At the very least, her mother would exile her from the family.
No one in Saxony would accept that an heir and chief of security had been given access to the entire Bullstow network, which would be exactly how the media would frame it.
Tristan sighed, spinning back around. “You’ve decided that this is the end of share time. I always think that this time I’ll get a meal, but all you ever toss me is more scraps.”
The sign for Masson’s Vineyard came into view, taller than Tristan, wider than one of his Cruz trucks. A woman’s hand had been painted on one side of it, embracing a cluster of red grapes, the green Masson coat of arms taking up half the sign. Tristan turned down the black-paved road, recently swept and scrubbed, just wide enough for two cars to traverse.
Lila might not have wasted much time on the lake, but she had been to the vineyard dozens of times. Senator Dubois had invited her to tag along with Jewel on countless occasions, no doubt trying to make a match between her and his matron’s relations. The family held exclusive balls at the vineyard during the season, and everyone lucky enough to get an invitation believed the house was worth the trip.
Even her mother.
Luckily, the Massons had never seen fit to wall off the vineyard. They employed a small complement of militia in a little tower adjacent to the house, supplemented only when an heir was in residence or when the family held an event. Few guards would be around at ten o’clock on a Thursday morning, though, and Lila and Tristan weren’t close enough to the house to see it as anything more than a pile of stone and glass in the distance.
It was relaxing to see the vineyard, each row of vines perfectly straight on either side of the road, like lines of soldiers standing at attention before the house. The small-limbed vines wrapped around trellis after trellis as though they had become miniature trees in their pairing. Just two months before, clusters of blue grapes had hung toward the bottom of those limbs like spiders lying in wait, ready to drop from their perches and charge all who came near like eager, poisonous assassins. Though they had been picked in the harvest, she glimpsed a forgotten cluster from time to time, hidden from rushed hands.
>
“What do you think Simon’s doing now?” Lila asked, wrapping her coat around herself more tightly. Grass and mud coated her black boots, and it would only get worse when she left the road. “Preparing the vineyard and winery for tours? Getting things ready for the season?”
Tristan shrugged. “I don’t care much about rich people’s things.”
Lila frowned and squinted into the distance. Up ahead, a crew of slaves dressed in jeans and boots stooped over each side of the road. A parked cart had been filled with small crates of flowers, orange pansies and small yellow blooms she could not identify.
A man in a pair of overalls looked up at his people, focusing alternately on his own work and his crew. He had a stern face, yet it was not cruel. Lila wondered if he was a slave or a servant. Perhaps he was just a restless, highborn Masson who had successfully petitioned for freedom from a desk, like Johnny Beaulieu, the Randolph head gardener. Though younger than Lila, he had assumed control of the entire groundskeeping staff for every Randolph compound and constantly traveled among them.
Behind the crew master, she glimpsed Simon, snatching up a container of yellow blooms from the cart. He still looked young and scrawny to Lila’s eyes, but at seventeen, he had begun to acquire the body and height of a man. He would have been scrawnier if he still lived on the Wilson estate. Six months of labor had filled him out somewhat, cut muscles into his arms, given his shoulders a stretch, and tanned his skin.
Alex had visited him over the summer. Happy was how she described him, considering everything that had happened.
“There he is,” she said, pointing at Simon in his jeans and dark brown t-shirt, marred with dirt and sweat and grass.
Tristan slapped her arm down. “I know his face. I’ll bring him to you. Don’t stand in the middle of the road like an idiot.”
Lila whipped her peacoat and turned away, wandering between two rows of vines, absently pulling off leaves as she passed.
Soon, a laugh erupted behind her, and Simon sprinted forward, picked her up, and twirled her around. His frame had indeed filled out, and he was more muscular than he appeared under his work clothes. “Lila, you’ve come to visit.”
“No, she hasn’t come to visit,” Tristan grumbled, leaning against one of the metal trellises. “I told you that.”
Simon put her down gently. “A visit’s a visit.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek.
The contact lasted several seconds too long.
“Alex said that you were doing well here,” she said, pulling away.
“I’m trying. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be at the mines. I know that. Alex does, too. You’re a good friend, Lila. I just wish I could pay you back somehow.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “I bet you do.”
Simon’s face fell somewhat at Tristan’s tone. “Who is he? New money?”
“Far from it. Let’s go for a walk. Alone.”
“Bullshit. I paid off the crew master for this. Cost me more than it was worth, too.”
Simon’s gaze passed back and forth between Lila and Tristan. He then thrust his fists into his jean pockets. “You really aren’t here for a visit, are you? What’s this about?”
“The club raid,” Lila replied. “We never really talked about it. You’d already been charged and sentenced by the time I got back from La Porte. It was too late for me to do much but keep you from Chairwoman LeBeau. Tell me what happened.”