Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [94]
Richard didn’t answer.
Kaldar’s face jerked. “When I found out, I asked Gustave about it, and he looked at me like I’d sprouted a water lily on my head. She was twenty-one then, and when Gustave was twenty-four, he’d taken over the family.”
“It’s not right,” Richard said.
Kaldar shrugged. “She works hard, Richard, and the Hand just pulled the rug out from under her feet. If this blueblood makes her happy, I’m all for it. She hasn’t gone out with a man in three years, since that asshole Tobias. Now, that isn’t right. Sure, the timing stinks. Trust me, if the blueblood bastard fucks up, I’ll be the first in line to slit his throat. But until then, he’s her guest, and you and I will be making him feel welcome.”
“And if she falls for him and he leaves her? Last time I looked, Weird nobles weren’t in the market for exile brides.”
“Then at least she would’ve lived a bit,” Kaldar said. “She’s allowed her mistakes. You and I both made plenty. We’re the big fucking rock around her neck. She can’t leave until the family is on its feet again, and by then she will be your age. Let her have some fun. She could die tomorrow. We could all die tomorrow.”
Kaldar walked off down the stairs and turned left, angling toward a smaller building. A few moments later Richard’s retreating steps told William he had gone inside.
So they knew Cerise liked him, and Kaldar, at least, was all for it. William made a mental note to find out about Tobias.
William gave Richard a few seconds to make his way from the door, crossed the front porch, and dropped into the grass, pressing against the wall, hidden from the sentries.
He heard a tiny noise and turned toward the thicket of ickberry bushes flanking the cypresses. A long shoot covered with thorns shivered, then another.
William leaned forward. Heat surged through his muscles, making him fast and focused.
The shrubs shook, as if taunting him, and a big square head thrust through the leaves. Two brown eyes fixed on William from across the clearing.
Idiot dog.
Cough pushed through the brush and trotted toward him, not so much walking but falling from paw to paw. If the lookouts decided to follow Cough’s course, they’d run right into him.
William bared his teeth. Go away.
Cough kept coming, a lopsided canine grin on his furry face and not a thought in his head. If the dog could hum, he’d be singing “La-la-la!” in tune with his footsteps.
Cough sauntered over to him.
William pressed against the wall. No bullets. So far, so good.
Cough clenched, and vomited something chunky onto the grass.
Terrific.
The big dog sat on his haunches and looked at William with a perplexed expression on his face.
“Well, eat it back up,” William hissed. “Don’t waste it.”
Cough gave a tiny whine.
“I’m not eating your puke.”
Cough panted at him.
“No.”
A lean shape leaped off the porch and ran past them into the woods. William caught a glimpse of dark hair and small brown boots. Lark. Why would a child be sneaking out into the woods in the middle of the night? Was she meeting “the monster” there?
Cough got up and trotted after her.
Good idea. William peeled himself from the wall and sprinted across the clearing. As he passed the tree with the sentry, he looked up and saw the kid asleep between the branches, the rifle leaning on his lap.
Finally something was going his way.
EIGHTEEN
WILLIAM glided through the grove. The cypresses gave way to the Edge pines. Huge pine trunks surrounded him, black and soaring, like a sea of masts that belonged to ships sunken deep under the carpet of blue leaf moss.
Dense thickets crowded the pines, punctuated by the patches of rust ferns. Stunted swamp willows with startling pale bark protruded through the brush like white wax candles. This wasn’t his Wood. This was an old treacherous place, a garish decay and new life mixed into one, and William felt uneasy.
The dog by his side didn’t much care for the wood either. The sleepy-eyed, good-natured idiot had raised his ears, and his brown eyes scanned the woods with open suspicion.