Masquerades - Kate Novak [112]
Olive pressed her ear against several doors without hearing Victor's or Luer's voice. Then, from a room just ahead, she heard the croamarkh shouting. Victor had left the door open, so Olive peered inside. Luer Dhostar sat at a desk; his son stood before him, receiving a paternal dressing down.
"In the sewers! Gond's gears! What were you thinking? You could have been killed! "You are a Dhostar, not some cheap hero from the street plays. You hire people to take risks for you, then you stay away from those people. That way, when they make mistakes, you don't suffer directly."
When they make mistakes? Olive wondered. What mistakes?
"Anyone could have set off that trap," Victor replied. "You can't blame Alias because a halfling couldn't resist handling things."
He's blamed me for picking up that mask! Olive thought with a huff. What a little rat.
Just inside the open door was a large stuffed displacer beast mounted rampant, its forepaws and tentacles batting the air. Lord Luer or one of his ancestors was quite the accomplished hunter. Olive slipped into the library, positioning herself behind the trophy beast.
"I hired this woman to take care of the Night Masks, not drag you on dangerous jaunts into the underworld. It's bad enough you've been neglecting your duties-"
"I have not been neglecting my duties," Victor snapped in a low growl. "There isn't a single obligation to you, the family business, or Westgate that I have not fulfilled."
Luer Dhostar drummed his fingers on his desktop. "First you champion her acting friends in front of the rabble," he accused his son. "Then you spend last night's
cruise almost exclusively in her company, time you might have spent with your peers, men and women of your own rank. Now I find you've been diving into sewers with her. That is not the life of a Dhostar."
"No, the life of a Dhostar is all cold figures and hard cash. There's no room in it for honor or courage," Victor taunted, stepping forward and wringing his shirt sleeve out on the accounting books spread out before his father, leaving puddles in the blue ink.
Lord Luer turned several shades of red, though Olive couldn't be sure whether he was more angered by his son's words or his reckless disregard for bookkeeping. For a moment it seemed as if Victor, faced with his father's apoplectic wrath, showed a moment of fear, a recognition that he had gone too far, for he backed away suddenly from his father. In the next moment, however, the young man's back stiffened, and he stood his ground.
Several moments of icy silenced followed, then Victor said, "I've issued Alias and her companion an invitation to the masquerade ball."
"And you expect the other noble families to accept her because you keep dragging her into their presence?" Luer said with a laugh.
"I don't care about the other families. I expect you to honor her for the service she's done us. She's discovered the Faceless's lair for you. Within a few days she may have his identity."
"That's what I've paid her for. I am not required to reward her success with invitations to socialize with her betters," Luer growled. "Since you have so injudiciously invited her, I suppose there is nothing I can do. Welcome her to the ball, introduce her as your guest, dance with her. I will not be there. I will not watch my son cavorting with a common adventuress or seem to give my approval with my presence."
"Father, you cannot mean that. You are blowing this all out of proportion. I haven't forgotten my rank or hers. I am simply extending a courtesy to a very useful employee. I assure you I have no intentions of forming an alliance beneath my station."
Funny