Daemon looked at Holt. “You reviewed the credentials and background of all the new servants? Including the ones here for training?”
Holt nodded. “Nothing to link anyone here with Delora or her group of friends, male or female.” He turned toward Beale. “Just in case one of the youngsters can be flattered or bribed to look the other way for just a minute, we should have teams of experienced footmen assigned to the public rooms and to serve as escorts.”
“Already done,” Beale said.
“Then the cocks will slip in somehow.” Surreal met Daemon’s eyes. “But Delora will have to get you out of the Hall first. Can’t have the Black ripping apart her prize studs before they eliminate her rival.”
“If anyone has told Delora about your skill with a knife, she won’t want you here either.” Daemon looked at Beale and smiled a cold, cruel smile. “I expect the bait will be something Surreal and I can’t ignore. If that happens, the protection of Lady Zoela and the other girls will fall to you until we return.”
“Understood, Prince.”
“I’ll show you some extra defenses that I created to help you with that.”
Surreal reviewed the guest rooms around this interior courtyard. Only two of the rooms had a bathroom en suite. Those were usually assigned to the most important guests in the party. Like a Queen, for instance. The remaining guests, usually the Lady’s companions and escorts, had to share the available bathrooms within this two-story square.
She and Helene had agreed that Lady Zoela would have one of the en suite rooms, with Titian assigned to the connecting bedroom that would normally be occupied by a companion or escort. She expected the girls would share the bathroom but would have enough sense to sleep in their own beds in order to follow Sadi’s rules of romance.
It set her teeth on edge to do it, but she assigned the other primary guest room to Delora. She didn’t like implying that Delora deserved the same status as a Queen. She knew what the bitch had done, even if she and Sadi didn’t have enough proof to bring the girl to the official attention of Dhemlan’s Queens. But Jaenelle Saetien would likely claim that her friend was being slighted if she wasn’t given the other suite—even though they weren’t supposed to know that friend was going to show up.
“The family wing has been locked down with a Red shield,” Surreal said. “Prince Sadi’s private suite and that square of rooms have a Black shield. The maids understand that they’re not to answer any summons alone?”
Helene nodded. “Feels strange to have hostile guests at the Hall, but we’ve had them before and the staff knows what to do. I’ve already paired off the maids to make sure that at least one of them has had some lessons in defending herself. Same with the footmen who are on duty to look after the guests. You think this girl and her friends will be so foolish to start something here?”
“She isn’t foolish, but she’s arrogant enough,” Surreal replied.
“It’s all girls at the party.”
“Yeah.” And every time she’d thought about that and why the girls should be safe, she had honed another knife.
“I’ll be bunking in the staff’s room across from those guest rooms. Sadi is planning to stay in his study to keep an eye on things until the girls retire.” And he would still be there in the morning. Watchful. Ready.
“Are you going downstairs to greet the girls?” Helene asked.
“Oh, I’ll be down there, but not exactly to greet them.” She gave the Hall’s housekeeper a sharp smile. “I intend to shove the truth of what I am right down the little bitches’ throats.” And hoped that would be another layer of protection for Zoey and Titian.
“Everything’s set?” Delora asked.
“It’s set,” Krellis replied. “You sure she’ll convince her father to let us stay?”
“I’ll convince her. She’ll convince him.” Delora smiled. “It’s a big place. Plenty of dark corners. And Jaenelle Saetien’s papa won’t even be there. Just make sure you take care of Insipid Zoey before he realizes his mistake and returns.”
“With pleasure.” His eyes gleamed. “I’ve given a couple of our secondary cocks a chance to prove themselves with a blooding and breaking.”
“Proving themselves on Jhett and Arlene?”
Krellis nodded. “Not much of a test, since the bitches won’t be able to use their own power to defend themselves, but the boys will get it done.”
Jaenelle Saetien felt exhilarated as the girls finally piled into the Coach and the driver caught the Winds and headed for SaDiablo Hall. She’d had parties before, and she’d had friends stay overnight at the town house. But she’d never had a house party like this. And she’d never arbitrated a truce between two quarreling groups of strong women.
She heard Hespera laugh at something Delora whispered.
Something about the sound made her a little uneasy, felt just a little wrong, so she hoped Mikal had received her last message and kept the puppies at the cottage tonight.
Four Scelties arrived at the Hall. The fifth dog, the journeymaid Black Widow, would remain with Tersa, Mikal, and the puppies. She would also stay alert for any trouble in or around Manny’s cottage.
Two of the Scelties would stay near Beale, lending whatever assistance he needed; the other two would roam the corridors near the guest rooms to encourage humans to behave.
Daemon leaned back in his desk chair and rubbed his temples as he waited for the girls to arrive. But it wasn’t his head giving him trouble tonight; it was his heart.
Lucivar stood on the flagstone courtyard outside his eyrie. Below him, he could see the lights in Riada’s houses and businesses. In the mountains, he saw the lights glowing from the windows of other eyries. Everything as it should be.
But there were no lights shining anywhere on Ebon Askavi. At least, none that he could see. A knife-sharp coldness that had nothing to do with a winter’s night was coming from that direction. It wasn’t a coldness that touched his skin. It was a cold rising up from somewhere deep in the abyss.
*Rothvar?* he called. *Anything I should know about tonight?*
*We made a last sweep before sunset,* his second-in-command replied. *It’s quiet everywhere in Ebon Rih.*
Not everywhere, Lucivar thought, staring in the direction of the Black Mountain.
He turned and went inside to have dinner with his wife and younger son. All he could do now was wait—and be ready for whatever his Queen required.
Zoey was being a bitch.
To keep things equal, Jaenelle Saetien had wanted Zoey and Delora to walk in right behind her, leading the rest of the girls. As the daughter of the house, she had to enter first so that the rest of the girls would be acknowledged as her guests, but when Zoey realized she and Delora were supposed to be considered of equal status, she stepped aside and suggested that Delora and her friends go first. That instantly divided the girls into Zoey’s friends and Delora’s friends, and that was exactly the line Jaenelle Saetien had wanted to erase with this party.
It also put Delora, Hespera, Amara, Borsala, Leena, and Tacita in her father’s sights the moment they walked into the Hall. Maybe, hopefully, he would be in his study working and she could get everyone to their rooms and settled before he found out about the unexpected guests.
“Good evening, Beale,” she said when the butler opened the door and stepped aside for them to enter.