Page 189 of Nine-Tenths
"Off you go with Lady Isobel, boyo," Auntie Pattie says. "I have actual work to do, unlike you lucky lot. I’ll fetch you for lunch."
"Uh, okay." I drop a kiss on her cheek, and scramble to catch up with Lady Isobel, who is already halfway down the gallery and walking with all the confidence of someone who is used to getting things exactly her way.
Not arrogant. Just so sure that it comes off as dismissive.
I won't be like that, I promise myself.
"And do you have a job I'm keeping you from?" I ask Lady Isobel when I catch up. She tosses an amused glance at me.
"My job is to see to Raibeart Rìgh's happiness and ease."
"Then shouldn't we be, you know, in there then? With our…?" I let it hang, wondering if she'll give me a term.
"No," she says instead.Damn, foiled."They'll send for us if that changes. No need to fash yourself."
I’m not going to connect with Lady Isobel the way I did with Laura Secord.
Oh, Laura.
Man.
I haven't thought about Laura in weeks.
I want to call her.
I want to be herfriend.
But Simcoe.
That's another thing I can't have because of him. I can't build a friendship with someone amazing, and clever, and insightful because…This sucks.
Lady Isobel leads me into a comfortably plush sitting room filled with jumbled groupings of furniture that look expensive but mismatched, probably cast offs from renovations. This place must have seen hundreds of updates in its time. A few other people are already seated in little groups, chatting and clutching cups. Everyone looks up and gives a respectful nod when we enter, but nothing so ceremonial that it makes me think there's some sort of protocol for greeting a royal Favorite.
Thank fuck.
Lady Isobel leads me to a little kitchenette, and asks me what she can make for me.
"Coffee," I say, and then, when she steps up to, honest to god, the most orgasmically beautiful fucking espresso machine I've ever seen in my goddamned life, I add: "Oh no, no, no, please.Please, allow me."
It starts to snow while I'm impressing the king's hoard with my latte art. When Auntie Pattie pulls me away from my adoring audience for lunch in the super-fancy canteen, the world outside is slowly acquiring a soft, calm blanket of white.
We catch up on family gossip, managing to entirely avoid talking about the exact reason we’re both sitting at this particular table, until Auntie Pattie asks, out of nowhere: "Do you love him?"
Except not entirely out of nowhere, because I'm staring at my ring, watching the way it catches on the sunlight filtered through the whispering snowflakes.
"More every day," I confess.
"Even with all these… curve balls thrown at you?"
I drag my eyes back to hers. "As much as it pisses me off to be flat footed once a week, every week, Dav was smart to string out the revelations."
"Yeah?"
"I don't like being told what to do."
Auntie Pattie snorts.
"You grow up with twin older siblings, then tell me how sick of being bossed around you'd be." I cup my mug and tap the band of the ring against the ceramic. It's a soothing sound. "So it's… it's kind of nice. The revelations themselves aren't nice—actually, sometimes they are, but what I mean is… I'm not explaining it well." I take a breath to recalibrate. "Dav's first Favorite, Charlotte, he tells me she was the kind of person who loved to learn from books, right? I'm the kind of person who learns from doing—walking through the field, touching the vines, seeing the relationships between the environmental factors for myself."
