Chapter 8: Lunch With the Uncle

Soren caught me in the upstairs hall an hour before Sunday luncheon.

He stood a careful three feet from my door, with his hands behind his back.

"I owe you something," he said.

"You do."

"I called it a mistake."

"You did."

"It wasn't one." His throat moved. "I was frightened, and I said the cruelest thing I could find so you would leave first."

I leaned on the doorframe and made him wait.

"That's the worst apology I've ever heard," I said.

"I know."

"It's also the first honest thing you've said to me."

His mouth did the not-quite-smile again.

"The cook ran to my uncle," he said. "I let him go. I saw him cross the yard."

"Then your uncle knows we know."

"Yes. So I want his face when he finds out that I know he knows." He held out his arm. "Will you come to lunch?"

I looked at the arm.

Then I took it.

The long table was set for thirty.

Cousins and aunts and a few Council elders sat down in a rustle of silk, and Imogen took her window chair with a look that could have curdled milk.

Linden stood at the foot with his napkin in his hand.

He greeted Soren with a smile that held no trace of last night.

A servant carried in a silver pot and set it down at Soren's place.

I picked up the cup beside it.

Imogen's eyes followed me down the table.

"Hazel," Linden said kindly. "That's not your place."

"No," I said. "It's yours."

I set the cup on the cloth in front of him and filled it myself from the pot.

Steam curled up between us.

"Your nephew has had this coffee every morning for four years," I said, loud enough for the whole room. "Drink it."

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