Lara beamed with delight as she took in the scene. “It looks like everyone who is anyone is here,” she murmured to Sikander.
“Well, now that we have arrived, I suppose so,” he said, and smiled.
“Oh, this will be so much fun!” Impulsively she leaned over and kissed his cheek. Lara was petite by Aquilan standards; she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach him comfortably. “Thank you for inviting me!”
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said. Already he thought he saw heads turning to take in Lara’s striking dress, and he grinned even more. There was nothing like walking into a party with a gorgeous woman on one’s arm and knowing that she was the most stunning beauty present. He almost forgot about his cousin Amarleen, and it was only the gentle throat-clearing of Dr. Ondrew Tigh—a wealthy young physician from another upstanding senatorial family, and Meena’s date for the evening—that reminded Sikander that he was standing in the way. He quickly took Lara’s arm and led her a few steps from the flyer so that Ondrew could enact the time-honored ritual of offering his date assistance she didn’t need to get out of the vehicle and make her arrival.
The evening promised to be a welcome change of pace. Sikander had spent much of the last two weeks looking over Sublieutenant Larkin’s shoulder in the effort to figure out what had happened with their stray torpedo, to no avail. Fortunately, the Governor’s Ball offered a suitable excuse for setting aside the day-to-day work of a gunnery officer, and the fact that Amarleen happened to have a beautiful friend in need of a date had worked out well for him. Things were comfortably casual between Sikander and Lara, but that was how he preferred it, especially when they both came from such prominent families. Of course, the Governor’s Ball was a very prominent event. Every socialite in Brigadoon—and every well-connected fleet officer whose personal fortune or family pedigree rated mention in the social register—was there, and for the foreseeable future the gossip of the capital would revolve around who had been seen with whom.
“Shall we make our way to the bar?” Sikander asked the others. The buffet had not yet been served and the dancing would come later; most of these events started with cocktails in the garden.
“Only one for me,” Amarleen declared. She wore a brilliant green gown that complemented the famous North eyes, and would have been the most striking woman present if Sikander didn’t have her friend Lara on his arm. “If I don’t pace myself, I’ll be as giggly as a little girl in no time at all.”
“Yes, let’s avoid that at all costs,” Ondrew Tigh agreed gravely. He had an excellent deadpan; Sikander liked the fellow already. “That doesn’t sound fun at all.”
“Well, I remember a wedding in Jaipur a couple of years ago…” Sikander began.
Amarleen wheeled around and threatened him with a raised finger. “Oh, no you don’t! That story does not need to be told tonight, or ever. Am I clear?”
“As you wish.” Sikander waited until Amarleen had turned back to her date, and leaned close to whisper to Lara. “Just remind me to tell you about Meena and the cake later.”
Lara laughed. “I will!”
They strolled slowly down the path leading from the landing pad to the extensive gardens behind the manor. It was a cool, breezy evening, not unusual for springtime in Brigadoon, but the hoverlights provided heat as well as illumination, and the mansion’s staff had carefully arranged hidden screens in the shadows of the surrounding forest to mitigate the breeze. The night was clear and starry above the golden glow of the drifting lights, and the Fleet Base was clearly visible as a bright, crooked crescent directly overhead, surrounded by scores of tiny moving stars crisscrossing the sky—ships joining or leaving New Perth’s busy orbital traffic.
As Sikander expected, most of the guests gathered in the gardens for cocktails. Lara and Ondrew pointed out various celebrities among the civilian guests for Amarleen, while Sikander did the same for high-ranking members of the Admiralty or noteworthy captains. Amarleen and her date soon fell in with a large group of university types; Sikander caught a few glimpses of her laughing and chatting with Ondrew Tigh’s colleagues and a number of her fellow students. For his own part, Lara introduced him to many of her friends, who proved to be a good sampling of New Perth’s aristocratic families. If any of them thought it unusual to see a Dunstan escorted by a prince of Kashmir, they were too well-mannered to comment.
Around a bend in the garden path Sikander spied a knot of officers from Hector surrounding Captain Markham. He looked to Lara. “Would you like to meet my shipmates? Most of them are decent people, and I’d love the opportunity to show you off for them.”
“You’re incorrigible,” Lara said. “But yes, I’d like to meet your colleagues.”
They strolled down to the patio where Hector’s officers had gathered. “Good evening, Captain,” said Sikander. He nodded to the rest: Hiram Randall, Karsen Reno, Michael Girard, as well as Peter Chatburn—a tall, somber man who was actually the sitting Senator Malgray as well as Hector’s second-in-command—and Magdalena Juarez, Hector’s chief engineer. “May I present Ms. Lara Dunstan? Lara, this is Captain Elise Markham, commanding officer of CSS Hector.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Dunstan,” Captain Markham said. “You’re Senator Dunstan’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” Lara replied. “Do you know my father?”
“I met him during my last staff tour.” Markham took Lara’s hand firmly. “He was in charge of the Naval Appropriations Committee when I was serving with the Office of Construction and Repair. Senator Dunstan was always very well informed on budget issues.”
“By which you mean he badgered you mercilessly, I think,” Lara said with a small smile. “I know he can be difficult at times, but he really does have the service’s best interests at heart.”
“I would much rather defend our designs from an informed critic than someone whose only interest is scoring points in the press,” Markham replied. She released Lara’s hand.
“Allow me to make some more introductions,” Sikander said. One by one he introduced his shipmates to Lara. In turn, his colleagues introduced their own dates to Lara and him. Captain Markham was in attendance with her husband Nicholas, a tall, silver-haired civilian with a bluff good cheer to him. Sikander gathered that he worked as an attorney for the government. Neither Peter Chatburn nor Michael Girard had dates for the evening, but a commander from squadron operations stood close by Magdalena Juarez. Karsen Reno was accompanied by a handsome young man, his longtime partner, while Hiram Randall had on his arm a pretty, dark-haired woman in a ruby-red dress. Sikander always found it strange to meet the spouses or romantic interests of his shipmates; he often fell into the habit of thinking that the officers he saw every day had no existence of their own outside the ship. For example, he hadn’t realized that Karsen Reno was committed to another young man—something common enough in Aquilan worlds, although not usually acknowledged openly in Kashmiri society. He’d known that Juarez was dating Commander Nilsson, but he’d heard only the vaguest rumors about Elise Markham’s husband. As captain of Hector, she’d struck him as complete in and of herself, and it was somehow unexpected to see her as half of a couple.
“How do you know Mr. North?” Juarez asked Lara when the introductions were concluded.
“Actually, his cousin Amarleen is a dear friend of mine from our college days,” Lara replied. “She introduced us. In fact, she is here tonight, although I don’t see her at the moment.”