The Almighty Dominance (by Sunshine) novel Chapter 809

Two nights later the Grand's ballroom was white and gold, a hundred candles, the sea black behind the tall windows. In the middle of the floor a ship carved out of ice, Halcyon's mark, dripped slowly into a silver tray.

At the Tiffany table Serena sat very straight in her best dress, her hands folded in her lap. Her name, on the contract.

Patricia under it. She had said it to herself all day, the way you count steps in the dark.

Alex sat beside her with three coats folded over his knees, because nobody else had wanted to hold them.

The doors opened, and the room turned.

Rebecca Morgan came in alone, tall and cold, dark red hair pinned back hard, a man's watch on her thin wrist. Whispers ran ahead of her across the floor. The Cruel Lady of Calder never came to anyone's party.

At the high table she and Natasha Vale inclined their heads to each other. Neither said a word. Whatever the Morgans owed Halcyon, nobody in this room would hear of it.

She turned to go back to the Morgan table. Halfway there, passing the Tiffanys, she stopped.

She felt it the way you feel someone watching you, and walked over to the man with the coats.

"I think I know you," she said.

Alex looked up with his mild, empty smile. "Everybody says that. I have that kind of face. Like a potato."

"No." Rebecca studied him. "I rarely misread a body. The way you sit. The way you hold those coats, as if they weigh nothing and you could drop them in a breath." Her eyes narrowed. "Stand up."

Alex stood up. One of the coats slid off his knee onto the floor.

"Oh no," he said, and bent for it, and bumped the table, and a spoon rang on a saucer.

Rebecca watched every move of it. "You dropped that on purpose."

"I drop everything on purpose," Alex said proudly. "Ask anyone."

"Where were you three nights ago?" Rebecca asked.

"In the kennel," Alex said. "The dogs can tell you. The old one never lies."

"I know you," Rebecca said, very quietly.

Beside him, Serena said nothing at all. She only watched the Countess of Calder look at her husband the way nobody had ever looked at him.

"Well, well." Julian Pryce strolled up with his hands in his pockets, handsome in a smooth, finished way, like a piece of furniture polished every day of its life. "The Cruel Lady of Calder and the dog boy. Countess, a rose doesn't lean over a dung heap. He sleeps in a kennel."

Rebecca did not turn her head. "Mr. Pryce."

"If you want a man to look at," Julian said, leaning closer, "you're looking at the wrong end of the table. Some of us have a lake."

"I look at men who keep their word, Mr. Pryce," Rebecca said. "You have a wife."

The table next to them went silent. Somebody's laugh came out through their nose.

Julian's smile stayed exactly where it was. His ears went red.

Rebecca gave Alex one more long, cold, puzzled look. Then she walked away from both of them, and did not look back.

Julian looked down at Alex, still holding the dropped coat.

"Nice coats," he said. "Is that the job now? From the kennel to the cloakroom."

"It's warmer," Alex said.

"Do you know why Halcyon picked your wife, dog boy?" Julian bent down beside his chair and smiled, and his voice went soft and pleasant. "That night I came down to the garage wing. She let me in. Afterwards she asked me to pull a few strings with Halcyon. I told the whole house. Ask her grandmother. Eight parts in ten, the old woman believes it."

At the next table a woman's fan stopped moving. The whisper went round the table, and the next.

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