Ryan kissed her softly on the lips. “Agreed.”
“How about little Emma? What do you make of her? Something just doesn’t set right, does it?”
“Yeah.” He let go of Krysty and pressed his face to the cold damp glass of the windows, staring out across the streaming roofs of the ville. “Time’ll come when I’m going to want to know where she’s been all her life. And when she found out that she had the doomie power. She still doesn’t seem able to control it, like it’s something new.”
“I worry she’ll get herself killed with it.”
“And us?”
She nodded. “Mebbe us as well.”
“Jak’s stricken with her. Did you notice?”
She laughed delightedly. “Does a pigeon shit on your head? ‘Course I noticed. Good for the kid after all the bad times he’s had. Jak’s earned some happiness.”
“If he finds it with Emma.”
Krysty stopped smiling, catching the serious note in Ryan’s voice. “You think she’s bad news, lover?”
“I think she might be. That’s all it is. No more than a feeling. Partly because there’s far too many dark places hidden in her life.”
ONCE AGAIN, the word “workmanlike” came to Ryan’s mind when the food was served in a large dining room, with a vaulted roof of oak beams: a sturdy beef stew with plain baked bread, no salt or pepper or herbs or spices seemed to be allowed to desecrate the table of Baron Sharpe; a joint of roasted pork, carved thick, well-done, with a dull gravy poured over boiled potatoes and sliced carrots served with watery cabbage; and a steamed pudding, heavy on suet, with a lumpy custard sauce.
Thin beer was served from brimming glass jugs by a pair of elderly servants. And water. Krysty chose to have the water and found it to be slightly brackish, with an underlying taste of copper.
“I must compliment you on the underwhelming adequacy of your table, Baron Sharpe,” Doc boomed, dabbing at his mouth with a patched napkin.
“What was that? I’m sorry, my thoughts were elsewhere on more important matters.”
There it was again, the strange lack of social manners that they’d seen earlier.
“I remarked that you must surely have a descendant of the great Escoffier working in your kitchens.”
“Who? I don’t think we have anyone of that name as kitchen servant, do we, Joaquin?”
“Don’t think so, Baron.”
“Doc,” Mildred whispered warningly, “don’t go too far and push your luck.”
But the old man was off and running, following his speeding train of thought, not too concerned to engage his brain before operating his mouth.
“Are you by any rate chance familiar with the word ‘logy,’ Baron?”
“You ask a lot too many bloody questions, Dr. Tanner. No, I’m not.”
“Then kindly allow me to say that this has been one of the most logy meals that I have ever encountered.”
“What’s it mean?” Krysty whispered.
“Shan’t tell you, my dear. Anyone wants to know is at liberty to look it up. My lips are sealed. Perhaps by the glue that passed for custard.”
Ryan didn’t understand a lot of what Doc had been saying, but he could tell by the impish gleam in his eyes that he was indulging his wit at the expense of the baron, which was never a good thing to do.
“Heard tell you collect animals, Baron,” Ryan said, changing the subject.
“Where did you hear that?” Sharpe asked suspiciously.
“Around and about. I think it was probably a hunter up in Green Hill.”
Sharpe nodded. “Could be. Yes, that would make sense. I collect very special animals, Cawdor.”
“Special?” J.B. asked.
“I wasn’t aware that you suffered from deafness, Dix. Perhaps I need to speak more loudly to allow for your disability. I said they were special.”
“In what way?” The Armorer took off his glasses and polished them carefully on the cloth, refusing to allow the baron to rile him.
“I don’t have the time or the energy to try to explain my collection. If you don’t understand, then nothing I say would help. And if you do understand, then no explanation is needful.”
“Can we go and see it? See them? Please?” It was almost the first thing that Emma had said since they’d arrived in the ville.