A Tale of Two Kingdoms Read Online Free Page B

masterfully executed dodge.
    "Oh." Heaven looked uncertain, like the conversation had taken an unfortunate turn down a blind alley. She didn't know how to backtrack and recover the mood. Fortunately Baka did.
    He gathered her in his arms with a devilishly intimate and reassuring grin. "You are absolutely the most ravishing, beguiling woman in this dimension or any other. And I haven't given another female a thought since the day Director Tvelgar introduced us."
    The tension eased when she responded with a crooked little smile. "Introduced us? That's what we're calling it?"
    "Works for me."
    "Me, too." Song opened the door. "Let's get this party started. The royal family of Scotia awaits."
    Baka stepped into the hallway and offered both arms to the lovely ladies on either side of him as the three dazzled their way toward the elevator.
    The palace was an easy walk in walking shoes and a marathon in high heels. The doorman had a car and driver waiting, as promised. The women were having such a good time being dressed to kill that Baka was glad about going after all.
    Aelsong insisted on an old-fashioned London-style cab so that she could half-stand in the car and try to keep from creasing her dress. "Just a warnin'. Tonight I'm along to listen, no' to talk. If I speak they'll know I'm elf and the ground might open up and swallow us all."
    Heaven seemed to mull that over. "You mean the only difference between fae and elves is dialect?"
    Song screwed up her face. "Can no' say for sure. But 'tis a tip off. That I can say for sure. You will have to give me cover. Worse comin' to worse, just say I'm mute." When Heaven laughed, Song didn't like the impish look in her eye. "You would no'."
    "Would not what?" Heaven batted her eyelashes and feigned innocence.
    "You would no' deliberately say thin's, knowin' I can no' respond, that would make me either want to explode or want to squeeze your neck until that pretty amber necklace is permanently embedded!"
    Baka was always surprised when reminded just how young his wife really was. "Come now. Nobody is choking anybody else. Heaven will behave."
    Heaven looked out the window. "You can behave if you wish, stodgy old man. I will do what seems most fun at the time."
    That threat miffed Song enough to make her forget about creasing the peau de soie dress. She sat unceremoniously and tried to reach over Baka to pinch Heaven. Baka blocked her with a stiff forearm while Heaven laughed with the impunity of a lady being protected by a powerful husband.
     
     
    Baka stood on the fringe of the ballroom talking quietly with Simon Tvelgar. Both men were more interested in using their evening to discuss business than to engage in painfully inane small talk, chatting up people they would probably not see again, if they were lucky. Baka actually saw it as a momentous opportunity, because Simon's hectic schedule left him pressed for time and difficult to see. It was a bit of a challenge to manage verbal code so that nothing said between them would seem extraordinary if overheard.
    Now and then Baka's eyes were drawn to his spouse's heavenly body moving through the room in her scarlet dress and her fuck-me shoes. So far as he was concerned all her shoes were fuck-me shoes, but the heels she wore that night screamed naughty by anybody's standards. There could be no doubt that she was having a marvelous time pulling the other beauty along, introducing Song to everyone as her very pretty, but tragically mute friend.
    At one point Song leaned into Heaven with a big grin and spoke next to her ear without moving her lips. "I will get you for this if I have to spend years waitin' for the right moment."
    Without looking at her companion, Heaven smiled and said, to no one in particular, but within Song's earshot, "Shaking in my knickers, darling. Oh, look, there's someone you haven't met." She grabbed Song to drag her in the direction pointed out by Heaven's beautifully manicured and scandalously red