She wasn't sure just what reaction she was expecting-acceptance, gratitude, even suspicion. But the snort of derision that exploded behind her ear took her completely by surprise. "You help us?" he said scornfully. "Wonderful. A woman with no family?-just what help do you propose to give?"
Jin felt her cheeks burning. Count to ten, girl, she ordered herself, clamping down hard on her tongue. You're sliding way out of character. "I'm sorry," she said humbly through clenched teeth. "I didn't mean it that way. I just thought-well, even though my family's gone, I do have friends."
"City friends?" he asked pointedly.
"Well... yes."
"Uh-huh." Daulo snorted again, gently, then sighed. "Let's just forget it,
Jasmine Alventin. I appreciate the gesture, but we both know that's all it is."
"I... suppose we do."
"All right. Come, I'll take you across to the Outer Green."
Gritting her teeth, she lowered her eyes like a good little Qasaman woman ought to and followed Daulo across the bridge.
Chapter 19
The courtyard outside Daulo's suite was dark, his late supper over and the dishes cleared away; and with the stillness and privacy came thoughts of Jasmine
Alventin.
He didn't want to think about her. In fact, he'd gone to great pains to immerse himself in work over the past few hours in order to avoid thinking about her.
He'd ended their walking tour of Milika early in the afternoon, professing concern over her weakened condition, and gone directly back to the mine to watch the work on the shoring. After that, he'd come back to the house and spent a couple of hours poring over the stacks of paperwork that the mine seemed to generate in the same volume as its waste tailings. Now, having postponed eating so that he wouldn't have to face her over a common family meal, he'd hoped the fullness of his stomach would conspire with the pace of the day to bring sleep upon him.
But it hadn't worked that way. Even while his body slumped on its cushions, numbed with food and fatigue, his mind raced ahead like a crazed bololin. With, of course, only one topic at its forefront.
Jasmine Alventin.
As a young boy the fable of the Gordian Knot had always been one of his favorites; as a young man one of his chief delights was the solving of problems that, like the Knot, had driven other men to despair. Jasmine Alventin was truly such a problem, a Gordian Knot in human guise.
Unfortunately, it was a Knot that refused to unravel.
With a sigh, he rolled off his cushions and got to his feet. He'd been putting this off for almost a day now, hoping in his pride that he could get a grip on this phantom without artificial assistance. But it wasn't working that way... and if there were even a slight chance that Jasmine Alventin was a danger to the
Sammon family, it was his duty to do whatever was necessary to protect his household.
His private drug cabinet was built into the wall as part of his bathroom vanity, a reinforced drawer with a lock strong enough to discourage even the most persistent of children. It had been barely a year now since his acceptance into this part of adult society, and he still felt a twinge of reflex nervousness every time he opened the drawer. It would pass with time, he'd been told.
For a long moment he gazed in at the contents, considering which would be the best one to use. The four red-labeled ones-the different types of mental stimulants-drew his eye temptingly, but he left them where they were. As a general rule, the stronger the drug, the stronger the reaction afterward would be, and he had no particular desire to suffer a night of hellish dreams or to spend the coming day flat on his back with vertigo. Instead, he selected a simple self-hypnotic which would help him organize the known facts into a rational order. With luck, his own mind would be able to take it from there. If not... well, he would still have the mental stimulants in reserve.
Returning to his cushions, he emptied the capsule into his incense burner and lit it. The smoke rose into the air, at first thin and fragrant, then increasingly heavy and oily smelling. And as it enveloped him, he took one more try at untying the Gordian Knot that was Jasmine Alventin.
Jasmine Alventin. A mysterious young woman, survivor of an "accident" which no one had witnessed and which therefore no one could confirm. A suspiciously timed arrival at Milika, coincident with a flurry of activity by the Yithtra family's lumber business and fresh metals orders from the Mangus operation. Her speech that of a city-educated business mediator, yet her manners more befitting some ignorant outcast from polite society. And the things she said in that cultured voice-
Even with the artificial calmness of the hypnotic wrapped like a smoky cocoon around him, Daulo still gave muttered vent to his feelings about this one. I want to go with you, she'd said-as if going out in the dead of night to take care of a razorarm was the sort of thing women did all the time. Let me help you-totally laughable coming from a lone woman with neither family nor estate.
It was as if she lived in her own private world. A private world with its own private rules.
And yet she couldn't be dismissed simply as that sort of feeblebrained scatterhead. Every time he'd tried to do so she'd casually done or said something that painted an exact opposite side of her. A half-dozen examples came to mind, the most obvious being her casual understanding of the consequences of having Milika's lake on Sammon family territory. Even more disturbing, she had a distinct talent for deflecting questions that she didn't want to answer... and a talent like that required intelligence.
So what was she? Innocent victim as she claimed? Or agent sent in by someone to cause trouble? The facts fell almost visually into neat organization in front of
Daulo's eyes... without doing any good at all. The Knot remained tightly tied; and the only fresh conclusion he could find at all was that, totally against both his will and his common sense, he was growing to like her.
Ridiculous. He snorted, the sudden change in his steady respiration pattern bringing on a short fit of coughing. It was ridiculous-totally, completely ridiculous. Without position, she was at the very least beneath his own social status; at the very worst, she might be coldly using him to try and destroy everything he held dear.
And yet, even as he gazed mentally at the list of points against her, he had to admit there was still something about her that he found irresistible.
Just what I needed, he groused silently. Something else about Jasmine Alventin that won't unknot. So what could it be? Not her features or body; they were pleasant enough, but he'd seen far better without this kind of threat to his emotional equilibrium. It certainly wasn't her upbringing; she couldn't even make a simple sign of respect properly.
"Good evening, Daulo."
Startled, Daulo twisted around on his cushions, blinking through the haze to see his father walk quietly between the hanging curtain dividers. "Oh-my father," he said, starting to get up.
Kruin stopped him with a gesture. "You weren't at your customary place at evening meal tonight," he said, pulling a cushion toward his son and sinking cross-legged onto it. "I came to see if there were some trouble." He sniffed at the air. "A hypnotic, my son? I'd have thought that after a full day a sleep-inducer would be more appropriate."
Daulo looked at his father sharply, the last remnants of the hypnotic's effects evaporating from his mind. He'd hoped he could rid himself of this obsession with Jasmine Alventin before anyone else noticed. "I've been rather... preoccupied today," he said cautiously. "I didn't feel up to a common meal with the rest of the family."
"You may feel worse tomorrow," Kruin warned, waving a finger through one last tendril of smoke and watching it curl around in the eddy breezes thus created.
"Even these mild drugs usually have unpleasant side effects." His eyes shifted back from the smoke to Daulo's face. "Jasmine Alventin asked about you."