lightly on the cheek and Margerit raised a hand to tuck an unruly lock of tawny hair back under Barbara’s low hat. It always felt daring to make those gestures in public, even though any close friends might have shared such a salutation.
“And Marken allowed it?” Margerit inquired teasingly. The armin took his watch over her very seriously—more seriously than was necessary only for propriety. Barbara had preceded him in that duty back in the days before she had become Baroness Saveze, but he was disinclined to cede it to her these days. And he looked askance at Barbara’s own preference for going about unescorted. In his eyes, a baroness owed something to her own dignity.
“I insisted,” Barbara said. “I thought we might stop at the Café Chatuerd for a bit. The moment we walk in the door at Tiporsel House there will be a thousand claims on your time, and I wanted to have you to myself for a while.”
Moments later the doorman at the café bowed deeply to Barbara, murmuring, “Baroness Saveze, we are honored. Maisetra Sovitre, will you be joining friends?”
At a shake of her head they were shown to a table upstairs, where it was quieter and where a spot by the bowed windows gave a view out across the Plaiz without putting one on display for passersby. The café had been named for the old palace watchtower that had once stood on the site, but the name fit, for it still served as a vantage point over the heart of the city. Barbara waited until a plate of delicate pastries and the small steaming cups of coffee had been brought, then took her hand and asked, “How did it go? Have you restored the ancient wording of the tutela ?”
Margerit laughed. She hadn’t realized how much the hearing had weighed on her until that weight was gone. “I never hoped for that! But he listened, and that is enough for now. And the Royal Guild will perform my castellum. I’m trying to remember that advice Mother Teres once gave me about pride. Alpennia will not stand or fall on the basis of my mysteries. And what of your errand, was it successful?”
Barbara shrugged. “Well enough. I’ll be glad to stay home for a while. Except—”
“Now we come to it! Except for what?”
“I have a royal invitation. Efriturik asked me to Feniz for his hunting party. I don’t care to say no to an Atilliet. May I go?”
It was a game they played—the asking of permission. The expiation of a time when there had been too much silence and too many things taken for granted. There was less need for it now. The world knew…well, what the world knew and what it suspected were two different things. But society understood that an invitation from Tiporsel House came under the seal of Saveze. And it was known that if an invitation to the baroness did not also include the name Sovitre, then it was likely she would be otherwise occupied. Beyond that, what the world knew was that the woman who had inherited Marziel Lumbeirt’s fortune and the woman belatedly acknowledged as his daughter who now bore his title had their lives bound together too tightly to ignore. And if gossip went further than that? There was always gossip, and most people chose to see only what was convenient. Once Rotenek society had granted a woman the label of Eccentric, it required only that she be discreet and entertaining.
Barbara was still waiting for an answer, amusement glinting in her pale eyes. “You can hardly say no to Princess Annek’s son,” Margerit said. “And whatever would I do at a hunting party? I don’t even ride!”
The amusement turned into a wide smile. It was another private joke between them, one of the threads weaving the tapestry of their lives. “In truth, I think Efriturik only asked me in hopes of learning all the best coverts. It was one of the baron’s properties, you recall.”
Between them, he was only ever “the baron,” never “my father.” Margerit was one of few who knew the depth of hurt and anger behind that. That, too,