never turned into relationships? Because she was betrothed? That made way more sense than Margot’s perma-single status.

  Who would she be marrying?

  Definitely not Malachi. Claire knew that much. So who? Knowing she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else until she had that answered, she followed Malachi’s advise and asked.

  “Are you getting married? Who is the king?”

  Everyone looked at Margot for her answer. There was a moment when Selene’s eyes filled with pity and she started to speak, but she bit her lip when Ethan gave her hand a quick squeeze.

  “I become a queen when I have a baby,” Margot said, as if she had no opinion on the topic. But of course she did. She had to. Because…

  A baby?

  No matter how many times Claire tried to make the word make sense, she kept on trying to find a way to hear something else. But nothing else made more sense than ‘baby’.

  “A baby,” Claire repeated.

  Margot nodded. “With my husband. I’ll sell my company three months before the birth, transfer all power, and announce my retirement. The transition will be seamless.”

  Seamless. As if that’s what Claire cared about in all this.

  Margot. Retired. With a baby. And a husband who was the king of something no one had really clarified yet.

  Until that moment, Claire hadn’t even imagined any of those things were on the horizon for her boss. A husband? Sure. Any day of the week, with pretty much the man of her choice. Margot was the type of woman that held that much sway with the opposite sex. But the closest thing she had to a man in her life was Ren. Yes, a relationship between them was forbidden, but Claire had always toyed with the idea of the two of them being secretly in love with each other and running off one day.

  But a baby and retirement?

  “When?” she choked out.

  Margot held her empty glass out for the waiter, and this time Claire noticed her hand wasn’t as steady. “A year from now.”

  “You…get married?”

  Again, Margot’s face gave nothing away. “I’ve been married for twelve years. I’ll be having the baby a year from now.”

  Claire officially had no more words. Innumerable questions? Yes. But not the words to voice them.

  “The father’s around here somewhere,” Margot said, waving her hand around dismissively as Malachi’s thumb rubbed up against his ring.

  “Oh, look!” Selene said in a chipper vo
ice. “Jack looks like he’s going to perform. Claire, you’re probably going to want to see this.”

  “See what?” she said, looking over her shoulder. She’d purposefully put Jack in her blind spot so she wouldn’t stare at him the whole time. Her heart picked up its pace at the sight of him descending to the main platform in his cobalt suit.

  Her man always looked dashing, and Claire couldn’t help but send a territorial glance toward the redhead who had been getting far too close for her liking … only to find said redhead sending a meaningful nod to the person just behind Claire’s right shoulder.

  Malachi.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Malachi said, as Claire turned in time to see him bow to the group. “I see someone I need to speak to.” He looked to Claire. “We’ll meet again.”

  Not waiting for any other replies, he turned and left—Margot’s eyes throwing mental daggers his way with every step.

  Seriously. What was their deal?

  A chorus of oohs caught Claire’s attention and instinct had her looking back at Jack. The whole room watched as he levitated a rope and shaped it into a circle, without touching it.

  “The boy had to hang it on a hook,” Selene commented helpfully just as the loop of rope burst into flames and started spinning faster and faster until Claire couldn’t believe it wasn’t throwing flames out into the crowd. The boy standing across from Jack on the platform looked just as spellbound as everyone else.

  When Jack snapped his fingers, the ring of fire disappeared, as if it had never been, and the loose rope appeared in his hand.

  Whoa. How’d he do that?

  “How did he do that?” Selene asked, sounding as full of wonder as Claire felt.

  Claire didn’t know. She’d never seen the trick before, but now she was clapping along with everyone else as Jack handed the rope to a teenage boy who looked ready to sign up to be a pimpernel groupie.

  The exchange got Claire looking around the room, assessing everyone in it and taking note for the first time of what seemed to be a general tone of goodwill. It was pretty obvious that everyone was affluent, but they all seemed human. Warm. Approachable.

  Claire caught a glance of the woman with the bear on a leash again and quickly turned away.

  Well, almost everyone.

  But bear aside, Claire was growing more and more convinced that she had not landed herself in a nest of supervillains.

  For the past six months, she and Jack had talked about her officially joining his team at least once a week. But the conversations had been rough because there was so little he could say and so much she wanted to know before she committed.

  But if this was a peek into the world he couldn’t tell her about, then she was officially good with it. She knew Jack had a good heart, but seeing a boy she could only assume was a prince react so enthusiastically to being one-upped told Claire more than Margot and Malachi’s bickering.

  It told her she’d be okay with these people. She could work for them. And, like Jack, she could take orders from them.

  She wanted in just as much as she wanted to kiss the sexy magician in the cobalt suit who had just wowed the room. And it wasn’t the flashy trick that had won her over, but the realization that she might be the least-accomplished person at the party—children included.

  Claire was in a room full of exceptional people who had no qualms making room for her. And if those weren’t her kind of people, Claire didn’t know who was.

  Chapter 13

  Jack

  Not caring that it was poor form, Jack started sprinting the moment he stepped through the rear exit from the pedestal. The time Tiki had bought him with Claire had officially started, and Jack didn’t want to waste any of it strolling her way.

  Whatever had been written on Tiki’s note had done the job.

  Ren had delivered the note to a server, who had delivered it to the girl up next in the queue, who had read whatever the note said and asked the prince to dance three dances with her.

  For now, Jack wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth. All he wanted to do was find Claire, look her in the eye, and–

  Malachi.

  Jack saw the man about fifty steps ahead of him, just outside one of the council rooms. His one-time friend locked eyes with him for a moment, then stepped out of the hallway and into the room.

  Jack picked up his pace.

  The man definitely owed him an explanation. Jack had been careful to take things slowly with Claire … to not mix personal and business. He’d played by the rules.

  And this was how Malachi repaid him?

  Yes, the request to bring her in had taken longer because hearts had been in the mix. But he’d done his due diligence in vetting Claire—submitting her name to Malachi’s father last week with the request that she be his new oracle. He’d been expecting to get an answer after the party, not to see her walk into the ball on Malachi’s arm.

  Prince or not, Malachi had some serious explaining to do.

  Detouring into the council room, Jack took the corner so quickly that he had to hold on to the door frame not to run into the door. The room initially looked empty. A conference table, a screen, and the candle version of track lighting offering the room its only source of light.

  But no Malachi.

  “Hello, Jack,” the man said from behind him, and Jack felt a wave of self-annoyance that he’d fallen for such a basic trick. He’d mastered it when he was seven and now here he was falling for it like a child.

  The agitated are easily overcome. How many times had he been reminded of that during training. Yet here he was falling for one of the simplest of traps.

  Jack turned and faced one of the people who had helped teach him the lesson. “Malachi. What is my girlfriend doing here?”

  “Girlfriend?” he echoed back. “Funny. She never mentioned you.”

  On any other day, Jack would have rolled with the jab and maybe thrown one back. But not under the circumstances.

  “This is serious, Mal.”

  His childhood friend nodded. “Indeed it is.”

  Jack closed the distance between them, getting in the man’s space.

  “What have you done?” he hissed. “She’s not rea—”

  “She was to be permanently rejected as a candidate tonight,” Malachi said over him. “That’s what my father would have told you in your meeting later.”

  Fear clenched in Jack’s gut as the words hit home.

  Claire? Rejected?

  Not possible. She had way too much potential. True, her anxiety still got in the way sometimes, but things had gotten much better and they’d always been able to pick up the slack.

  “Would have?” Jack asked.

  Malachi smiled. “Well, she’s here now, isn’t she?” He pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “And we have approximately six hours before my father reclaims his title and can make a decree.”

  Jack’s anger disappeared like a puff of air as realization settled in; Malachi was giving Claire a chance. Not only that, but he was doing it against his father’s wishes.

  That was a big move. A dangerous one. It would impact Malachi’s relationship with his father for years—maybe forever.

  Yet he’d done it.

  “Why?” Jack asked, certain Malachi didn’t miss his meaning. The man had never missed much.

  Malachi placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder, his green eyes resolute. Definitely no regrets. “Because it is the better way.”

  Better? How?

  And what was Malachi’s angle in all of this? There had to be something in it for him. There always was.

  “Bringing her here is better?” Jack challenged. “Throwing her at the mercy of Royals when she’s had no actual training is better? Or is it better because it plays into something you want tonight, and you brought her along as one of your props?”

  Malachi tsked his tongue at Jack, reigniting his anger levels.

  “Sounds like someone’s obsessed with a half-empty cup,
” Malachi said with an amused lilt. “Tonight has the potential of ending very well for you, Jack. I thought you might be happier.”

  “Not if Claire is a phoenix,” Jack blurted, his accusation bouncing off the stone walls around them.

  Malachi’s head tilted with interest. “Where did you hear that?”

  Jack ground his teeth together, debating his answer. But in the end, there was no point in keeping anything off the table.

  “I couldn’t understand why Tiki was sticking around,” he said. “You know how fae are.”

  “Of course.”

  “I asked her what was holding her interest, and she said you promised a phoenix would be at the party tonight. And I’m telling you that if that’s why you brought Claire, I prefer your father’s answer over your second chance.”

  “And what about Claire?” Malachi asked, his voice forever calm. “Does she get a say in her own fate? Does she get to be in the room when it’s decided, or should we men just take care of that on our own?”

  It was Jack’s heart, not his mind, that had him shaking his head. “No. You don’t get to play that card just because you want a phoenix on the map.”

  Jack knew the words leaving his mouth were indefensible. He knew it. And he didn’t care.

  Claire? A phoenix? She would be hunted constantly. She would never be safe … never know who her friends were.

  No. Just no. And Jack wouldn’t judge Claire if she said the same thing about him.

  Jack didn’t want much in the world, but he wanted Claire and he wanted her to have the best life had to offer. He did not want her to be on the run.

  “Keep in mind that being a phoenix is a choice,” Malachi added. “All Claire is being considered for tonight is the position of Oracle. And you’re the one who recommended her for that.”

  All true. The only way Claire could be a phoenix was through free will. Accidentally becoming a phoenix was like accidentally winning a NASCAR race. Being a phoenix wasn’t something you tripped into, but becoming an oracle was a step in the right direction.

  Man, Jack thought he had worked through all his concerns of working with Claire … what could happen to her … the danger she’d be opting into. The danger he was leading her into.