“What has you traveling all the way to Jabari?” asked Frez, taking a sip of what was surely one of many glasses of wine, given how the bottom of his blond mustache was now dyed a dull rouge.
“I have business with the Council.”
“Business, you say.” Frez sloshed his drink. “Not trying to fish in different waters? Snare something with pretty gills?”
Darius raised his brows at the crude description of a woman. “No. Merely business.”
“I do love to fish.” Frez talked over him. “But actually fish, I mean. Not the sexual undertone I was hinting at earlier.” He gave Darius a glassy-eyed smile. “You did catch that, right? That I wasn’t actually talking of fishing with a lure and line before? But of catching a woman?”
By the Obasi Sea, thought Darius as he drained the rest of his spirits and handed the empty glass to a passing servant. “Yes, I understood.”
“Good, good. I’ve been working on those. Mother says I need to practice the art of conversation whenever I can.”
Please, lost gods, prayed Darius silently, do not let me be the subject of the next painful lesson.
“I’ve been writing down phrases I think are clever,” Frez went on. “Oh! You could help me, actually.” Frez fumbled with his inner coat pocket while unsuccessfully trying to hold his cup steady. A bit of red splashed onto his chest. “I can read you some, and you can tell me if—”
A gong rang through the ballroom, silencing the guests, and Darius nearly wept in relief.
Both he and Frez turned toward the sound as the people around them pushed forward in a wave. Darius held his breath as he was jostled by strangers, a slight panic setting in.
He now found himself closer to the front than he would have liked, but any thought of retreat fell away as he took in the impressive family that stood before them. At the top of marble stairs was a giant boulder of a man with a mane of russet hair that fed into his thick beard. He was dressed in deep crimson with leather and gold details lining the edge of his long coat, an ornate sword hitched to his hip. A voluptuous redhead wearing a peachy-white gown stood to his right, while a tall, striking dark brunette in deep purple was on his left. Darius wouldn’t have guessed they were related if it weren’t for the similar clever blue eyes that gazed across the audience.
A black man wearing an immaculate bloodred, long-tailed tux stepped forward and, with a voice clear and rich, announced, “I’m honored to present to you Dolion Bassette, Count of Raveet, of the second house of Jabari, and his daughters, Lady Arabessa Bassette and Lady Niya Bassette.”
The room filled with clapping and cheers until the count smiled and stilled them with a raised hand. “I am honored to have you all as our esteemed guests tonight to celebrate the Eumar Journé of my youngest. As her father, I have been both anticipating and dreading this day since her birth. For any child to come of age, to become truly independent in the world, is a scary moment in time, but I am proud of the woman she has become, and I know I will be proud of the woman she will keep aspiring to be. And though my dearest love, Johanna”—a sad smile pinched the corners of his lips—“is not with us to celebrate, I know she would be just as proud. So it is with the greatest love and honor that I present to you my daughter, Lady Larkyra Bassette.”
The count stepped to the side, and a tall ivory-haired girl in blue floated forward. The bodies pressing into Darius were forgotten, and his heart slowed as though a morning mist after a Lachlan rain had soared into the room. Refreshing, that was what Larkyra Bassette was. With a radiant smile, she rested her gloved hand in her father’s, and he secured it in the crook of his arm.
The applause subsided, and the ball resumed its murmurs and music as the Bassettes descended the stairs and made their rounds to various guests. Frez’s inane prattling continued beside Darius, but his attention remained on the family as they slowly drew near, until he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand tall, indicating only one thing—someone was watching him. He was watching him.
Darius caught his stepfather’s dark-brown gaze from across the room just as a shadow fell across him.
No, thought Darius, not while he’s looking. Please, let this not be—
“Lord Chautblach and Lord Mekenna.” The count’s deep, rumbling voice filled the space. “I’m so glad you both could join us for tonight’s celebration, and of course the duke. Is he here?” Dolion Bassette, a good head taller than Darius, searched the room.
“He is, Your Grace. Somewhere amid the merriment.” After bending low at the waist, Darius glanced back up to find the entire family standing before him. The elder two sisters stayed a step behind their father, looking a trifle bored, while Larkyra remained hitched to his arm. She gave him a hesitant, curious grin, and seeing her up close . . . there was something almost . . . but no, why would she seem familiar to him?
“Thank you for extending an invitation for tonight,” said Darius to the count. “We are honored to have been included, and may I extend a happy Eumar Journé, my lady.” His eyes fell to Lady Larkyra’s again.
She opened her mouth to respond, but Frez cut in.
“My mother was most ecstatic to receive the invitation,” said Frez. “She sends her regrets for not being able to attend herself, but as you know, Your Grace, her constitution is often fragile in the late evenings.”
“And what of her early mornings?” asked Lady Niya Bassette, picking at her sheer gloves.
“I beg your pardon?” Frez looked a bit frazzled at being addressed by the redheaded beauty.
“I asked of her early mornings.” She turned her gaze on him. “If she’s fragile in the late evenings, how is she when she wakes?”
“I fear she’s shattered to pieces,” chimed in Lady Arabessa.
“Unless she’s like a desert flower,” replied Lady Niya. “Closes up under the stars, alive under the sun.”
“That’s a regular flower,” corrected Lady Arabessa. “Regular flowers sleep at night.”
“I’m fairly certain it’s also desert ones.”
“Then why specify the difference in the first place? Just say she’s like a flower.”
“Because I think a desert flower is a more complimentary description for a woman than a regular old flower,” explained Lady Niya. “Any fellow can write a verse of poetry comparing a woman to a flower. But to specify the kind, well, that moves one’s heart. Do you not agree, Lord Chautblach?”
The poor man turned positively green. “I, uh, that is . . .”
“What say you, Lord Mekenna?” Lady Larkyra cut off the sad bloke’s spluttering to turn her attention to Darius. “When writing a love poem for your sweetheart, do you specify your botany?”
It took Darius a moment to blink out of the soothing tempo of her voice, the familiarity of it, as it lulled his mind blank. “No, my lady,” he eventually said. “I find the use of plants for amorous verses too prosaic.”
“Indeed?” She raised her brows. “And what do you use instead?”
“I have yet to find a sweetheart to outright know.”
Her eyes held his for a beat, a bit of pink rising to her cheeks.
“You can see how my daughters have given me grays over the years,” chuckled the count, gazing at his children with open affection.