Chapter Three #4
And yet . . . he needed something from her. When she worked for Minstead back in Strall, she heard him say that every favor was a bargaining chip, and while she might hate the man with every fiber of her being, there was no denying that he knew how to bargain.
“And what’s in it for me?”
Arden fell quiet, but Mavis could practically hear his mind turning. “What do you want?” he asked.
Mavis wanted a good many things, but admitting to that felt like baring a vulnerability, and Arden had seen far too many of hers as it was. “It doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “You have nothing to offer.”
A flare of his nostrils was the only sign that the barb affected Arden, but it was enough to ignite an ember of shame in her belly. Not enough to make her apologize for it, but uncomfortable all the same.
“Nine marks before Thaddeus.” Arden’s expression turned thoughtful. “That’s a lot of money—enough for a girl like you to retire on.”
“We’ve been over this already,” she told him, trying to ignore the way he said a girl like you, the way the words prickled over her skin like a rash. “What I do with my money isn’t any of your business.”
“Unless it isn’t your money at all.” He closed the distance between them once more. “You’re working for someone else.”
Mavis didn’t confirm that, but she couldn’t deny it either. She thought she kept careful control over her expression, but Arden must have seen something, because a small, triumphant smile ghosted over his lips, like he knew he’d scored a point he desperately needed.
Before he could push further, a muffled voice sounded through the doorway, coming from the hallway.
“Delphinia?”
Arden was close enough that Mavis felt his body tense at that name in Thaddeus’s voice, but to Mavis, it sounded like salvation for once.
“Thaddeus?” she called out, enjoying how Arden’s eyes went wide in shock before he glared down at her.
He didn’t have a chance to say anything, though, before the doorknob behind Mavis jiggled.
In the space of an instant, Arden disappeared, and Mavis just managed to straighten up when the door opened and Thaddeus appeared, looking perplexed to find his new fiancée alone in a dark coatroom.
“What on earth are you doing here, Delphinia?” he asked.
Mavis forced a giggle that sounded false to her ears, though Thaddeus didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh, I got horribly lost.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “I thought this was the necessary, but the door locked behind me, and I was stuck here. How lucky that you rescued me, Thaddeus.”
She punctuated the statement with a flutter of her eyelashes that seemed to mollify Thaddeus—at least until a strangled snort of laughter came from the dark cloakroom behind her.
Mavis decided it might be time to revisit her aversion to violent crime the next time she came face-to-face with Arden Ryskamp.
“Did you hear that?” Thaddeus peered around her and squinted into the dark, though Mavis knew he saw nothing. Arden’s gift for invisibility was strong enough that he could remain unseen for an hour if he wanted to, but she wasn’t willing to risk any further slips on his part.
“No.” She affected a look of deep concern as she reached out and brushed the back of her hand over Thaddeus’s forehead, deepening the furrow of her brow when she pulled her hand back. “Are you feeling all right, darling? You seem a bit flushed.”
“I’m fine.” Thaddeus drew his gaze back to her and shook his head as if trying to clear it.
“It has been such a busy evening.” To drive home the point, she flexed her hand where her newly acquired ring glittered in the low light of the gas lamps that lined the hallway.
“Perhaps we should end our night early—I confess I’m quite eager to share the news with my brother.
It seems unfair that everyone else in Garlin will know before he does. ”
“I’m sure he knows—I did ask his permission, after all.” Thaddeus waved her concern away.
Mavis, though, was anxious to get away, not only from this hallway with Arden lying in wait, but this restaurant as well. She still wasn’t sure she didn’t want to flee Garlin altogether.
“Then he knows you asked, not that I agreed,” she told Thaddeus with a smile she meant as playful.
Thaddeus was thoroughly unamused at the thought of rejection, his jaw tightening.
“Of course I did agree,” she said quickly, having learned over the years how fragile the egos of Luster bachelors could be. “But I should like to share the news with my brother all the same.”
Thaddeus let out a huff of annoyance. “I’ve already ordered you the duck.”
Mavis forced another giggle. “Oh, much as I do love the duck here, I don’t think I could eat a bite. I’m far too excited.”
Thaddeus looked ready to protest again, but finally he gave a curt nod. “Very well, then, my dear. If you’re sure, I’ll see you to your carriage.”
Thaddeus offered Mavis his arm, and she took it, but as he led her to the restaurant’s entrance, Mavis couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder to the shadowy cloakroom where she knew Arden still waited, watching her in turn.