24

DESPITE LOOKING FORWARD TO EXPLORING THE GROUNDS OF THE diplomatic compound, I, like Lady Merhaven, succumbed to a bath as soon as I had been shown my room. Built in a more open style than fine Galatine homes, with their specific rooms for sleeping, dressing, receiving guests, and private study and reading, the chamber was a single, open room with curtained spaces for study and dressing, a raised area with a curtained bed, and an alcove with a bathing tub sunk into the floor. An ingenious system of pipes ran water to each of the rooms, so filling the tub was little trouble.

I had to admit that I did feel refreshed after bathing, and took the time to comb and powder my hair while a breeze from the open balcony danced into the room. The balcony looked out over the gardens, but the architects who had drafted this place had created a marvel of rooms, open to the fresh air outside, that still maintained privacy. I could see the hedged paths below, but the position of the trellised balcony ensured no one would see me.

Someone could dance in the nude with the balcony doors flung wide, and no one would be the wiser, I thought with a laugh. How Alice would blush at that idea!

I sobered—and immediately searched the delicate marble-topped desk in one alcove of the room for paper and ink to pen letters to my employees. The shop, the fabrics, the permits—had everything fallen into place as it was supposed to? A letter was unlikely to reach them and their reply reach me before I was back in Galitha City in any case, and it was no longer truly my responsibility. It was Alice’s shop. Even here, in a strange country, with flowers I couldn’t name creeping over the desk from a vase crafted in Serafan rather than Galatine style, with voices floating up from the garden in a language I didn’t speak, the strangest thing I could fathom was thinking of what was once my shop as Alice’s.

A knock on the door interrupted me midway through the letter, and I had moved toward the main door of the room before the knock repeated and I realized it came from the door separating my room from Theodor’s.

I cracked it and, seeing him on the other side already stripped down to his breeches and shirt and a banyan, opened it.

“Room to your liking?” he asked as he strode inside.

“It’s certainly different, but it suits this place,” I said. “It seems such an indulgence—this much space for one person.”

“The whole estate is so large, I wouldn’t worry over it. I’m sure there are still empty rooms, even now. And don’t be offended, by the by—everyone gets their own room.”

“I hadn’t even thought to be offended.” I laughed.

“I didn’t think you had. But so you’re not surprised. Married or consort or second wife or first husband—there are so many variations on marital and nonmarital but official relations in the leading houses of the countries here that it was decided years ago that everyone should just be assigned their own room.”

“You say ‘it was decided’ as though it was a major point of negotiation.”

“It was. It took longer than a trade pact, if I recall correctly,” he said with a smile that I wasn’t sure meant it wasn’t true, or that he thought the truth a bit of a joke. “Say, who’s this?”

I started, but Theodor was laughing. In the path of sunlight cutting through the room from the balcony opening lay a large black cat, his dark velvet fur punctuated only by white paws and, taming his fearsome face, incongruous pure white whiskers.

Theodor knelt and let him sniff his fingers, then scratched his huge head. “He’s a funny little fellow, isn’t he?”

“Are—are pet cats that common here?” I asked, watching the cat’s claws emerge and then harmlessly scrape the floor.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they keep a phalanx of mouse police here,” Theodor replied. “I wonder if this one prefers your balcony for his off-hours.”

I approached the cat warily. My brother and I had never kept pet cats, or any pets—they were another mouth to feed. Cats might prowl the alleyways for rodents, and we tolerated them there, but I never befriended any. This sleek, well-fed house guardian, however, was far from a street cat.

He languidly stood up as I approached and trotted toward me, stropping my ankles with his thick neck before I could react.

“He likes you,” Theodor said.

“Does he?”

“Of course! What do you want to call him?”

“You mean name him? I’m sure he has a name, if he’s someone’s cat,” I answered lamely.

“Yes, but it’s probably given him by a Serafan servant and we’ll never learn it,” Theodor replied. “Come now—if he hangs about, you’ll want something to call him by.”

I considered this, not sure if I wanted him hanging about. He had flopped by my feet and was gleefully pawing at nothing, yellow eyes half-shut.

“What about Mister Boots?” Theodor prodded. “Or Mister Whiskers? Mister Whiskerboots?”

I laughed, and the cat lolled on its side to give Theodor a look that would have convinced me, had I not known better, that he understood the effect such undignified names might have on his feline reputation.

“Perhaps Onyx,” I said, feeling charitable. “He seems a gentleman cat, he deserves a respectable name.” He scrabbled to his feet to resume rubbing his head on my leg, leaving black fur on my white stockings. “I don’t suppose there’s much of a good way to keep him out, not without closing the door, at any rate.”

“Not particularly,” Theodor replied. “Onyx it is, then. Your cat for the duration of our stay.”

“I suppose,” I said, unconvinced. Though plenty of the nobles and wealthy women who attended Viola’s salon and bought clothing from me kept pets, the thought of an animal inside still felt markedly unusual.

“I was going to explore the gardens a bit if you wanted to dress and join me,” Theodor said. I agreed and dressed quickly, tying a large silk-covered hat I had made for the trip over my simply dressed hair before Theodor returned. Onyx lounged on the balcony, uninterested.

The gardens were expansive, and as I had ascertained already, less formal than the Galatine style. Theodor was quickly absorbed mentally cataloging all the various types of roses and even decorative grasses. “This,” he said, reverently running a finger up the length of a blue-tinged grass stalk, “was nearly extinct in West Serafe after the cycle of seven-year droughts. Scholars at the university found preserved seeds and reintroduced it. And—oh, you have to see this,” he said, rounding a bend. A stately tree presided over a courtyard, the leaves edged an unusual shade of deep pink. “It’s a Queen’s Beech.”

“It’s lovely,” I said, but I was more impressed with the intricate design of the garden. Each time I thought I was merely looking at a half-overgrown hedge or a copse of trees, I realized that there was an archway in the hedge to a private room made of greenery or a trellis festooned with flowering vines among the trees.

“They’re exceptionally rare, very hard to grow,” Theodor said. “I’ve always wanted to cultivate one in the greenhouse—they don’t get much bigger than this—but I’ve been convinced I would just kill it.”

“Maybe the gardeners here would share their secrets,” I said. “Speaking of secrets.” I smiled and pulled him after me through a narrow tunnel built from a climbing rose–covered trellis through a hedge and into one of the tiny rooms I had spotted. “Isn’t this incredible?” Thick foliage surrounded a low-lying bench, and a thin brook snaked through the space, bordered by pavers.

Theodor bent next to the deep green leaves of a plant. “Do you know—all of the plants in here are night flowering. And this—this is Firewort. It attracts fireflies. Genius.”

“We’ll have to come back here at night,” I said. “Would that be proper?”

“Hang proper—I have to see this under moonlight.” He moved closer to me. “Our secret garden, you think?”

I nodded, turning my face toward his so he could kiss me. He gripped me around the waist, and I could sense he wanted more than the kiss. So did I.

Voices outside shook us from our focus on one another and back to the very public space our privacy bordered. “It is overly bold of the Kvys, I am confident the patricians will not attempt to meddle openly in the Galatine affair.”

“That would prove problematic, though hardly something we couldn’t manage.”

Delegates, I surmised, glancing at Theodor, who listened with a raised eyebrow. “We have no proof that the patricians were involved at all—and mercenaries are legal in Kvyset.” I listened more carefully and recognized the voice—Admiral Merhaven.

“Attempting to force the Kvys to delegitimize mercenary work would derail the more important discussions about the Open Seas Arrangement and, of course, Galatine grain trades.” The other voice was Serafan, judging by the lightly lilting accent. “And the influence of some Kvys cavalry for hire—it will hardly affect our work.”

Their work? He must, I guessed, mean the work of the summit itself. “It is true that the mercenaries have very little efficacy in full-scale war,” Merhaven said. “And the Kvys won’t formally martial their military for anything short of invasion.” The two laughed politely.

“Those I represent remain invested in maintaining our good relationship,” the Serafan man said. The voices faded as the speakers moved farther down the path.

“Remind me,” said Theodor, “to brief the rest of our delegation on discretion in public spaces.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure I like Merhaven taking private meetings. Though it’s not as though he said anything of import, or committed us to anything.”

I pulled him back toward me and gently kissed his cheek. “Don’t we have some important dinner to dress for?”

“Of course we do. You’re a natural at this princess consort thing. One of the requirements is reminding us about getting dressed, you know.”

I playfully shoved him away, but I had a suspicion that dressing for dinner was bound to be the least challenging part of my role at the summit.