Cerulean Sins - Laurell K. Hamilton [159]
The banquet table was both beautifully—and oddly—arranged. It gleamed with golden flatware, and the gold picked up the delicate gold pattern in the white fine-boned china. There were gold napkin rings around white linen napkins. The tablecloth was triple layered, one long and white that nearly dragged the floor, a gold edge of leaves and flowers embroidered around its hem. The middle layer was a delicate gold lace. The top was a different layer of gold—white and gold—as if someone had taken gold paint and dabbed it sponge-like on white linen.
The chairs had white and gold cushioned seats and richly carved backs in a dark, dark wood. The table sat like a gleaming island in the midst of the gaslit dark. But two things confused me. First, there were way more golden utensils at each place than I knew what to do with. What the hell do you use a tiny two-tined fork for anyway? It was set at the top of the plate, so it was either for seafood, salad, dessert, or something I hadn’t thought of. I was hoping for seafood or dessert, since I thought I knew which fork was for salad. Having never been to a formal vampire banquet, I tried not to speculate on other possible uses for the two-tined fork.
Secondly, there were a number of complete place settings on the floor. Each setting had a white linen napkin spread under it, like miniature picnics. The place settings on the floor were spaced between the chair settings, so there was room to pull the chairs in and out. It was . . . odd.
I stood there in my black and royal blue gown with its faint sparkles of deep blue, tapping the toe of my black high heel, trying to figure out why there were plates on the floor.
Jean-Claude glided through the long black drapes that covered the entrance between this room and the smaller adjacent chamber. Everyone was mingling in the other room. I hated mingling under any circumstances, even at normal dinner parties. But tonight was like small talk, combat style. Everything had double or triple meanings. Everyone was trying to be subtly insulting. All so polite, so back-stabbing, so painful. My small talk skills were pretty limited, and among Musette and her crew, I was unarmed. I’d needed a break, before I started breaking things for real. At least Musette’s underage pomme de sang was missing from tonight’s festivities. We’d been told the girl had been sent back to Europe because her presence seemed to upset me so. My guess was Musette just didn’t want to lose her toy, if things went badly.
Asher slipped through all that blackness like a golden vision, but he didn’t glide after Jean-Claude, he hurried. Musette wasn’t entirely ready to believe that Asher was truly ours. Since I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he was either, it was hard for her not to smell a lie on me, even though it wasn’t exactly a lie. I should never have left Asher on his own, but I was tired. Tired of vampire politics. Tired of digging out from problems that I didn’t start, and didn’t truly understand.
“Ma petite, our guests are asking after you.”
“I’ll just bet they are.”
Jean-Claude did that long, slow, graceful blink that usually meant he was trying to figure out what I’d meant with a bit of slang or sarcasm. I used to think the blink was to show off his impossibly long eyelashes, but trust him to make something enticing out of what for anyone else would have been an irritating habit.
“Musette really is asking after you,” Asher said, and he imitated her voice, “Where is your new beloved? Has she abandoned you so soon?” His pale blue eyes flashed white, showing that edge of panic that was just below the surface.
“It is not like you to wander off on such an important and potentially dangerous occasion. What is the matter, ma petite?”
“Oh, I don’t know, an international terrorist following me around, the vampire council back in town,