Heart Fortune (Celta)

by Robin D. Owens

  Jace stood and the stool tipped over behind him. “I’ll come . . . we’ll come.” He grimaced. “Try not to manipulate me too much.”

  T’Hawthorn’s brows rose, he inclined his head. “I’m sure we’ll come to a meeting of minds. Ah, the airship is on its way and will be there this evening. The pilot is one who shuttles there and back quite often. He can bring you back tomorrow.”

  Jace set his teeth, then had to unlock his jaw before saying, “Pretty sure of me.”

  But the guy was shaking his head. “Not at all.” He smiled. “Sure of Glyssa and HeartMate lo—, sex.”

  Jace turned. “Later.”

  “I’ll deposit a thousand in your account pursuant to the deal I made with Raz D’Elecampane to converse with you.”

  More gilt than Jace’d seen in a long time, but he didn’t answer. He had no doubt the man knew which bank held his pitiful savings.

  * * *

  Jace awoke before dawn and, with Zem on his shoulder, walked toward the landing area carrying a small duffle. Inside were gifts for each of Glyssa’s two friends. Since the pilot had stayed up late, Jace was surprised to see the man checking his vehicle. He waved and grunted a greeting at them, stuffing some food into his mouth as he did a last walk around the airship.

  When the sun rose, they were off. The trip passed fast and interestingly as he and the pilot talked a lot about flying, the excavation, airships, starships, and Raz Cherry Elecampane, who the pilot knew from Raz’s childhood around the Cherry Airship business.

  Zem was fascinated with the trip—how much he could see, and how much he couldn’t, just clouds and the blazing white of the sun, set high and tiny in the deep blue sky.

  Jace had convinced himself that he was doing the right thing in making this trip, especially since he literally ached due to the last two days and nights without Glyssa. As he’d told her, he had absolutely no yearning for any other woman, which scared him, too. He was not thinking about that word, that term, they’d sort of discussed, the one with the permanent bond.

  But when Jace hopped down from the door of the sleek, fast airship, he didn’t see Glyssa waiting to meet him and his excitement dimmed.

  An elegant, richly dressed man stepped from a nearby building and walked toward him and Zem. Jace recognized T’Hawthorn. The man strode toward him and nodded a greeting, not offering Jace an arm to clasp. Maybe he thought Jace wasn’t pleased to have been manipulated into coming, or maybe he had excruciatingly proper manners, or maybe he was snobbish, or maybe he didn’t like Jace. The world of rich nobles of high status was far different than the world Jace occupied. He wouldn’t fit in and he couldn’t guess the man’s motives.

  “Merry meet,” said T’Hawthorn.

  And, yeah, that ritual greeting wasn’t something Jace often had occasion to say. “Merry meet.” Again his gaze swept the landing area.

  “Glyssa isn’t here. She is working hard in the library refining her report and the chapters of the novel she and you are writing, so she can present them to the panel of FirstLevel Librarians before the Field Trip Report Hearing tomorrow afternoon.”

  That didn’t sound so good.

  “And I scheduled this trip so that I might be able to talk to you first, before Glyssa, before her Family, and especially before Glyssa’s friends, my HeartMate Camellia and the priestess Tiana Mugwort, met you.”

  “Um-hmm,” Jace said. For all his intensity and his rich clothes, T’Hawthorn wasn’t quite as tall as Jace himself and that surprised him a little.

  T’Hawthorn looked up at Zem on Jace’s shoulder. “Like I said before, a very beautiful bird. Quite colorful.” He inclined his head to Zem. “Merrily meet, Zem.”

  The man sure knew a lot about Jace, more than he felt comfortable with a stranger knowing, and just how much did he know? What had Glyssa told her best friends? Women she was closer to than Jace had ever been to anyone. What had she told GreatLord T’Hawthorn?

  Jace was blind in this and didn’t like it.

  Greetyou, GreatLord T’Hawthorn, Zem said, with exactly the same amount of mental Flair that he would use with Glyssa.

  I am pleased to meet you, the GreatLord responded easily. With a tilt of his head, T’Hawthorn indicated an area where gliders were parked and began moving in that direction. Jace kept up and his mouth nearly watered as he saw a gleaming purple two-seated sport glider that had probably cost more than all the gilt he’d ever made in his life. “Nice.”

  T’Hawthorn grinned as he patted the rounded front. “Yeah, my new toy. Not that I drive much.”

  Jace’s mind just froze at the thought that the GreatLord had so expensive a vehicle just sitting around that he didn’t use often.

  The lord lifted his door, slid in, then pressed a button that had the passenger side door lifting, too. Soft cushions covered in prime leather from something other than tough furrabeast cradled Jace’s ass.

  T’Hawthorn thinned the windows and the top to nothing, then set off along the road toward the more populated portion of the city.

  Jace had never ridden in a personal glider before, not even an old and lumbering Family glider as was mostly seen on the roads.

  “Better enjoy this,” the lord said. “I don’t think you’ll like where we’re going.”

  That wiped the smile off Jace’s face. Did T’Hawthorn Residence have a dungeon?

  “Glyssa does know that I’m coming.” He’d checked their bond more often than he’d expected. Too bad they hadn’t had any really good sex dreams.

  Throwing his head back and laughing made T’Hawthorn look almost approachable. When he finished, he gave Jace a quick glance, then set his gaze back on the not-very-busy road. “I am familiar with my wife’s schedule. You know my HeartMate owns and operates three teahouses, restaurants?” Pride lilted in the lord’s voice.

  “Yes,” Jace said, though he wasn’t sure. He’d known about two, hadn’t he? Had Glyssa said something about a third that he hadn’t paid attention to? Probably. Which had him brooding about how much he should know about her friends and Family and Laev T’Hawthorn that he’d missed. His own damn fault, then, that he didn’t know Laev as well as Laev might know him.

  “We are going to the newest, recently opened just before Glyssa left for the excavation. My wife is not there today, so I’ll be able to take a look at the place, judge the business and tea and food during our lunch, and we can talk in peace.”

  “Oh.” That sounded like an entrepreneur, combining several goals into one trip.

  A flash of white teeth from the GreatLord. “It’s called the Ladies’ Tearoom, specifically aimed at women. I expect to feel a little odd, so you might, too.”

  “Great,” Jace said. The lord laughed again.

  Jace repeated the word as they walked into a medium-sized room filled with round tables covered in pastel cloths with napkins folded in the shapes of flowers and delicate silverware and china on each table.

  Every woman in the place turned to stare at them. The lord just smiled at them and stood casually, and Jace felt like he’d just emerged from a dirty mancave.

  Druida City was a different world, all right.

  Druida City of the nobles was hugely different.

  And the Druida City of the Ladies’ Tearoom was something he’d never imagined, where he didn’t really want to be.

  Twenty-five

  I do not like this place. It is too fussy. I want OUT! Zem said.

  T’Hawthorn coughed.

  Reluctantly, Jace opened the door. I will miss you, he said privately to Zem. Please stay close.

  There is a strip of park with a fountain across the street. Bath time! Zem sounded thrilled. With only a flip of a wing as good-bye, he soared away.

  Dammit, Jace could have used his Fam’s advice. He closed the door and turned back to the room as they were led to a table. The place reminded him of his mother and how sweet she seemed on the outside and to other people, and how rotten she was to him when no one was watching. He wondered what sh
e’d told the townfolk when she’d returned to the home containing the things she loved more than her husband and child, after she’d left them for dead. Didn’t matter. He’d started thinking about that time more often a decade ago, and didn’t like it.

  “We were all having a very good time until you two gorgeous men walked in,” said a waitress, stopping at the table. “Now everyone is preening and watching you.” The newcomer laughed. “The manager won’t have to tell Camellia that you were here, she’ll hear as soon as a guest here scries her, and if that doesn’t happen, the gossip will hit her by tomorrow.”

  The GreatLord set down the menu, rested his arms on the table, and steepled his fingers. “Tomorrow will be fine. In a half septhour, not so much. I have business.”

  “Uh-huh,” said the waitress. “What can I get you?”

  Jace glanced down at the menu, printed in very fancy script that he had trouble reading.

  “I will have dark roast caff,” T’Hawthorn said. “I noticed that at the bottom of the menu you offered ‘a full Celtan tea for those who want a larger meal.’ That’s me.”

  “Excellent, and you, sir?” The waitress turned to Jace.

  “I’ll have that meal, too.” He thought about drink. Caff was the standard of the day in the camp, most bad, some good, if you knew the right person. He’d had some good tea with Glyssa, didn’t remember the name of it, but Camellia Darjeeling D’Hawthorn had provided it. He grinned at the waitress, handed the server his menu. “I’ll have the Darjeeling.”

  She smiled back and T’Hawthorn narrowed his eyes. “Clever.”

  “I can be,” Jace said.

  “Have a good business discussion, my lords,” said the waitress. “Take any physical disagreements to The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon. The ladies might be delighted to see a fight—or might not—but, I assure you, Camellia would be displeased.”

  Jace sat stunned at being addressed a lord.

  After the two women left—and he noticed that the next party that came in was seated on the opposite side of the room—he finally shook his mind from a trance. “I’m not a lord.”

  T’Hawthorn shrugged. “I’m sure she feels it’s better to err on the side of courtesy and respect. And though I don’t think T’Blackthorn or his sons or cuzes, especially Draeg, would step in here for any amount of gilt, you are dressed much like the trackers when they are working.”

  “Oh.” Jace frowned. “I thought T’Blackthorn . . . that the Blackthorns . . .” Jace stopped since T’Hawthorn’s face went still. The Blackthorns did have a curse, sterility or something.

  “Straif and Mitchella have adopted. They also consider the young Betony men, Straif’s cuz’s sons, as his own.”

  “I don’t know too much about Druida City or the FirstFamilies, haven’t ever associated with nobles.”

  “Until now.” The GreatLord leaned back in his chair, floral patterned like everything else from the walls to the rug.

  The waitress appeared with two floral china pots, one long and slender, the other short and round, the standard teapot.

  “You’re really going to drink that?” the GreatLord asked.

  Since Jace had figured out that the man was here to warn him off, or about hurting Glyssa, he just grinned. “I’ve had plenty of bad caff and bad tea and bad drink in the wilds and in the camp. Some of it I’ve made myself. This is going to be a pure pleasure.”

  “Ah,” T’Hawthorn said, again studying Jace. “Who do you know in Druida City?”

  Jace thought that was T’Hawthorn’s idea of light conversation, since it didn’t sound patronizing or snobbish. “No one except Glyssa.” Then he thought about it. “I suppose some people in the Merchants’ Guild, merchants or guards, might be here.”

  “My cuz Cratag T’Marigold is associated with the Merchants’ Guild,” T’Hawthorn said.

  The legendary Cratag Maytree T’Marigold. “Never met him,” Jace said. The waitress walked toward them pushing two anti-grav trays loaded with food.

  Wonderful smells teased Jace’s nose—there was a cold vegetable and clucker salad showing sprinkles of fresh herbs and thick slices of three kinds of cheese next to equally thick bread, butter, a bowl with a leaf salad, and fruit. His mouth watered.

  When the waitress set the plates on the large table, Jace saw that his food differed from T’Hawthorn’s, and actually looked better. The lord had a hearty soup that Jace thought might be too hot, sausage rolls, and a couple of hard-boiled eggs. Well displayed, naturally, but not nearly as delicious looking as his own fare.

  “What’s with this?” T’Hawthorn demanded, staring at Jace’s clucker salad.

  He stuck a fork in it, tasted. “Really great!”

  The waitress smiled smugly. “Naturally we suit the food to the beverage. You got dark roast caff. He got Darjeeling tea.”

  “Oh.” The lord’s look was grumpy.

  “You can have some of my grapes,” Jace offered, just to rub it in.

  “Thanks.”

  “Enjoy.” Even with just one word, Jace heard her suppressed laughter. She swished away.

  “Excellent food. Your wife create this menu?” Jace asked T’Hawthorn.

  “My HeartMate, yes.”

  Jace’s stomach squeezed a little at the word, his taste buds soured a bit, and he freshened them with tea. “I like this tea. I’m not sure Glyssa had any.”

  “Probably since she drank it a lot growing up with Camellia, and for many years since . . . from the lesser varieties to the rare,” the lord said.

  “I understand,” Jace said.

  “I believe you do. You’re sharper, more clever than I reckoned.”

  Since that sounded like an irritated but sincere compliment, Jace said, “Thank you.”

  T’Hawthorn glanced at the room. The noise level that had quieted when they’d walked in, then risen as they’d been gossiped about, had settled to regular levels. It was still odd to Jace that he only heard women’s voices in the background.

  The lord cleared his throat. “I want to talk to you honestly about Glyssa. And I want to make sure we are clear between us about her.”

  T’Hawthorn couldn’t be romantically interested in Glyssa, he had a HeartMate, yet Jace’s hackles rose. “In what way do you want to warn me off her?” Jace bit into a chunk of creamy, nutty-tasting cheese.

  Wincing, T’Hawthorn shook his head, used his knife and fork to cut into the sausage roll. “I’ve come to know her and value her.”

  Jace concentrated on eating. “You’ve been married, what, three months?” Hadn’t Glyssa mentioned that while he was paying attention?

  “Like many, I have visited the PublicLibrary, know the Licorices . . . and knew Glyssa before Camellia and I wed.”

  “I thought you FirstFamilies had ResidenceLibraries that knew everything and shared info back and forth with the PublicLibrary.” Jace wasn’t sure why he was poking at T’Hawthorn, just that he felt irritated enough to do it—or wanted to distract the man from the original topic.

  “As I said, I value Glyssa. Your relationship is your business—”

  “That’s right.”

  “But,” he hesitated, “speaking as one who . . . had troubles with his own HeartMate, I want to let you know that she has friends who will not be pleased if you treat her ill.”

  Jace met the man’s purple gaze. “I hear you. And one of the first things I noticed about her when she showed up at camp was that she had high-powered friends. That huge duffle she had sort of broadcast the fact. The pavilion is luxurious.”

  T’Hawthorn’s eyes gleamed. “I chose the best for her.”

  “Everyone in the camp was impressed,” Jace said politely. “I helped her put up the pavilion myself, very nice.”

  “Yes.” The man stabbed at a piece of hard-boiled egg with his fork and when he glanced up at Jace his gaze was sharper than the knife. “Don’t think you can be casual with Glyssa’s feelings, or treat her like some . . .”

  “Low-class Commone
r?” Jace said, edgy himself, then squashed a couple of juicy grapes between his teeth, sweet flavor spurted nicely.

  T’Hawthorn sat poker straight. “I do not often consider the class of a person.”

  No “considering” needed, that was probably innate in a FirstFamilies lord. Jace said nothing, broke off a bit of cheese and popped it in his mouth.

  “I planned on saying,” T’Hawthorn said with great dignity, also something Jace thought was innate to him, “do not treat Glyssa like she’s”—the lord glanced around, no women were near—“a casual lay.”

  Jace’s neck burned. “You’ve made that mistake.”

  “Yes.” The lord stabbed another piece of egg.

  Jace thought about that, didn’t believe it, figured it was a story he might hear later if he and the GreatLord ever got friendly.

  Rearranging his expression into a pleasant one, T’Hawthorn said, “Tell me how that miniature furniture worked.”

  “Not quite the quality of this place.” Jace gestured around.

  “Ah, well, it’s a new technique.” The lord grinned with a sparkle in his eyes. “Nothing better I like than seeing how new techniques work.”

  They ate the rest of their meal with a discussion of some of T’Hawthorn’s entrepreneurial projects, then the man began to casually probe Jace for information about the excavation of Lugh’s Spear.

  The door opened and an energy came into the room that caught Jace’s attention as much as the woman did. She was tall and willowy, with a pretty face and dark brown hair. Something about her stance, her manner as she scanned the room with a satisfied smile, tipped him off. Camellia Darjeeling D’Hawthorn.

  T’Hawthorn, who had his back to the door, stiffened.

  In a few strides she was there and sitting with them. Her smile broadened as she saw the remains of their meals. She stared at Jace’s cup and her nostrils widened, then she turned to him and smiled. “Jace Bayrum, in the flesh.”

  He raised his brows. “That’s right.”

  She offered her hand. He stood so he could bend over it and kiss her fingers, desperately murmuring a Word to clean his breath. “I’m pleased to meet you, GreatLady D’Hawthorn, I know Glyssa treasures your friendship.”