Sweep in Peace
Page 29

He held my hand, running his thumb over my fingers. “I want to know what I have done to offend you. Whatever blunder I committed, I will strive to remedy it.”
It would help so much if I knew what he was talking about. The way he looked at me made it difficult to concentrate.
“Tell me,” he asked. He was standing too close. His voice was too intimate. And he was still looking at me with that warmth, as if I were someone special.
“What may I do to get back into your good graces?”
He stroked my hand. For some reason it felt more intimate than a kiss. My pulse sped up. This was ridiculous. If I didn’t put some distance between us, I might do something I would regret. If you said yes to a vampire, he heard “I surrender” and I had no intention of surrendering.
“You’ve done nothing to offend me.”
“Then why did you acknowledge Robart before me?”
What?
“You addressed him before you addressed me.”
I cleared my throat. “Just to be clear, you’re upset because I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you? In the ballroom just before we went to check on the car?”
“I understand that the circumstances of the summit prevent frank exchanges,” Arland said. “An appearance of propriety must be maintained and any hint of favoritism is to be avoided at all costs. But when one travels so far, one looks for the small things. A chance glance. A brief kindness, freely offered and gone unnoticed by all except its intended recipient. Some hint, some indication that he has not been forgotten. One might take an acknowledgment of a bitter rival before him, in public, as an indication of certain things.”
It dawned on me. His feelings were actually hurt.
“You haven’t been forgotten,” I told him and meant it. “I looked forward to seeing you. I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you, so I could get him to leave. If I didn’t, he would still be in the ballroom waiting for me to return.”
Arland smiled at me.
When they said a smile could launch a thousand ships, they had Arland in mind. Except in his case, that thousand ships would be an armada carrying an army of some of the best humanoid predators the Galaxy had managed to spawn ready to slaughter their enemy on the battlefield.
I wanted to exhale and back away slowly. But he was still holding my hand.
I pulled whatever will I could scrape together and made my voice sound casual. “Arland? Can I have my hand back?”
“My apologies.” He opened his fingers and let my hand slip back through. “It was quite forward of me.”
Judging by his self-satisfied smile, he didn’t have any regrets. He had wanted a reaction and he got one.
I made a mistake. I’d dealt with plenty of vampires before. Few months ago, when he helped Sean and me destroy the dahaka assassin, he’d all but said that he was interested in me. I hadn’t heard from him in months, but that changed nothing. Vampires tended to be infuriatingly single-minded.
I should’ve never invited him to come with me. I should’ve never left the inn with him. I kept making these rookie blunders. I had to get some sleep. It was a necessity at this point.
I began walking. The sooner we got to the inn, the better.
The street turned. The last house had no fence. It fell down about three weeks ago and the owners hadn’t gotten around to replacing it. We quietly slipped through the yard, crossed the main road to the wooded area, and started down the narrow trail that would open to the back of the inn.
“I’m glad you relied on me for assistance,” Arland said. “I once told you to call on me. I meant it. Any time you require it, I will be your shield.”
“Thank you. It’s very kind of you.”
I stepped onto the inn grounds. The magic flowed through me and I let out a quiet breath.
Ten minutes later I let Arland, Hardwir, and Nuan Cee’s niece into the ballroom. The inn had dimmed the lights and the big room was filled with a soothing warm glow. I opened the doorways and closed them after they passed through.
The floor of the ballroom was clean. No hint of gold and jewels remained. Where was Cookie?
I closed my eyes, concentrating. There he was, slumped in the corner. I walked over. The small fox curled into a ball on the floor, his bag under his head like a pillow. I nudged him gently.
“Cookie? Cookie?”
He opened his turquoise eyes and blinked, his face drowsy.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
“I can’t,” he yawned. “I have to find the emerald.”
“What kind of emerald?”
“A big one. The Green Eye. Very expensive.” His nose drooped. He looked exhausted. “If I don’t find it, I’ll be in trouble.”
I nudged the inn to check the floor. Nothing. The emerald wasn’t here.
“We’ll find it in the morning.” I took him by the hand and carefully helped him to his feet. “Come on. Off to bed.”
I led him to the door and watched him go up the stairs. He knocked on the upstairs door. Someone opened it and another fox ushered him inside.
I sealed the ballroom and dragged myself upstairs. I needed to take a shower, but the bed looked so comfortable.
Gertrude Hunt and I survived the first day. We dealt with a major crisis, we got through a big ceremony, and we managed to get everyone to bed without bloodshed. I patted the inn’s wall. “I’m so proud of you.”
The inn creaked slightly, the wood warm under my fingers.
I meant to sit down on my bed, but my legs must’ve been tired, because they decided to stop supporting my weight. I fell onto the covers, yawned, and passed out.
The inn woke me up at six thirty. I dreamed that Sean Evans came back. We were having a barbecue and he kept fighting with Orro over how to season the ribs. I lay in bed with my eyes open and looked at the wooden beams crossing over my ceiling, taking a mental tally of all my guests. Everyone was where they were supposed to be, except for George who was in the kitchen with Orro. The Arbiter and his people had the freedom of movement in the inn, with the exception of the guests’ private quarters. Each faction was secured by two doors. The outer doors opened to the ballroom. I had sealed those, but they would open at George’s request. The inner doors were controlled by the guests. George and his people would have to knock and ask permission to enter. Even though he was the Arbiter and paid my bills, I wouldn’t let him have complete access. The privacy of my guests was sacred.