Tremontaine Season 1 Saga Omnibus by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, romance
ISBN: 9781682100622
Publisher: Serial Box Publishing
Published: 2017-04-21T04:00:00+00:00

Damn Karleigh. And damn Helena for being unable to restrain him. If Diane could have avoided inviting him at all, she would have done so, but such an open slight offered without provocation would have been deeply insulting and probably begun a series of hostilities for which she had at the moment neither the energy nor the patience. And so she had invited him and hoped for the best.

Fond hope. His attitude toward foreigners, a relic left over from a less enlightened age, was too strong a point of pride with him not to find expression. Only the girl had overheard Karleigh’s insult, though she was a sharp one; her performance two weeks earlier as a lowly servant had been masterly. Ahchuleb Balam’s attention had been elsewhere when Karleigh spoke, or at least seemed to be. But if Diane failed to contain the threat the duke presented, she might not be so lucky next time. And if the Kinwiinik refused the agreement she had proposed, then Highcombe would be lost, Tremontaine’s finances would never recover from the disaster of the Everfair, and—well, it did not bear consideration.

“Frederick! Helena!” she said, sweeping up to the pair. “I would be a poor hostess indeed, if I saw you bereft of punch and failed to rectify my error immediately!”

“Never mind that, Diane,” he said, stiff as ironwood. “What I can’t for the life of me determine is why you invited—”

“Duchess,” said Helena quickly, “you haven’t by any chance remembered Frederick’s weakness for iced cakes?”

She took Helena’s tiny hand in her own and applied the gentlest of pressure. Helena would interpret the gesture correctly as an expression of support and gratitude. This would be much easier with an ally. “How could you even think I would forget such a crucial detail? Both of you, please, come with me at once.”

It didn’t take her long to guide them to the room of tables groaning with food—a room empty of Kinwiinik, at least for the moment. “All is here for your delectation.” She made a grand sweep of her hand, indicating not just the cakes, the faint perfume of roses drifting from their icing, but also the filled pastry, the tender swan meat in citrus sauce—well, duck meat, but call it swan meat and who would be the wiser?—so much food even the assembled crowd would be hard-pressed to consume it all.

Out of the corner of her eye she spied—ah yes, a piece of luck indeed. “Sarah, I insist you come here at once and discuss with Karleigh the matter with which you were holding us all spellbound at last week’s dinner: your researches into the history of your family coat of arms and the questions raised by your discovery of the old escutcheon in the east wing of your home.”

There. That, she thought as the doleful Lady Perry approached them, would hold him for at least twenty minutes, and with Helena’s cooperation perhaps twice that. And then Diane would find something else to occupy his attention.

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