Servants stood at both ends of the loggia with more bottles of wine and fruit platters. They wore splashy, well-used clothes, often ill-fitting; cast-offs from their superiors, Adele realized. Adrian glanced at them and said, “Go on, get out of here! We need to talk privately!”
“But Lord Purvis?” said the servant with waxed mustachios who appeared to be the senior of those present. “If you need more—”
“Go on, damn you, get out!” Adrian snarled petulantly. “Do you think I couldn’t have you bastinadoed, Aurelio?”
The servants crowded out the doors to the interior of the building, leaving them ajar. If Adrian really thought he was gaining privacy, he was a fool; but the chances were he was just salving his conscience by paying lip service to security concerns.
“Sit down,” O’Quinn urged again, “and have some of this wine, mistress. It’s nothing like what we had at home, but I find it palatable.”
Adele stepped over the bench and seated herself carefully. The central table was low and three feet away, strictly for serving rather than dining. Two officers were eating what looked like miniature pomegranates; they spat the seeds onto the rugs layered over the floor.
Face as stiff as cast iron, Adele took the offered glass. It was a brandy snifter, but O’Quinn had poured it full of the same vintage he was drinking. She sipped. The flavor was interesting, though there was an earthy hint that she suspected would be an unpleasant companion the morning after drinking a quantity of the wine.
There was no likelihood of that, however, since either the vintage was fortified or the sugar-converting bacteria here on Todos Santos were remarkably resistant to poisoning by the ethanol waste product. She didn’t think, “You could fuel an engine with this!” because she knew full well that you couldn’t; but she also knew that a mug the size of Admiral O’Quinn’s would have her comatose before she reached the bottom.
“Tell us frankly, Mistress Mundy . . . ,” said Bodo Williams, the Second Lieutenant. Her cheekbones stood out from tight-stretched skin. When her hands began to tremble she clasped them before her, but even that didn’t completely control the shaking. “Tell us—did the Senate send you as their emissary to arrange the terms of our repatriation?”
Adele blinked. Good God! But it was a serious question, as serious to them as it seemed absurd to her. The six former RCN officers stared at her with a mixture of hope and desperation.
“Lieutenant Williams,” Adele said carefully. “Admiral, all of you. . . .”
She set her glass on the floor beside her and took out her data unit to occupy her hands. The rugs weren’t a firm surface, but obviously nobody else cared if the glass spilled.
“I’m not an envoy,” Adele said bluntly, sweeping the fearful eyes with her own. She spoke with a hostile edge, an unintended but natural result of these people putting her in a ridiculous position. “Of the Senate, of anybody. I’m Adele Mundy, calling on my closest living relative—my mother’s brother’s son—when as a result of my private employment I found myself unexpectedly in the city where he lives.”
She glared at Commander Purvis. “And Adrian?” she continued, “I’ll note that I didn’t expect my desire to see a relative would involve me in a conspiracy which was a demonstrably bad idea sixteen years ago!”
Adele hadn’t known what she was going to say until the words came out of her mouth. She rose, sliding the data unit away. She’d taken it out to calm her as she gathered her thoughts, but now they blazed in a white fury that might require her to have her hands free. How dare these—
“Adele, we’re not conspirators!” Adrian said, stepping toward her with his arms out. Adele jerked backward and the bench caught her knees. She toppled but Adrian grabbed her by the shoulders and held her upright.
“Adele, we’re not conspirators,” he repeated softly as he leaned away again, one hand still touching her arm. He was breathing hard. The others were on their feet also, all but Williams who’d fallen back to the bench and now braced herself on the serving table for another try. “We . . . when you came, we thought you might be coming for us. That’s all.”