The comm unit on the wall chimed. Foote told the video walls to be quiet, rose from his chair and answered. He turned to Silva. “Package at the Fleet Office, Silva,” he said. “Needs hand delivery. Take it, will you?”
“You’re first in the queue,” Silva said.
Irritation crossed Foote’s face. “Just go, will you, Silva?”
“The score’s tied two-all,” Silva complained, but he rose, buttoned his tunic, and headed for the door.
“Breath, Silva,” reminded Foote. He tossed Silva a small silver aerosol flask, and Silva gave his palate a shot of mint. Silva tossed the flask back to Foote, who pocketed it, and Silva departed.
“Do you make a point of easing life for your drunken friends?” Sula asked as Foote resumed his seat.
Foote was surprised. “Friends help each other out,” he said. “And as for drinking, you have to do something here to keep away the boredom. For myself, I’m thinking of taking up yachting.” A thought struck him. “Why don’t weboth take it up?” he asked. “You showed real skill capturing theMidnight Runner. I’m sure you’d do well.”
Sula shook her head. “I’m not interested.”
“But why not?” Foote urged. “You’ve won the silver flashes—surely you must have considered yachting. And the Fleet will encourage you, because it’ll improve your piloting.”
Sula felt a certain comfort in the fact that Foote hadn’t checked her family history. Her membership in the Peerage was genuine enough, for all that the Sula clan had no members other than herself. Her trust fund might support a modest apartment in the High City, but would hardly extend to a yacht.
She could simply tell Foote that she hadn’t got her inheritance yet, but for some reason, she didn’t want to. The less Jeremy Foote knew about her, the better.
“I spend too much time in small boats as it is,” Sula said. “Why ask for more?”
A red-haired cadet entered then and looked at Sula in surprise. “I saw you on vid this morning,” she said. “You salvaged theRunner. ”
Foote introduced Ruth Chatterji, who wanted to know if Lord Commander Enderby was as ferocious as rumor made out. Sula said helooked ferocious enough, but hadn’t behaved with any noticeable brutality when hanging the medal around her neck.
“So tell me what it was like onMidnight Runner,” Chatterji said. “Is it true that Blitsharts got an embolism and vomited up his lungs?”
Sula rose to her feet. “I’d better go. Thanks for the chat.”
“Time for your date with the trog?” Foote said. He slouched in his chair and tossed his head back, looking at Sula under half-lowered lids as she passed. “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t I show you a proper evening? I’m having dinner with my uncle tomorrow night—he’s captain of theBombardment of Delhi. He’s always keen to meet a promising officer—maybe he could do you some good.”
Sula looked down at Foote and smiled sweetly. “Captain Foote of theDelhi? ” she asked. She wrinkled her brow as if trying on a memory for size. “He’s the yachtsman?”
“Yes. That’s the fellow.”
Sula let her smile twist into an expression of distaste. “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “I’ve always thought yachtsmen were the most boring people in the whole fucking world.”
Mean pleasure sang in Sula’s heart as she left Foote blinking in slow surprise and Chatterji staring.
Though the afternoon in the cadet lounge wasn’t without its effect. When Martinez arrived for her, she found herself looking at his legs as she walked beside him through the Commandery.
Theywere perhaps a little short, she decided.
Vipsania raised her glass. “Before we go in to supper,” she said, “I would like to salute our special guest. To Lady Sula, who so bravely and skillfully retrieved theMidnight Runner and the bodies of Captain Blitsharts and Orange.”
Martinez repressed a stab of jealousy as he raised his glass and murmured Sula’s name along with everyone else. Really, he thought, itwas his plan.
He imagined it was too much to suppose that Vipsania would ever bother to offer a toast to him. He was just her brother, after all.
But envy faded into admiration as he contemplated Sula, who stood slim and straight as a lance in the parlor of the Shelley Palace, her porcelain complexion lightly flushing at being the center of attention. Her dark green dress tunic served to heighten the intrigue of her emerald eyes. Martinez’s tailor had done a superb job with fitting the uniform, and a bath, a haircut, and modest use of cosmetic had done wonders to repair the pallor and poor skin tone that were consequences of her long, cramped journey.
Martinez touched his glass to his lips and drank to Sula with complete sincerity.
Sula raised the glass of sparkling water she’d been nursing since the start of the evening. “I would like to thank Lady Vipsania, Lord Gareth”—with a look at Martinez—“and to the entire Martinez clan for their gracious hospitality.”
Martinez modestly refrained from lifting his glass as the guests saluted him. He cast a glance about the room and saw PJ Ngeni, a few paces away, looking at Sula with glowing eyes. “Superb!” Martinez heard beneath the crowd’s murmur. “Wonderful girl!”
Martinez smiled privately.You’ll have no luck with this one, my man, he thought,unless you know the works of Kwa-Zo.
The Martinez sisters’ party seemed to be a success. Martinez saw several faces he’d first seen at Lord Pierre’s dinner party, and PJ had arrived with a couple of his male friends who were less successful than he at concealing their fundamentally decorative nature. Walpurga was in a corner of the room, laughing and smiling with an advocate she had first met at the Ngeni Palace, a man who represented the interests of the Qian clan. Sempronia was speaking near the garden door to a young brown-haired man in the viridian uniform of a Fleet lieutenant.
And Sula, Martinez saw, had become the center of a number of young men, including PJ’s two glit friends. Martinez was thinking about rescuing her when the dinner gong boomed and saved him the trouble.
He wasn’t seated near Sula, who was placed between two of the guests his sisters had poached from the Ngeni Palace, but he had a clear view of her. She was framed perfectly by the chair back, which was made of carved, ancient, darkened Esker ivory that admirably set off her pale complexion. Despite the other guests and the elaborate floral arrangements that had perfumed the air with their scent, Caroline Sula was clearly the object in the room most worth looking at.
Martinez was shifting from the dining room to the drawing room when Sempronia briefly touched him on the left arm. “This isyour fault!” she hissed. “He’s at me to join him for a walk in the garden!”
“It’s a pleasant garden,” Martinez said.
“Not with PJ in it.”
“Besides,” Martinez said, “it’s your sisters’ fault and you know it.”
She glared at him. “You should stand up to them for me!” she said. “What are brothers for?” She strode off.
Martinez mingled for a while, and was on the verge of seeking out Sula when PJ Ngeni touched him on the right arm. Symmetry, he thought.
“May we speak?” PJ said, and touched his narrow little mustache.
“Certainly.”
“I have asked, um, your sister Sempronia if she would join me for a walk in the garden,” he said.
Martinez drew a smile onto his face. “That will be pleasant,” he said.
“Well…” PJ hesitated. “The fact is, I’ve become quite fond of Sempronia in a very short time.”
Martinez nodded. “That’s not unusual. She’s a popular girl.”
“I thought—if I could get her in the garden—I might ask for her hand.” His voice trailed off. “In marriage,” he clarified.
“I never thought otherwise.”