Geder laughed. Behind the girl, the Tralgu chaperone remained impassive as a guard at a counting house. Geder moved toward a leather chair, but the girl slid to one side of her divan and tapped gently against the abandoned half, inviting him. Geder hesitated, then sat at her side, careful not to touch her. Her smile was made of sun and shadows, and it left Geder feeling both uncomfortably aroused and subtly mocked.
“Isn’t it awkward sharing a courtyard with Curtin Issandrian?” she asked.
“Not particularly,” Geder said. “Of course, he hasn’t even returned yet. I suppose it could be once he’s back. He might be a bit unpleasant to be near. Could be some conflict.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Sanna said. “Issandrian may be ignorant enough to keep company with traitors, but he knows a lion when it looks at him.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about that,” Geder said. Sanna’s expression invited him to smile along, and he found it very difficult not to. “I mean… I suppose he would.” He made a claw of his fingers and scratched at the air. “Grrr,” he said.
Sanna’s laughter brought her a degree nearer to him. She smelled of rosewater and musk. When her fingers brushed his arm, Geder’s throat felt oddly thick.
“Oh, I’m terribly thirsty. Aren’t you?” she asked.
“I am,” Geder said almost before he understood the question.
“Seribina?”
“Ma’am?” the Tralgu woman asked.
“Could you go fetch us some water?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
But she’s your chaperone, Geder thought, then bit back before he could say it. He was going to be alone with a woman. A woman of high blood was clearly arranging things so that she could spend a few minutes alone in his house with him. He felt the first insistent stirrings of an erection and ground his lip hard between his teeth to check it. The Tralgu woman moved for the door, as calm and stately as a ship in the ocean. Geder was torn between the impulse to let her leave and the one to call her back.
The issue was taken out of his hands.
“My lord,” the master of house said, appearing at the door just before the Tralgu reached it. “I am sorry to interrupt. Sir Darin Ashford has arrived and requests a moment of your time.”
“Ashford?” Sanna asked. The surprise in her voice made her sound like a different woman, and a more serious one. She looked at Geder with less coquetry and greater respect. “I didn’t know you were entertaining the ambassador.”
“Favor,” Geder said. Words seemed difficult to come by. “For a friend.”
The perfect skin went smooth. Geder had the sense—possibly accurate or possibly imagined—that some complex calculation was happening behind her deep black eyes.
“Well,” she said. “I can’t keep you from affairs of state. But say again that you’ll come to Father’s party?”
“I will,” Geder said, rising to his feet as she did. “I promise. I’ll be there.”
“I have witnesses,” Sanna said with a laugh and gestured to the servants. She gave her hand to him again, and Geder kissed it gently.
“Let me see you out,” he said.
“Why thank you, Baron Ebbingbaugh,” she said, offering her arm.
They walked together from the back of the mansion to the wide stone stairs that led down to her carriage, an old-fashioned design drawn by horses instead of slaves. Geder gave her up to the care of the footmen with a bone-deep regret and also relief. Sanna stepped up and let herself be seated behind a cascade of lace. The smell of rose and musk returned to him, but it was only an illusion or a particularly visceral memory. The horses clattered out to the courtyard. He looked past them to Curtin Issandrian’s empty mansion and a sense of unease trickled down his spine.
“You play a dangerous game, my lord,” an unfamiliar voice behind him said.
The man was a Firstblood with pale brown hair and an open, guileless expression. He wore riding leathers and a wool cloak entirely covered in patterned embroidery that seemed understated until Geder looked at it closely, and then seemed like a boast. Geder didn’t need to be told who he was. Sir Darin Ashford was his own introduction.
“My Lord Ambassador,” Geder said.
Ashford nodded, but his gaze was set farther out. To the courtyard.
“Lord Daskellin’s girl, isn’t she? Beautiful woman. I remember when she first entered society. She was all knees and elbows back then. Amazing the difference three years will make.”
“She was here to deliver her father’s invitation,” Geder said, defensive without knowing precisely what he was defending against.