Chapter Fourteen
Jasper arrived just as the sun slipped fully below the horizon, a bouquet of flowers he’d bought on a whim crushed against his chest, and his heart in his throat.
Did one simply knock on the door when invited to a house like this?
He didn’t know.
And he couldn’t rightly pace around out here until Libba arrived, either. Not because she was cross with him, which she was. But because he knew she was going to be late.
Deliberately late.
Just to vex him.
He wondered if she was wearing the red dress again and blinked at his warped reflection in the brass door knocker under his fingers.
He lifted it, trying to get a better view of his face in the ring, and then dropped it after that turned out to have been a poor idea for his general sense of confidence.
Thus, he had knocked. Unintentionally.
And had no choice but to do so again.
He took a step back and ran his fingers over the narrow, healing scratches on his lips, as though checking to make sure they were staying in place and not about to spring open again just as he was presented to the family inside.
He’d been healing faster than he anticipated, thanks to that salve. The swelling was gone now and the bruises were mostly yellow.
He didn’t fancy returning to his previous state. It was a thought that made him frown and glance around the landing to ensure no cats were squatting nearby, likely with names like Damage or Scrutiny, ready to do their worst.
Alas, the only cat was the one whose yawning mouth held the door knocker. A lion. And he only existed to warp Jasper’s reflection for the joy of sparking anxiety.
He took a bracing breath, catching a whiff of that cologne Ruby had made in the process.
This was the first time he’d worn it since the day he’d been given the vial.
He reckoned he needed all the help he could get, though now he wondered if he smelled too much like …
What was it Libba had said? Marzipan and Christmas.
He was doomed to make an ass of himself here tonight, wasn’t he?
The butler pulled the door open, just as a maid flashed by behind him, grabbing a bolt of white fur up in her arms before it could abscond into the night.
“Ah,” he said, eyeing the maid and the cat. “Good evening to you, Hubris.”
The butler paused, glancing over his shoulder at the cat and then back at Jasper, his thin mustache giving a twitch. “Mr. Townsend, I presume?” the butler asked. “I shall announce you.”
“You are a bad girl,” the maid was hissing, bouncing the cat on her hip like a toddler as she took it away. “You know that this is Brighton, not Galle. No shrews to torment out there!”
“Well, maybe a few,” Jasper answered, startling both servants. He cleared his throat apologetically. “Yes, go ahead and introduce me. My apologies, I am not accustomed to … gentility.”
“Of course, sir,” said the butler, who honestly looked like the type of chap it’d be worthwhile to get a pint with, easy and relatable and not at all stupidly rich. “Just into the hall, if you please.”
“Ah, Mr. Townsend!” came the terrifyingly brisk voice of Agatha Templeton-Rath as he turned into the reception room.
She was standing with her niece, the shorter, darker young woman from the pier, fussing over a feather that wasn’t lying properly in the younger woman’s hair. Mrs. Templeton-Rath would pat it into place, only for it to spring back up like a weed.
“We’ll just say this is the fashion back home,” Miss Rath told her aunt. “Oh, flowers!”
“Erm, yes,” said Jasper, remembering the bouquet crammed in his fist. He jutted them out, panic thrumming in his chest at having forgotten he was holding them. “Have them!”
Miss Rath blinked, clearly a little taken aback, but accepted the bouquet. “I’ll just hand these off to be put in a vase, shall I?” she said, far too kindly to not be laughing inside.
“That was kind of you,” the matriarch said once they were alone. “We’ve a lovely dinner planned with dishes from the islands that we think you will enjoy. We wanted to extend our thanks, again, for what you did.”
“I found out afterward,” he said miserably, “that cats are actually very deft swimmers.”
“Yes, well,” said the lady with a titter and a shrug. “They certainly think they are. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have gone poorly without your intervention. Is Princess Xandine not with you?”
He shook his head. “No. We are still becoming acquainted. But she will arrive shortly, I am certain.”
He wasn’t certain.
And he suspected this woman knew that, because she immediately offered him a seat and a drink with exactly the same air of sympathetic kindness that her niece had worn a few moments earlier.
He drained the drink, which he knew was probably the wrong thing to do, and then frowned down at the ice chips as the lady of the house retreated back to chambers unknown, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his drink.
Libba was going to flay him if she found out he’d given flowers to the wrong damned woman. Ayomide Rath likely had a sizable inheritance of her own, of course, but he was already juggling two women. He did not need a third.
“Welcome, Mr. Townsend!” came the jovial voice of the master of the house, who entered the little salon next to the dining room with his daughter on his arm. “I’m so pleased you’ve joined us. Oh, and you’re healing up nicely!”
“Papa,” chided the young woman. “Welcome to our home, Mr. Townsend.”
Jasper forced himself to look at her.
She was still … yes, still a woman. Her hair was still brown. Her eyes were too.
She was very, very pale, he thought. And overly thin. She looked a little sickly, truth be told. But her gown was very fine, in a celebratory periwinkle.
“Mr. Templeton-Rath,” he said, standing and looking about for somewhere to put his empty glass. “And Miss … I … Damn it.”
“I’ll take it,” said the young woman, chuckling softly as she came forward to take the glass, as though it were a perfectly natural thing for monied ladies to handle their own drink service rather than calling for a maid. “I hear you’ve already greeted Hubris again.”
“Oh,” he said wearily. “On the daily.”
That made John Templeton-Rath laugh, his gloved hand coming up to rub over his lips.
Miss Templeton-Rath nodded in understanding. “She has been trying to escape onto the beach since the day we arrived. One might think she doesn’t recall falling into the sea, but I expect she remembers it perfectly well and now believes herself immune to the depths.”
“She is well named,” put in her father. “All my daughter’s pets are.”
“I thought they were ship cats,” Jasper confessed, his shoulders easing a little as his drink was refreshed and pushed back into his palm. “Ratters for the voyage.”
“They were,” said Mr. Templeton-Rath. “The genesis of every pet my child adopts. I’m just happy she stopped trying to adopt the rats themselves.”
“Rats are terribly clever,” said the heiress, her eyes warming at her father. “They just don’t live very long, and I’m horribly sentimental about my dear ones.”
“Yes, never mind the diseases and so on,” said the import magnate with a chuckle. “Where are your mother and Ayo? Where is your Uncle Paul?”
“I do not know, Father,” she said gently. “I’ve been with you.”
He gave her a mocking frown. “Yes, fine. You still usually know.”
Miss Templeton-Rath shook her head and accepted her own flute of a bubbling liquid from a servant who had soundlessly glided into the room. She thanked the servant and took her first sip, moving to sit across from Jasper on a settee. “Do you have any pets, Mr. Townsend?”
Jasper blinked, forgetting he was, in fact, there to speak about himself. “Not presently,” he admitted. “I had a darling terrier when I was a lad, though. And my best mate’s family has a pet pig.”
“‘A pig’!” she exclaimed, touching her cheeks. “Oh, that’s unusual. Is it well behaved?”
“Is it humongous?” Mr. Templeton-Rath put in, stirring his own drink and lingering behind the sofa. “And smelly?”
Jasper shook his head, chuckling. “She was the runt of a litter and doesn’t seem to be getting much larger, though she’s still young,” he said. “She does tricks: can sit on command, shake your hand, and jump over obstacles. She’s good a good nature to her.”
“I have heard they are intelligent,” said Miss Templeton-Rath thoughtfully, tilting her head, “but I wouldn’t have thought to that degree. I would very much like to meet this pig.”
Jasper took a quick sip of his drink, cursing himself internally.
This woman could never set foot in Starling’s Rest. It would bring the entire ruse crumbling down within seconds if she spoke to a single Starling or any of their orbiting intimates.
“I’ll see if I can arrange it,” he managed to lie.
She opened her mouth to respond but was cut short by the rest of the family appearing in the room. The lady of the house was flanked on either side by her niece, and a tall, dark-skinned man who must have been Miss Rath’s father.
“Ah,” said Mr. Templeton-Rath. “This is my brother, Paul Rath. He is our steward.”
“Your brother,” Jasper repeated, stupidly.
The tall, dark-skinned man grinned widely. “We have different mothers,” he provided. “But I think the resemblance is there.”
Mr. Templeton-Rath nodded, chuckling along.
“Rath,” Jasper said, continuing to just echo words at them like a damned parakeet. “I didn’t realize there was a separate Rath family. Not until I’d met you.”
“Yes, the Raths and Templetons were business partners long before we became a single family,” Mrs. Templeton-Rath said, her posture straightening with pride. “My union with John only cemented what was already there.”
“And it’s not every day a man gets to take his wife’s name,” Mr. Templeton-Rath added, crossing the room to kiss his wife’s hand. “I am simply lucky that way.”
Both young women made a noise of distaste at the display.
“Are we still awaiting the other guest?” Mr. Rath asked, glancing around. “I see no princess in our midst.”
“Then you are not looking hard enough,” his daughter said, batting her lashes at him, which won a round of laughter from the family.