“Commander Sutton isn’t miserable. She and her husband enjoy fighting with one another. Sometimes people want more from life than a series of lovers.”
“Why do you have to turn it into a contract, then?”
“You would get hung up on that. It’s not a business contract. It’s an emotional one. I get that you’re upset, Lila, but—”
“Upset? You don’t know the meaning of the word. My life is over, Jewel, don’t you understand that? For what? A man? Your man? A man you’ll cast aside in a few years once you get bored, then use the angst as inspiration for a series of paintings? Of course, I shouldn’t be upset at all.”
Jewel laid her head against the cushions. “Sometimes I forget how selfish you can be. You think you’re better than her, but you’re not. At least Mother wept for me.”
“Wept?” Lila snorted. It was harder to imagine her mother weeping than Jewel giving a competent speech before the High Council of Judges.
“I can see that even now you do not understand. I shouldn’t have to point out what should be plain. You’re not the only one whose life is ruined, but you’re so full of your own problems that you don’t see anyone else’s. You didn’t even stop to think about what I have lost, what my Louis has lost. Pardon me if I don’t have any more tears to spare for you right now.”
Lila licked her lips, her bluster gone. “I’m sorry.”
Jewel straightened her shoulders, inclining her head.
“Your life isn’t over, though. You could still have a house full of children. You’re prime. Take other lovers. If you just found someone—”
“Don’t say it,” Jewel interrupted, putting her hand up in the air. “You wouldn’t understand the rest of that sentence anyway, and I’ll only get mad at you again.”
“My apologies,” Lila said, but only because her sister looked so miserable.
“What a fine pair we make. Neither of us got what we wanted in the end.”
Lila had no idea how to respond. “It’s not all bad. You’ll get to spend more time in your studio now. Mother will likely goad me into having so many children that you’ll move into an empty heir’s home, just for the quiet. You’ll have plenty of nieces and nephews to occupy your time.”
Jewel gave a strange, strangled sort of sound, a cross between a laugh and a cry.
Lila squeezed her shoulder and took it as a cue to escape.
Chapter 4
Lila settled into her seat at her father’s table, shifting on the golden-upholstered cushion. The craftsman had fashioned the chair from pale ash, shaping the legs into curving stems and carving roses along the side. The table mirrored it, a beautiful antique that Bullstow had likely owned for at least a century.
A servant in a golden coat and breeches poured hot chocolate into china mugs. He placed a tray of chocolate chip cookies on the table, the crockery clinking as it touched. Leaving the kettle behind, he bowed himself from the room.
The suite door snicked from far away, audible in the silence.
Neither Lila nor her father touched the cookies.
Lemaire sat at the table like an aging warrior only recently returned from war, still muscular and full of life, filling out his white coat and breeches. The hue brought out the silver in his short beard and hair.
Lila ignored his stare. She looked over his shoulder through the large open window, turning away from the sweet scent of chocolate. Even at the center of Bullstow, she could hear the protestors chanting at the gate, shouting something incomprehensible about the Holguíns and Oskar Kruger. The men of Bullstow ignored them, walking to and fro several stories below, all dressed in their coats and breeches. Some wore the black of the Saxony Senate, others the burgundy of New Bristol. Others had donned the colors of their respective cities, early arrivals for the weekend’s festivities. They swarmed in and out of various marble buildings in muted voices, trying to finish their senate business before the Closing Ceremony.
They only had two days left.
She only had two days left.
Her father’s chair creaked. “Lila, about what you said last time we spoke—”
“Is that why you asked me to lunch?”
“No.”
“Good, because I really don’t want to talk about that right now.”
“Fine. Perhaps you’d like to talk about the oracle instead,” he said, interlacing his fingers.