Probably a quick meet and marry.
And he’d believed her to be his HeartMate.
Since the woman had shown herself to be selfish and greedy, Garrett didn’t think it too much of a stretch to deduce the girl had manipulated Laev into thinking she was his HeartMate, even if she knew she wasn’t.
Garrett didn’t think the girl had been much older than the boy, another new adult, and what seventeen-year-old girl would pass up the opportunity to become a member of one of the FirstFamilies, the highest in status and greatest in wealth and power on the planet? If she’d been alive now, she’d be a GreatLady herself, able to sit on the FirstFamilies Council and vote.
She didn’t -- maybe couldn’t -- suppress her ambition to rise to the highest stratum of society.
And the boy didn’t -- couldn’t -- listen to older and wiser heads who maybe knew the girl wasn’t his HeartMate.
Perhaps she rationalized that she’d make Laev a good wife, an excellent wife, though she wasn’t a HeartMate.
Garrett had to stop and swallow as reverberations of his own life crashed over him like the sound of the ocean surf in the distance. He’d been giddy in love with a girl, a girl who wasn’t his HeartMate -- and he’d known he had a HeartMate -- and only wanted to be with Dinni. He’d thought they’d have a wonderful life. He still thought so.
But, because he’d had a HeartMate, Dinni wouldn’t marry him. She wanted him to find and marry his HeartMate.
Obviously minor noble Nivea Sunflower had not had the loving nature of a commoner woman like Dinni Spurge.
Did that leave Laev T’Hawthorn in a better circumstance than Garrett Primross? Laev’s wife pretended to be what she was not, married him for her selfish reasons, even if she planned to be a good wife. And would have stayed married to him forever. Naturally Laev would never subject his Family to the great scandal of a divorce and tarnish the Family name and reputation.
Garrett’s lover had stayed true to herself, had given him up for selfless reasons, didn’t believe she’d be a good wife if Garrett had an unknown HeartMate. And Garrett had never gotten to marry his Dinni, knew she wed with someone else.
Grinding pain for himself and Laev T’Hawthorn, either way, he supposed.
He turned away from the ocean and toward the farm that would make the Family self-sufficient, if necessary.
Striding through hawthorn hedgerows separating areas of the estate, he continued to the pigsty, easily discovered from an odorous whiff.
The pigsty. How damn fliggering petty for a woman to throw her husband’s Family’s treasures away like that.
Garrett understood she must have been an unhappy woman, but he’d been unhappy in his own love himself, and hadn’t acted so poorly ... shut that down.
Wrinkling his nose more at the contempt he felt for Laev’s wife than the smells of the porcines as they now jostled to a trough and ate, he figured Nivea Sunflower Hawthorn had felt such contempt for her husband and his Family, too.
Though the Residence and the Family was wrong to continue to blame Laev. And the woman herself was dead. Garrett shouldn’t continue to judge her.
Hello! The little calico pranced around his boots.
“Greetyou,” he found himself saying, the word seeming appropriate for being on this estate. “You here to check out the place for more items?”
No. There is nothing from the big house here. I would have sensed if anything had been there. Even if covered up in deepest mud. Even if tromped on by many, many hooves. I knows what Hawthorn stuff feels like now.
Garrett looked down at her and saw a resource.
“Is that true?”
Yes, very true.
“How would you like to earn the best catnip on the market?” T’Hawthorn could afford it.
A gasp, whisker quivering, whole small, plump body trembling. Nip, all for MYSELF!
“Yes.”
Not to SHARE? Not with ANY ONE?
“Nope.”
She sat on her butt, yet still wiggled with impatience. What do I have to do?
“I’m taking you into Druida City proper, to the shops for you to sense any Hawthorn objects.” Antique stores and pawnshops that might still have a piece or two of the Hawthorns. After sixteen months. Right. But best to try.
Go out into the streets of main Druida?
“Yes. I’ll be right there with you.”
Her little muzzle lifted. We can do this!
“Yes.”
For prime catnip grown and sold by the starship Nuada’s Sword!
Uh-oh. And he wondered how she knew of that. Might cost as much as any antique object Garrett might find. Still, his line item expense report to T’Hawthorn would look interesting. Maybe it would make Laev smile. Garrett already figured the man carried around too much intensity.
Not helped by his Family or Residence.
I will sniff with My excellent nose and listen with My excellent ears and FEEL with my sensitive pads and all the hairs in My fur!
“All right.”
To his amazement, Laev T’Hawthorn had ordered a Family glider to be pulled into the drive for Garrett’s convenience. He waved away the Hawthorn driver, who’d been leaning against the long front of the vehicle. Garrett would rather not advertise where he was going and be reported on.
He didn’t quite sneak calico cat into the big vehicle, but he masked her entrance. And on the seat he found three pouches of golden gilt coins, separated the amount of five hundred, then stashed the rest in the vehicle safe, passcoding it shut.
Calico ignored the coins, pressing her paws and nose to the side window. Thrilled, she burbled all the way into the busiest part of town.
Resting against the plush seat as the glider navigated the streets, Garrett considered which shops the late Nivea Hawthorn might have sold her husband’s treasures at.
Would she have pawned them? She’d have had to be careful with anything that held any Hawthorn coats-of-arms or symbols ... like the purple leather desk set and writestick. Garrett would be lucky to ever find those, the objects that started this whole thing.
Too bad because he knew Laev T’Hawthorn cherished the things.
Pawnshops, perhaps, but not as likely as other stores. Less busy places and those not frequented by the FirstFamilies, or maybe nobles at all. Lesser nobility ... like she’d been before she’d determinedly married up. Tricked Laev into marrying her. Yep, still judging a dead woman, even when he’d admonished himself not to. Had to work on that.
But it seemed she continued to make trouble even after her death.
If she actually sold items ... and would she? Garrett thought so. An angry woman would do that. Dump minor items in the pigsty, sell better pieces, give away others to her relatives and, if the Residence was to be believed, her lovers.
They entered a square a few blocks away from CityCenter and he parked the glider in one of the usually-open spaces for such a vehicle. Only the rich could afford a glider.
Garrett liked the public carrier system, but no doubt the glider got him here faster, and before minor shops closed.
Respectable. Wouldn’t Nivea Hawthorn want that? A respectable shop that would pay her good gilt. Perhaps a store she’d usually sneer at?
Oh, yes, the more Garrett tried to get in her head, the less he liked her.
So he left and shielded the glider, and smiled as Calico hopped around, squealing with delight at being somewhere new.
The third store he and Calico entered, she stilled in his arms, and he felt the prickle of her interest.
Something is HERE! Some Hawthorn thing! She leapt from his arms, went over to the wide shelf of the left front window, stretched tall and pawed at a small object.
No one objected since no one stood behind the counter. Bells attached to the door had rung when they’d entered, but he and the cat still had the shop to themselves.
The object clinked to the floor, and, sure enough, when Garrett moved over to pick the piece up, he found a ring. Since he couldn’t
examine it well in the dim light, he flicked a small burst of temporary light into existence, studied the ring and the papyrus that described the heirloom. There did appear to be some sort of etched symbol, perhaps the listed dragonfly, engraved on the inside back of the ring.
Glancing down at the cat, he said, “You’re sure this a Hawthorn piece?”
It smells-hears-feels like Hawthorn! I will show You! Her mind brushed against his and widened, and his own Flair spiraled out to meet hers, and he felt as she did. Sensed as she did, the smell-sound-vibration-feel of the ring that spoke to her of ... reverberations of rich time-centuries of T’Hawthorn Residence.
Her focus sharpened until she projected the mental-emotional resonances of the Hawthorns themselves.
See, smell, feel, listen? she ended, full of satisfaction.
Yeah, he responded to her mentally, but when his blurred vision cleared, he found he’d braced himself with a hand on the wall to stay upright.
This particular Familiar Companion Flair felt a little too alien for him to use, but he honed in on the feeling of the Hawthorn item. Cool, not radiating huge emotions. The original faint sense of pleasure when the young girl had received it.
Garrett pondered the basic feeling-sense he’d gotten from Calico that she designated as Hawthorn.
Clean and cold and edgy.
Risk.
That brought him up short. Risk. Not ambition or greed or anything else, but risk, the basic characteristic of the Hawthorn Family. If they hadn’t been one of the highest, wealthiest, most powerful Families on Celta, they’d be adventurers.
But that’s what got them to Celta, wasn’t it? The Earthan ancestors of the Hawthorns had risked everything to come to a new planet ... had plunked down a lot of gilt to finance the starships, and be encased in a cryonics tube for the voyage. Sure sounded risky to Garrett.
Risk might be a hallmark of the Hawthorns, but not for Garrett. He’d be risk-adverse, despite his profession. But he’d rarely been in danger ... on the job.
Surviving the Iasc plague was a different story. One he never wanted to revisit. So shove it out of his mind and focus on the now ... Of Calico giving a tiny mew so he’d let her out of the door.
It’s Black! she caroled in Garrett’s mind. He’s here to play with Me! Then a very, small private whisper along with a detailed image. This is where You should translocate the Very Good Nip. Under my pillow under the bush next to the back wall of the stridebeast stable. Then a loud, Later!
She bounced out of the store as he cracked open the door for her, careful not to jingle the bells. Just waiting to see how long it would take for the proprietor to show up.
Garrett tucked the Hawthorn inventory back into his pocket and studied the ring. It appeared to be the cheapest of trinkets, dull with grime. Puzzlement filtered through him that the store owner wouldn’t bother with a slight polish spell. He felt an etching when he slipped his pinky along the inside, but it seemed as if no one else had bothered to scrutinize the piece.
A minute later someone finally responded to the sound of the bells that had rung when he and Calico had walked in.
“Yeah?” Ah, this girl, too, looked slatternly and completely bored.
Garrett glanced at the sign high on the wall behind her. “Huper Clubmoss’s Fine Collectibles? Huper?”
She snorted “’A course not. I’m his Daughter’sDaughter.”
Her eyes narrowed in calculation as she noticed the ring in his fingers. “Very valuable,” she said.
His brows lifted. “I don’t think so.”
“But you want it, I can see that.”
Yeah, he’d probably expressed a little too much interest, and hadn’t put it down when she’d walked in. So he smiled charmingly at her and flipped the ring, caught it on the tip of his little finger, rolled it down to his palm, flipped it again to the back of his hand and sent it back and forth over his knuckles. “Very good for sleight of hand,” he admitted.
“Oh, you’re one of those fake magicians,” she said sourly. She stared at him, let her gaze sweep him up and down, and he understood that though she didn’t care for his blunt-featured face, she liked his strong body just fine.
She sidled up to the counter, thrust out her chest to show how her lush breasts strained against the sheen of her cheap silkeen tunic. “I can let you have the ring for forty gilt,” she purred. “And perhaps some other considerations ... like a drink with me at a caff house.”
That’s not what she really wanted.
A boy of about twelve strode in. Saw the ring in Garrett’s hand and scowled. “That’s too low a price, Erzia. That’s a genuine item, that is, gold and diamond.”
The girl cuffed at his ear, but he ducked. “You think lots in here’s genuine items when what our MotherSire sold was trash.” Her lip lifted as she surveyed the dusty shop, filled with jumbled items.
“Not true,” the boy said stoutly. “A good man with good character, MotherSire was.” He scowled and crossed his arms. “You and mother should let me run this shop. Then it would make a profit.”
“You belong in GroveStudy.” She dismissed him, continuing to concentrate on Garrett.
Garrett gave a half bow to the boy. “I’ll pay sixty gilt for the ring.”
“Still not enough!” the youngster said. Eyes sliding to his sister, he came around the counter and held out his hand to Garret for the ring.
“Josey, you’re not supposed to touch things in the shop!” the young woman scolded.
Dropping the ring into the boy’s hand to see what would happen -- after all, Garrett wouldn’t be paying for the thing, Laev T’Hawthorn would -- Garrett watched as Josey picked it up, rubbed it on his sleeve and muttered some spell Words. Dirt and dust and grit vanished to reveal gleaming gold, and sparkling gem.
“Lady and Lord!” the girl gasped, goggling at her brother.
“I think there’s engraving inside,” the boy said, then, “Lightspells!” he ordered and three small sunlike globes circled the ceiling, removing all gloom and casting the shadows of sharp-relief, and revealing the deterioration of the shop.
He stared up at Garrett, his face impassive. “Two hundred sixty gilt,” he said.
The inventory listed the ring’s worth as three hundred ten golden gilt. So the boy knew more than he thought, but not quite as much as he should.
“Done,” Garrett said, using his sleight-of-hand and a touch of Flair to pull gold coins from an inner pocket and reveal them stacked on his palm.
Sister and brother gasped.
Garrett tumbled the gilt into the boy’s hand, and said, “I’ll want it wrapped well and a receipt.”
“Of ... Of course,” the young woman said.
“You really must let me take over this business,” the pre-teen said.
His sister said nothing as she created a pretty box and set the ring inside, then began wrapping it elegantly in beautiful red paper flocked with gold, obviously something she preferred doing instead of selling. She’d cleansed and polished the counter before she translocated heavy papyrusboard for the box and fancy paper.
Since taking his gilt, they both became more cheerful, and Garrett leaned on the counter and asked his questions. “Do you have any idea who brought the ring in to sell?”
She paused in her creasing of intricate box folds. “No.”
“I’m sure your MotherSire would have kept an inventory. I’d be ... grateful ... if I could see it.”
“Why are you so interested?” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Did you know that ring was here? How did you find it?”
He could have explained, but would rather not. She didn’t impress him as a trustworthy person and she already had a lot to gossip about. He didn’t want to give her more. Not his name, not his profession, and certainly nothing regarding Black Pierre, the Hawthorns or Laev.
The boy, who’d sidled to the edge of the deep window display and begun picking up objects and cleaning them with Flair, said, “I was in the shop with MotherSire whe
n he purchased the ring. I remember who brought it in.”
That didn’t surprise Garrett, and from the small smirk on the boy’s face, Garrett guessed they’d just made a very good profit, despite the lad not knowing the true value of the piece.
“Oh, Josey!” the girl huffed, but said nothing more, continued to work on her intricate wrapping. No doubt considering the amount of gilt he’d paid for the ring demanded her best. A change of attitude he liked. She seemed to be going easier on the boy, too.
“So?” Garrett asked casually, “A man, younger than me?” Would the boy describe a male who might be Nivea’s lover? If so, that would be a lead.
“No, a lady. Very snoot-- very fashionably dressed. Didn’t treat MotherSire well, so I remember her.” Josey scowled. “Pretty enough, golden hair, light brown eyes, tan skin.”
A golden woman, hair, skin, eyes ... Garrett had noted a painting of Nivea in the corridor outside the ResidenceDen.
“MotherSire laughed when she left, said he didn’t mind being insulted since he bought a very valuable ring for a very low price.” Josey’s face screwed up as if fighting tears. “That was sixteen months ago. He dropped dead the very next week. So I remember.”
“Do either of you recall a desk set? Dark purple blotter, black and silver writestick. Perhaps with a coat of arms engraved--”
Both siblings stiffened.
“We wouldn’t take anything like that!” the boy said. “We are honorable dealers. We do not buy or sell anything from nobles unless they prove they own it.” He crossed his arms and jutted his chin. “And that’s our reputation, too. Everyone knows that!”
Garrett slid his gaze to the young woman who finished making a bow of long red curls. Her mouth had puckered in distaste, and she said, “It’s always more trouble than it’s worth to purchase an item that might be stolen. Josey’s right, we wouldn’t buy something with a coat-of-arms unless we knew the noble. Our MotherSire particularly would not have done so.”
Hearts and Stones (Celta HeartMate) Page 20