"Well, how's he doing?"
"As well as can be expected, ma'am. He has a regrettable impulse toward truthfulness and sincerity, but nothing that can't be overcome. A few carefully arranged appearances, just to test the waters, and then he should be ready to make a more public splash in Society."
"At least now you look the part, Robert."
"I feel like an idiot."
"That's how you know it's fashionable, dear. You should have seen some of the things my Finlay wore in his days as a fop and a dandy. People would complain of eye strain for days after he unveiled a new outfit."
"We need to talk about Finlay," said Robert. "Have you seen him recently? Is he going to make problems over my being the Campbell instead of him? He does have a better claim to the title."
"Trust me, dear, Finlay doesn't want to be the Campbell. He never did. Finlay wouldn't know what to do with responsibility if you nailed it to his forehead. He's always been the most important thing in his life. I had hoped Evangeline might have changed that, but… He came to see me recently. Said he wanted to see the children, which was a first. I'm surprised he could remember their names without prompting."
"How did it go?"
"Badly. I should have known better. He's never been any good with children. Or anyone else, really. But I have to say he seemed even more out of it than usual. I'd be worried about him if I could bring myself to give a damn. I really must contact Evie, see how she's doing. Finlay never did appreciate her. But that can wait. How do you feel now, Robert?"
"Very grateful that you're letting me impose on you. Baxter and I will move out as soon as I can find somewhere—"
"Oh, there's no rush. Besides, you'd probably just move into some squalid little bachelor apartment, and we can't have that. If you're to be a part of Society, you must have a respectable address. The right address always says a great deal about a man. To begin with, I think we'll get you settled in a suite at one of the better hotels."
"Addie, I don't have that kind of money! The Clan has no assets, and while the Navy gave me a nice little bonus on leaving, it hardly amounted to a golden handshake. What I've got won't last long, and it certainly won't stretch to a suite."
"If you're going to be the Campbell, you have to live like the head of a Clan," Adrienne said firmly. "Or no one is going to take you seriously. Don't you worry about money. Once word gets around that you're back, people will be falling over themselves to pay your bills, in return for future favors. Even the banks will extend you open lines of credit in the hope of your future business. Everyone knows that a hell of a lot of money went missing when the Campbells crashed, money that the Wolfes never got their hands on."
"But I haven't got it."
"They don't know that! If anyone asks you about it, just smile and look enigmatic. Let me worry about such things, dear. You just concentrate on looking the part. How are we doing for clothes, Baxter? Is he ready to go out in public yet?"
"There will have to be further fittings for the more formal evening wear, ma'am, but I think we're ready to risk a few carefully controlled appearances. Did you have anyone in mind, ma'am?"
"Well, to start with," said Adrienne, "I thought Constance Wolfe."
"Are you crazy?" said Robert. "The Wolfes destroyed my Family!"
"That was then, this is now," said Adrienne firmly. "A lot's happened since then. Jacob Wolfe was head of the Clan at the time. He's dead now. Valentine is on the run, Daniel is missing, and Stephanie is so far out of favor that she can't even see it from where she is. So Constance, Jacob's young widow, is currently the Wolfe, and head of the Family. And she has very revolutionary ideas about how the Families should behave in the new order. She distrusts Blue Block, supports Parliament, and is very keen to mend fences with old enemies. Go and see her, Robert. Turn on the Campbell charm, make it clear you don't hold her responsible for the excesses of her predecessors, and you might just find her a kindred spirit. She'd make a very strong friend and supporter. And it would demonstrate to all the other Families that you don't feel bound by old feuds and vendettas. You're going to have enough enemies as it is, Robert. Make friends where you can."
"Not back twenty-four hours, and here I am dressed up like a clotheshorse, and contemplating making deals with a Wolfe," said Robert disgustedly. "Some welcome home. But if I have to…"
"You have to," said Adrienne.
Robert looked to Baxter, who nodded solemnly. "It will make an excellent beginning, sir. Not to worry. I shall of course be accompanying you."
"Wonderful," said Robert. "Now I've got a nanny as well as a butler." He glared at Adrienne. "Anything else you think I ought to know?"
"There is one other thing," Adrienne said reluctantly. "Concerning Finlay. You may have to do something about him."
"You just said he didn't want to be the Campbell."
"He doesn't. But… he's been acting even more erratically than usual just recently. Threatening people. He's made a lot of enemies in his time, many of them major players in Society. They might just ask you to deal with Finlay as a price for their support."
"Deal with Finlay? What the hell could I do? He's not going to listen to anything I might say, and even if he did accept me as head of the Clan, I doubt very much he'd accept my authority over him. And I am certainly not stupid enough to try to deal with him myself. Owen Deathstalker might be able to handle him, or Kid Death, but I wouldn't last five minutes against him."
"There are ways," said Adrienne, not looking at him. "In the end, all that matters is the good of the Clan. One man can't be allowed to undermine everything we're hoping to achieve."
"For God's sake, Adrienne, he's your husband. The father of your children. Don't you have any feelings for him?"
"I don't know him anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I ever did."
Robert Campbell sat extremely upright on an antique chair, holding a full cup of tea in one hand and a large chocolate pastry on a plate in the other, and wondered how the hell he was supposed to get either one of them anywhere near his mouth without losing the other. Also, his new coat was uncomfortably tight across the shoulders, his cravat was half strangling him, and his trousers were pinching him in places he didn't even know he had. All in all, this was shaping up to be one hell of a first social call.
His hostess, Constance Wolfe, had the top floor in Tower Wolfe all to herself, and had outfitted it to her personal taste. Which meant thick rugs on the floor, the very latest fashions in furniture, and stuffed, fluffy animals lying everywhere there was a space. Robert felt he could have coped with all that. It was the frankly pornographic murals on the walls that kept throwing him. He'd never seen anything like some of them, and he'd been in the Navy for years. He also had a terrible suspicion that Constance had posed for at least three of them. In which case, she was not only very beautiful but incredibly limber as well. She looked very smart in black, still in mourning for her husband, and every inch the head of her Clan. Robert stared determinedly down at his tea and pastry, and tried to beam telepathic appeals for help to Baxter, before remembering that Constance had banished him from the room, along with all her servants, so he and Constance could speak privately.
He hoped she wasn't going to jump on him. He'd always been rather shy about such things.
There'd been a lot of guards too, but Constance had dismissed them too as a sign of good faith. The two of them were alone together. Robert supposed he ought to get a few guards himself, if only for show. Constance leaned forward in her chair facing him, and he jumped slightly in spite of himself. Tea jumped out of his cup and into the saucer.
"You don't have to eat the pastry if you don't want it," said Constance, smiling. "Or drink the tea. One of the first things you have to learn in social gatherings is the art of saying no gracefully. Otherwise they'll load you down with food till your arms ache. People do so love to show off their chefs."
Robert smiled gratefully, looked around for a nearby table or empty surface, realized there wasn't one, and f
inally settled for putting cup and plate down on the floor beside his chair. He straightened up, tried surreptitiously to ease his coat and trousers without much success, and smiled slightly desperately at Constance.
"I like your room. It's very… comfortable."
"One of the few joys of living alone is that you don't have to compromise on your personal ideas of comfort," said Constance. "Jacob would have had a fit if I'd done this to his living room while he was still alive. But after he died, I got rid of most of his things as quickly as was decent. Otherwise, everything I saw would have reminded me of him. So I replaced it all with new things, to remind me that I had to make a new life without him. All I kept were a few portraits of him. I keep them in my bedroom, next to my bed, so his face can be the last thing I see at night. That way sometimes I get to dream of him. He was the only man I ever loved, you see, and we only had such a short time together. You understand. You lost someone too, didn't you?"
"Yes," said Robert. "I understand."
"His ghost came back to me once," said Constance, her voice calm and even. "At Court. But it was just a Ghost Warrior. Just his body. Not my Jacob. Poor Daniel went off looking for the Ghost Warrior, convinced his father was still in there somewhere. Daniel always was desperate for his father's approval. Jacob did love his children, in his own way, even Valentine, but they were all disappointments to him. I was going to give him new children, but we never got around to it before he was taken from me, so now I never will. Just another loss to grieve."
"He must have loved you very deeply," said Robert, struggling for the right thing to say.
"I hope so, but I was never really sure. I was a trophy wife, you see, young and beautiful, something to show off at Court and at parties. It was an arranged marriage, although I grew to love him. He was always kind to me, but… he never found it easy to talk about his feelings, even to me. So I was never sure."
"You must find it very difficult being a woman alone, and heading such a large Clan," said Robert, just to be saying something.
"You have no idea," said Constance dryly. "I only got the position by default. I keep it by playing my many enemies off against each other and intriguing morning, noon, and night. As a result, every word I say, and even the smallest of actions, are analyzed endlessly by all concerned to see if they contain crumbs of valuable information. Sometimes I say things entirely at random just to get them worrying. There are always people around me now. Moments of privacy like this are rare. Everyone wants to see me, everyone wants something. You'll find that out for yourself now you're the Campbell."
"Then why not just walk away from it all?" said Robert. "You're not trapped, like me. You're only a Wolfe by marriage, not blood. You could give it all up, and no one could stop you."
"But the Clan is all I have left of Jacob. The one remaining connection to the happy time I shared with him. I owe him a duty not to step down till I can place the Clan in safe hands. That's why I'm marrying Owen Deathstalker."
"I had heard. Congratulations."
"Thank you."
"What's he like, really? I've only ever seen him on the holo. Some say he's a hero, some…"
"Say he's a monster. I know. But he seemed very ordinary to me. Quite likable. Even charming in a clumsy sort of way. But he's strong. Thoughtful. He'll make a good constitutional monarch, and as his Queen, our two Families will merge, and I will be able to give up control to him. Can you think of any hands more secure than those of the legendary Owen Deathstalker?"
"Not really, no. But how do you feel about him?"
"He seemed kind. I'll settle for that. I've had one great love in my life. I don't think I could stand to lose another."
"Why did you agree to see me?" said Robert. "You said yourself that you're greatly in demand these days, and I'm not anyone important. Yet. And our Families are mortal enemies. So why me?"
"Because we have a lot in common. We both became head of our Clan much sooner than we ever expected, through the death of a loved one, taking on the responsibility through duty and need. We've both known terrible pain and loss, but it didn't break us. I need someone like you, someone I can talk to, who'll understand. Someone in the Families who isn't afraid of Blue Block."
"Good reasons," said Robert. "As for Blue Block, I don't really know much about them. I was only with them for a short time before my Family took me away and placed me in the Fleet, where they thought I'd be of more use to them. I was never introduced into any of their mysteries or secrets. I never realized they were so widespread, so… powerful."
"Very few did," said Constance, "until it was far too late. I've seen too much evil in the Families, Robert. Too many of us became inbred and corrupt, misusing our power and abusing our privileges. I was one of the few in the Families who actually approved of the rebellion. I saw in the new order a chance to remake the Families as they should be—the best of the best, leading and guarding, not ruling by fear and oppression. But now Blue Block is putting all that at risk. The Clans are so desperate to regain power, they'll do anything Blue Block says to get it. We have no idea of what Blue Block really is now, what they really want. Someone has to stop them, and I can't do it alone. I need allies, people of good heart and true, to whom duty is more than just a word. What do you say, Robert Campbell? Have I found an ally in you?"
"I think perhaps you have, Constance Wolfe. But what can we do to change anything?"
"We can set an example. Show Blue Block we're not afraid of them. If we stand up to be counted, others will join us."
"I don't know about that," said Robert. "In the military, the first man to stand up is usually the first to get his head shot off. But I think you're right in that others might join us if they knew there were others who thought as they did. What about your Family, from before you married Jacob Wolfe? Where do they stand? Would they support us?"
"My Family and I… don't talk anymore," said Constance evenly. "I was the eldest daughter of Clan Devereaux, supposed to attract a suitable young man of lesser stature into the Family to improve the bloodline. Instead I married a Wolfe, joined his Clan, and my bloodline was lost to the Family forever. My father declared that I was dead in his eyes. I haven't spoken with any of my Family since."
"Now, that's a shame," said Robert. "You should try, Constance. They might feel differently about you now, in your current circumstances."
"I have my pride."
"Sometimes pride just gets in the way. The ones we love or admire are always taken from us far too soon, before we get to say all the things we meant to say to them. I lost my parents early, so as I grew older I venerated the head of my clan, Crawford Campbell. He was a god to me. I would have walked through fire for him, if he would only notice me. I always felt guilty that I wasn't there with him in Tower Campbell on the day the Wolfes came. I can't help feeling I might have made a difference. That if I'd been there, fighting at his side, the end result might have been otherwise. I'm probably wrong. Odds are, we would have all died anyway. But sometimes…"
"I know," said Constance. "I understand."
She leaned forward and put a comforting hand on top of his. And as her flesh met his, a moment of electricity sparked between them. Their eyes met, wide and startled, and their hearts were suddenly beating faster in their breasts. They looked deep into each other's eyes, and saw heaven there, waiting for them. And then Constance jerked her hand away, and everything crashed back to normal again. For a moment they just sat in silence, looking at anything but each other. Robert risked a glance at Constance and saw the remains of a hot red flush in her face. His cheeks felt uncomfortably hot too.
"So, how are preparations going for your wedding to the Deathstalker?" he said finally.
"Very well, thank you for asking," said Constance, her voice quite composed. "It's due to take place six months from now. Barring any… complications."
"Of course," said Robert. "You never know when complications are going to arise. You don't love him, do you?"
"No," said Co
nstance. "I don't love him."
"Good," said Robert. Their eyes met again, and this time they smiled at each other as well.
Finlay was still in his quarters under the Arenas when he heard an urgent knocking at his door. He frowned. For someone who was supposed to be in hiding, he was getting a hell of a lot of visitors. He strapped on his sword belt and holster, and went carefully over to the door. He really should have invested in a spy hole or a hidden camera. He listened for a moment, couldn't hear anything, and finally opened the door just a crack. A familiar voice said his name, and then he was pushed back as the weight of the body leaning against the door pushed it open. He grabbed hold of Evangeline as she fell toward him, only just in time to stop her from hitting the floor. She was wrapped in a long crimson sheet, one part of it bulked into a large, unwieldy parcel under one arm. Her face was slack with shock and exhaustion, and spattered with recently dried blood.
Finlay tried to question her, but all she could do was murmur his name over and over again. She was breathing hard, and her eyes weren't tracking properly, and she clung to him with desperate strength. Finlay gave up trying to get any sense out of her, and got her over to the bed, but she would only sit on the edge, not lie down. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and all she wanted to do was hold him. He hugged her in return, trying to reassure her with his presence and calm tone.
"What is it, love? What's happened? You're safe here. You're all right now. What have you got under your arm?"
She still wouldn't or couldn't answer him. He slowly eased out of her grasp, murmuring soothingly all the while, and began unwrapping the bedsheet that enveloped her. And it was only then that he discovered she was naked underneath and splashed with a great deal of still drying blood. He checked her quickly for cuts and wounds, and was only partly reassured to find none of the blood was hers. He eased the package out from under her arm and unwrapped that. Something small and hard fell out onto the floor. It was the hilt of the monofilament knife she'd asked him to get for her. He unwrapped the rest of the bundle and discovered two glass cases containing two severed but still living heads. He was so startled he almost dropped them, but managed to fumble them safely to the floor. Their mouths were moving, but he couldn't hear anything. He turned back to Evangeline, and she giggled almost hysterically at the look on his face. She finally controlled herself with an effort, and spoke to him almost in a whisper.