Shrike (Book 2): Rampant Read Online Free Page A

for remembering enough about the duchess to recall that she got a sapphire engagement ring.
    I've apparently said the right thing, because Magda beams at me and hugs me again, kissing both my cheeks. 
    "I have to mingle," she says. "Go eat something."
    She steers me toward a buffet table of finger foods, and I carefully choose a few hors d'oeuvres, piling them onto a plate. I'm not sure it'd be appealing if I ate everything on the table. 
    Someone bumps into me as I'm taking a bite of a canapé. 
    "Excuse me," I say automatically.
    "No, excuse me." 
    I turn to see a man wiping spilled champagne from the back of his hand where it seems to have sloshed over the glass when he bumped me. I nod and am about to walk away, but he motions at me to stop.
    "I'm John Abbey," he says. "I apologise; I wasn't watching where I was going."
    I look over the man, putting my hand out instinctively. "Gwen Maule," I say. 
    He's a couple inches taller than me, putting him just under six feet. He has silvering hair and green eyes and a face like a politician. He shakes my hand like one too, like he's been trained in the proper way to do it. 
    "What brings you to the gallery?" I ask him.
    "A friend of mine suggested I come. I have some interests in fashion, and she said Magda has talent."
    Has talent. Such an odd phrase. He says it like he might say one has money or has a yacht, as if talent is an oddly transferable commodity. Perhaps it is. By his accent, I'd put him from Northern England, though trying to mask it to sound like a Londoner.
    "She does great work." I follow his gaze to the blue dress. "That one's my favourite."
    "Mine as well. It would be a splendid addition to a couture winter line."
    I nod politely, utterly bored by the conversation. I know nothing about fashion and care about as much as I would about discussing his bowel movements. Wanting to dismiss myself, I hold up my now-empty plastic plate. 
    "Allow me," he says, taking the plate from me and walking to throw it away in the bin across the room. He doesn't recycle it.
    Unfortunately, the room's so wee there's nowhere for me to go but out, and I can't leave yet. He returns after a slap on the back from another patron, laughing off the other man with a smooth grin. Boring though he seems in conversation, there's something charismatic about the way he moves. He makes eye contact with the few people near him, and I can see the way they shift, the way their faces open up. He owns this room.
    He returns to me, a smile still flitting about his face. "So what do you do, Gwen Maule?"
    "I run the accountancy department at a local company," I say.
    "Finance! Capital." 
    "Pun intended?" I can't help but smirk, and he catches my grin, his own smile widening.
    "Unintended, but serendipitous enough that I'd like to pretend I can take credit for it."
    "You can have the credit," I tell him, flourishing my hand in as magnanimous a gesture as I can manage. "And you, John Abbey? What do you do?"
    "I'm the CEO of a textiles company. We specialise in quality fabrics for couture design and provide some of the best lines in Paris, New York, and London."
    "Not Edinburgh?"
    "Unfortunately not." The amusement in his voice makes me think he considers Edinburgh too parochial a venue for high fashion. "Not yet, anyway." His eyes linger on the blue dress.
    I can't think of anything else to say to him, so I refill a replacement plate with canapés and eat in silence. Small talk bores me, and I feel acutely aware of the sense that my position doesn't make me the economic equal of this man — also that he knows it just as well as I do.
    "What else do you do, Gwen? May I call you Gwen?"
    Nodding, I chew carefully and swallow before answering. Though I have no real answer to give him. I'm a superhero is out. "I like to go climbing," I tell him instead.
    "Brilliant! Where do you go?"
    "Mostly just hillwalking around here, but sometimes up north." There. Nice and vague.
    "If you ever need a good climbing