Evening came to Soren's house the way it came to all expensive houses — politely.
Lamps first. Lit one at a time by servants trained not to look at the guests. Then the shadows, settling into corners they had clearly been assigned. Somewhere in the kitchen a pot lid clattered and was immediately silenced.
The front room had been given over to the gifts.
Silk, folded in rolls the color of wet slate. A lacquer box inlaid with something that caught the lamplight and kept it. A tea service so fine it looked embarrassed to be used. Two jade combs, laid side by side on a cushion like they'd been told to behave.
Every piece wore a small card.
Every card carried the same signature. Steady. Unhurried. The handwriting of a man with nothing on his conscience.
Edric Vane.
Lain looked at the combs.
Looked away from them.
He sat in the corner chair, back very straight, hands in his lap, where hands in dresses were apparently meant to live. Hair pinned. Jaw softened with something that smelled of rice powder. He had stopped counting how many times his fingers had gone to his collar.
There was no collar.
There was only neckline.
He put his hands back in his lap.
Engaged, he thought.
In one day. Faster than it had any right to.
Vane had proposed over tea that morning. Kaedrin had asked for time.
Time had lasted until noon.
Then the steward. Neat. Polite. A crescent over a column stitched at his sleeve — Sable Mourne's mark, not Vane's. He bowed to Kaedrin. Then he turned to the granddaughter and said her name.
Mira.
He'd had it ready.
Kaedrin looked at him for exactly as long as a rich old man would. Then he said yes. As grandfather. Easily. The girl's parents were abroad, weeks away, and would likely miss the wedding. A pity. Haste could be forgiven.
His real mother had been abroad for thirteen years.
Not even a stretch.
The gifts arrived by evening. Four men. Seven crates.
Lain counted them. Counting was better than the alternative.
Kaedrin had taken the chair nearest the fire, his white hair gone gold at the edges. Soren sat opposite with one ankle on his knee. Their voices stayed low. Two men going over a plan they'd half agreed on before they sat down.
"He liked her," Kaedrin said.
"He did."
"Quickly."
"Vane doesn't do quickly." Soren turned his cup a quarter turn on its saucer. "That's what bothers me."
"The steward was Mourne's."
"So were the crates." He nodded at the stacked lids. "That's Mourne's mark on the wood. Vane keeps his own warehouse."
Kaedrin glanced over. "You think Mourne put this together."
"I think Vane's accounts are thin and Mourne keeps them. A rich uncle with foreign money is a tidy answer." A small shrug. "Mourne likes tidy."
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then I'm wrong about one merchant."
"It would be the first time this year."
"Close enough."
The fire shifted. A servant's footsteps passed in the hall and did not stop.
"Tomorrow," Kaedrin said. "We visit him before the ceremony. The uncle wants to meet the man who wants his granddaughter. Traditional."
"He'll be delighted."
"Then we tell him what we told the steward, and watch his face when he says he doesn't mind."
"And if Mourne's there?"
"We watch him too."
Lain had said nothing since the tea arrived. It was beginning to occur to him that the conversation was about him. A little. In the way a conversation could be about a table.
He lifted one hand.
"Actually—"
"An engaged lady," Kaedrin said, not looking up, "should not interrupt her own marriage talk."
Mild. Pleasant. A grandfather correcting a granddaughter over tea.
Lain closed his mouth.
Soren raised his cup and held it in front of his face a moment longer than a man needed to.
Her own marriage talk, Lain thought.
I can still escape this.
He looked at the window. Then the door.
Lowered his hand back into his lap.
Soren set down his cup and reached beside the chair. A folder, thick, soft at the corners from handling. He laid it across Lain's knee.
"Vane," he said. "All of it."
Kaedrin glanced at the folder. Then at his son.
"Read it before morning."
"I don't skip pages."
"I know," said Kaedrin.
They left a little after.
Kaedrin went to speak to someone about horses. Soren went to recount the crates, because someone had to. The lamps burned lower.
Lain opened the folder.
Dates. Routes. Names crossed through and written again. Soren's hand, cramped and careful, the hand of a man who had written everything down because nobody else would. He turned pages. Turned more.
Near the top of the fourth, a line.
Wives (declared): 2.
Below it, in the same hand, slightly less steady.
Wives (actual): 24.
He read it twice.
He read the line under it.
Children: 6.
And under that.
Living: 0.
He did not read that one twice.
He didn't need to.
The lamp flame stood perfectly still.
The dress had stopped being funny somewhere around the word "children."
He closed the folder. Set both hands flat on top of it, as if it might open on its own.
Across the room, the two jade combs lay side by side on their cushion.
Two, he thought.
Of course.