“I need to speak with you,” she said in her best no-nonsense voice.
“Can it wait until this is through?” Martin said without looking at her or dropping the smile he was flashing at the elderly lady who’d reached for his hands.
“No,” Miranda said, grabbing his arm. “It can’t.”
Martin sighed and then smiled indulgently at the crowd. “It seems my future wife has something urgent to tell me,” he said. “Dessert will be served on the terrace; please enjoy yourselves.”
The crowd began to titter at the implications of a soon-to-be bride dragging her husband off, but Miranda ignored the sound just as she ignored her mother, who was trying to get her attention, and her father, who was blatantly grabbing for her arm. She focused on nothing but getting past the crowd as she led Martin through a side door and down a hall to the office he’d shown her earlier during their tour. The band was just striking up as she shoved him inside and locked the double doors. She was dangerously angry, and her spirits were picking up on the feeling, turning in their rings, so Miranda forced herself to stop and take a deep, cleansing breath, letting the calm Master Banage had spent years forcing her to learn wash over her before she turned to face her fiancé.
“I don’t know what kind of rubbish my father’s been feeding you,” she said quite calmly. “But I am not for sale. I am not marrying you.”
Martin leaned on his expansive desk. “Is it because I’m not noble?”
“No,” Miranda said. “I don’t care who your family is. I’m not marrying anyone. My life is being a Spiritualist, not being a wife.”
“I knew that might be a problem,” Martin said. “But all marriages are compromises.” He raised his chin, and his face changed. Suddenly, he was no longer the affable host but a shrewd, hard businessman. “I know women like the fantasy of marrying for love,” he said. “But this is a business transaction, Miss Lyonette. Your family needs money and my business needs a noble connection. You are the link that solves both these problems, and as such, I am willing to be very lenient with you. It’s true I can’t allow my wife to be something as crass as a Spiritualist, but though your father neglected to tell me you’d already taken your oaths, I find I don’t mind much. I like Spiritualists, and I will not ask you to give up those spirits you have already bound or your connections to the Court. Indeed, I look forward to forming closer ties with your Rector, Etmon Banage.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Miranda said. “I’m not marrying you.”
“You say that now,” Martin replied. “But the truth is you have no choice in the matter. I’m not a cruel man, Miranda. You’ll find me a very easy husband. I will never demand anything from you that you are not willing to give. When we marry, you will be free to keep lovers so long as you are discreet. You’ll have a substantial allowance, the freedom to travel as you like provided you play hostess to at least six major parties a year to further my business ties. And you’ll be able to bring your family to heel, since their well-being will now depend entirely upon your favor. Really, I don’t see how I could sweeten this deal much more.”
“What part of ‘I’m not marrying you’ don’t you understand?” Miranda cried. “I don’t care how sweet a deal you offer. I’m not interested.”
Martin took a deep breath. “You are stubborn, aren’t you?”
“I get that way when I’m being forced into absurd situations,” Miranda snapped, but Martin didn’t seem to be listening. Instead, he reached in his suit pocket and drew out a small velvet bag.
“Your father got this at my request,” he said, walking across the room to where Miranda was standing by the doors. “It’s tradition in noble families to pass down wedding jewelry, and while I got you something much larger for our actual wedding, I thought you’d appreciate the gesture.”
He shook the bag over his hand until something small and glittery fell onto his palm. It was a ring, a small, golden ring set with a polished opal. It was very old and surprisingly delicate, the kind of ring a father would buy for his daughter.
“I didn’t know your size, so I couldn’t have it fit,” Martin said, catching Miranda’s hand before she could dodge him. “Fitting such old jewelry is always a gamble, anyway. Still, it looks appropriate, don’t you think?”
He’d slipped the ring on her pinkie finger while he was talking, and by the time Miranda jerked her hand away, the band was already in place. It looked absurdly tiny beside her large Spiritualist rings, and for a moment, she had the stupid thought that whichever of her noble Lyonette ancestors had worn the ring before her must have had very small hands. But the thought was fleeting, and she went to take the ring off. Martin’s hand caught her halfway there.
“Don’t throw your gifts away just yet,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
Miranda jerked at the threat in his voice and reached for Durn, but he dropped her hand again before she could do anything.
“It’s late,” he said, all politeness again. “Too late for hasty decisions. Why don’t you sleep on it? It’s not like you can just walk to Zarin from here, anyway. Sleep, I’m sure things will be clearer in the morning.”
“No amount of sleep is going to make me marry you,” Miranda said, but she left the ring on her finger.
Martin smiled. “Good night, Miss Lyonette.”
Miranda didn’t offer the same. She turned on her heel and marched out, snatching the ring off her finger the second she was in the hall and shoving it in her pocket. The party was still going strong, the musicians playing a lively dance, but Miranda didn’t even look at the crowd. She went straight up the stairs to her room and locked herself in. The moment she was alone, she scrambled out of the layered formal dress her mother had insisted she wear to dinner, washed her face in the basin, and flopped into bed.
“Mistress?” Durn’s question was soft in the dark. “Why are you so angry?”
“Because people are idiots,” Miranda answered. “We’re getting out of here tomorrow.”
“Yes, mistress,” Durn said, his voice relieved. “I don’t like this place at all. It makes you angry.”
“The place is fine,” Miranda said. “It’s the people.”
Durn rumbled at that, and Miranda pushed him gently back to sleep. Her own rest was harder to find, however. Tima knocked at her door a few hours later, but Miranda ignored her. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. Eventually, her sister left, but Miranda still couldn’t sleep. The more she thought about this situation, the angrier she became, and not just at her parents for putting her through something like this. She was angry at Martin. She hated his superior looks, his giant house full of dead animals, and especially his smaller house full of living ones. That thought brought her back to the ghosthound. She’d nearly forgotten him in the shock of discovering her parents had sold her out, but now that she’d remembered him, she could think of nothing else. Whatever Martin said, he was abusing that ghosthound. Capturing and keeping such an obviously intelligent animal was wrong no matter how nice the cage. That thought gave her no rest, and when the sky outside her window began to turn gray with the predawn, Miranda put on the simplest dress her mother had packed and snuck into the hall.
This early, the house was still asleep, and Miranda was able to slip out easily. She crossed the gardens, shivering as the dew soaked through the ridiculous cloth slippers her mother had packed instead of sensible boots. The door to the zoo house was locked, but a quick word from Durn had the latch up and out of the way in under a minute. The animals woke as she passed, and Miranda spoke to each of them, but without a spirit to act as mediator, only the enormous red cat was intelligent enough to answer, and it only asked her when food was coming. Satisfied that at least these animals were not being abused, Miranda put them out of her mind and focused on her real objective.