Resistance (Replica) by Black Jenna

Author:Black, Jenna [Black, Jenna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2014-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Nadia would have loved nothing better than to have stayed in that quiet little parlor talking to Nate and Agnes until it was time to return to Tranquility. She didn’t want to face her parents, didn’t want to face the crowd, didn’t even want to face Gerri, who would almost certainly try to push her into revealing what was on the recordings again, having had a whole night to plan out a new argument. But with the service over, there was no use trying to hide away anymore.

Nate allowed Nadia to do up his collar and tie while Agnes stashed the open whiskey bottle behind a tall ornamental clock on the armoire. Not that anyone at this gathering would dare rebuke Nate for drinking, but it was rather undignified to swig straight from the bottle. Nadia didn’t mention that she could smell the alcohol on both Nate’s and Agnes’s breath, because there was nothing they could do about it.

With a collective deep breath, the three of them opened the door and plunged out into the crowd. Nate was instantly swarmed by people desperate to convey their condolences. Nadia wasn’t sure what they made of his failure to appear at the service. Perhaps they’d thought he was too prostrate with grief to face it, and that was why they were so sure he was in need of their sympathy.

Very few people even acknowledged Nadia’s presence, much less spoke to her. It was like there was an invisible force field around her. Every once in a while, she caught someone sneaking surreptitious glances her way, and she felt sure she was the subject of more than one conversation. And this was how her fellow Executives treated her before they knew she was no longer destined to be Nate’s bride. When that scandal hit, they’d do more than just ignore her—they’d flee her presence as if a leper had just stepped into the room.

Agnes, however, stayed by her side as the crowd cut both of them off from Nate. People greeted her easily enough, but they always seemed to spot someone across the room they absolutely had to talk to. Agnes’s expression of long-suffering patience told Nadia she was used to such behavior, and she was making no effort to change things. Her body language and facial expression were both just this side of forbidding, and once she’d shared basic pleasantries with someone, she seemed to have nothing else to say. She’d seemed much more friendly, and less … sullen when they’d been in the parlor.

“Maybe the crowd is thinner out on the porch,” Nadia suggested. If there were fewer people, maybe the two of them could hang out together and avoid the stilted and uncomfortable conversations Agnes’s shyness and Nadia’s disgrace brought on.

“My father will get mad at me for being ‘antisocial,’” Agnes said, making air quotes. “I’m already in for a lecture if he saw me standing in the corner earlier. I’m supposed to mingle.” She sighed heavily. “I’m not any good at mingling, but I need to at least pretend I’m making an effort.

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