A Caress of Twilight (Merry Gentry #2)(4)

The perfect smile never faltered, but his eyes flicked behind me, and the eyes weren't smiling. The eyes were worried. His gaze kept flicking to Doyle, and it seemed an effort not to look behind him at Rhys. Jeffery Maison was very unhappy about the two guards being in the room. It wasn't just the feeling that most men got around my guards, the feeling that if it came to a fight, they'd lose badly. No, Mr. Maison talked about privacy; after all I was a private detective, not a public one. He'd been so unhappy that it was tempting to have Kitto bounce out from the beneath the desk and yell "Boo." I didn't do it. It wouldn't have been professional. But I amused myself with the thought while I tried to get Jeffery Maison to stop harping on the guards and actually mention something that might be job related. 
Only when Doyle had said in his deep rolling voice that it was an interview with either all of us or none of us had Maison gone quiet. Too quiet, he'd sat and smiled but told me nothing.
Oh, he'd talked. "I've never seen anyone whose true hair color was Sidhe Scarlet. It's like your hair is made of rubies."
I'd smiled, nodded, tried to get down to business. "Thank you, Mr. Maison, but what brings you to the Grey Detective Agency?"
He opened that perfectly detailed mouth and tried one last time. "I was instructed to speak with you in private, Ms. NicEssus."
"I prefer Ms. Gentry. NicEssus means daughter of Essus. It's more a title than a name."
The smile was nervous, and the eyes looked self-deprecating, golly shucks ma'am. It had the feel of a look he practiced in the mirror. "Sorry, I'm not accustomed to dealing with faerie princesses." He flashed me the full smile, the one that filled his eyes with good, clean humor, and a deeper flash of something else, something I could pursue or ignore. That one look was enough. I was pretty sure how Jeffery was paying for the designer suits.
"Princesses are rather rare these days," I said, smiling, trying to be pleasant. But truth was, I hadn't gotten much sleep and I was tired. If we could just get Jeffery to go away, maybe we could have a coffee break.
"The green of your jacket brings out the green and gold in your eyes. I've never seen anyone with tricolored irises before," he said, and the smile warmed.
Rhys laughed from his corner, not even bothering to try to turn it into a cough. Rhys was as versed in surviving at court as I was. "I've got a tricolored iris, but you haven't told me how pretty I am." Rhys was right; it was time to stop being polite.
"I didn't know I was supposed to." He looked confused, a genuine, unpracticed look at last.
I uncrossed my legs and leaned forward, hands clasped on my desk. Kitto's hand slid up my calf, but he stopped at my knee. We'd had a talk about what the limits were if he hid under the desk, and the limits were my knees. Above that line and he had to go home. "Mr. Maison, we've delayed our day and rearranged a number of appointments to accommodate you. We have been polite and professional, and complimenting me on my beauty is neither polite nor professional."
He looked uncertain, but his eyes were probably the most sincere they'd been since he stepped through the door. "I thought it was considered polite to compliment the fey on their appearance. I was told that it was a deadly insult to ignore a fey when they are obviously trying to be attractive."
I stared at him. He'd finally done something truly interesting. "Most people don't know that much about fey culture, Mr. Maison. How is it that you know?"
"My employer wanted to be sure that I would give no offense. Was I supposed to compliment the men, as well? She didn't tell me I was supposed to do that."
She. I knew his employer was female. It was the most information I'd gotten from him the entire time he'd been sitting across from me. "Who is she?" I asked.
He looked at Rhys, at me, eyes flicking to Doyle, and then finally back to me. "I am under express orders to tell only you, Ms. Gentry. I... I don't know what to do."Well, that was honest. I felt a little sorry for him; Jeffery was obviously not good at thinking on his feet. And that was being charitable.
"Why don't you call your employer," Doyle said. Jeffery jumped at the sound of that deep, rich voice. I didn't jump; I shivered. His voice was tremblingly low, a sound that made my insides quiver. I let out a low breath, as Doyle said, "Tell your employer what's happened, and maybe she can come up with a solution."
Rhys laughed again. Doyle gave him a less-than-friendly look, and Rhys stopped laughing, though he had to cover his face with his hand and cough. I didn't care. I had the feeling that if we made fun of Jeffery, we'd be here all damn day.
I turned the desk phone around to face him. I pressed the code to get him an outside line and handed the buzzing receiver to him. "Call your boss, Jeffery. We all want to get on with our day, right?" I'd used his first name deliberately. Some people respond to the respect of titles, Mr. and Ms., but some people need bullying to get them moving, and one way to bully is to use their first name.
He took the receiver and punched buttons. He said, "Hi, Marie, yes, I need to talk to her." A few seconds of silence, then he sat a little straighter, and said, "I'm sitting across from her right now. She has two bodyguards with her, and they refuse to leave. Do I talk in front of them or just leave?"
We all waited as he made small hmm noises, yes, no; finally he hung the phone back up. He sat back in his chair, hands folded in his lap, a slightly worried look on his handsome face. "My employer says I may tell you her request but not her name, not yet anyway."
I raised eyebrows and made a helpful face. "Tell us."
He gave one last nervous glance at Doyle, then let out a long breath. "My employer is in a rather delicate situation. She wishes to talk with you but says that your..." He frowned, groping for an appropriate word. It looked like it might take a while so I helped him.
"My guards."
He smiled, obviously relieved. "Yes, yes, your guards would have to know sooner or later, so sooner it is." He seemed inordinately pleased with himself for that one small sentence. No, thinking wasn't Jeffery's forte.
"Why doesn't she just come into the office and speak with us?"
The happy smile faded, and he looked perplexed again. Puzzling Jeffery slowed things down; I wanted to speed things up. The trouble was, he was so easily puzzled, I couldn't figure out how to avoid it.
"My employer is afraid of the publicity surrounding you, Ms. Gentry."
I didn't have to ask him what he meant. At that very moment a pack of reporters, both print and film, was camped out in front of the office building. We kept the drapes closed at the apartment for fear of telephoto lenses. 
How could the media resist a royal prodigal daughter coming home after being given up for dead? That alone would have earned some uncomfortable scrutiny, but add a huge dose of romance, and the media couldn't get enough of me, or should I say, us? The public story was I'd come out of hiding to find a husband among the royal court. The traditional way for a royal of the high court to find a spouse was to sleep with them. Then if she became pregnant, she married; if not, she didn't. The fey don't have many children; the royals have even fewer, so a pairing, even a love match, that doesn't produce children isn't good enough. If you don't breed, you don't get to marry.
Andais had ruled the Unseelie Court for over a thousand years. My father had once said that being queen meant more to her than anything else in the world. Yet, she'd promised to step down if either Cel or I would just produce an heir. Like I said, children are very important to the sidhe.
That was the public story. It hid a lot, like the fact that Cel had tried to kill me and was even now being punished for it. There was lots the media didn't know, and the queen wanted it kept that way, so we kept it that way.
My aunt told me that she wanted an heir of her own bloodline, even if that blood was tainted like mine. She once tried to drown me as a child because I wasn't magic enough and thus, to her, I wasn't really sidhe, though I wasn't really human either. It was good to keep my aunt happy; her happy meant fewer people died.
"I can understand your employer not wanting to get caught up in the media circus outside," I said.
Jeffery gave me that brilliant smile again, but his eyes were relieved not lustful. "Then you'll agree to meet with my employer someplace more private."
"The princess will not meet your employer alone anywhere," Doyle said.
Jeffery shook his head. "No, I understand that now. My employer simply wants to avoid the media."
"Short of using spells that are illegal against the media," I said, "I don't see how we could possibly avoid them all."
Jeffery was back to frowning again. I sighed. I just wanted Jeffery to go away at this point. Surely the next client of the day would be less confusing, Goddess willing. My boss Jeremy Grey had a nonrefundable retainer. We had more business than we knew what to do with. Maybe I could just tell Jeffery Maison to go home.
"I'm not allowed to say my employer's name out loud. She said that would mean something to you."
I shrugged. "I'm sorry, Mr. Maison, but it doesn't."
His frown deepened. "She was very sure that it would."
I shook my head. "I am sorry, Mr. Maison." I stood up. Kitto's hand slid down my leg so that he could hide himself completely in the little cave that my desk made. He didn't melt in sunlight, contrary to folklore, but he was agoraphobic.