Page 49 of A Heart of Bluestone

Jim looks over his shoulder—traces my stare to the peppermint cake.

I shouldn’t.

I was good this morning at breakfast.

One little cake wouldn’t hurt… but then it might.

I don’t want to return home to Mother’s passive comments on my wider waistline, like I did last year and the year before. She sends me off to take more ballet classes whenever I gain a few.

I don’t gain a lot.

I just like cake.

Jim arches his brow at me.

I shake my head. “Just the drinks.”

He nods, but before he can push from the bar and move for the small fridges, a familiar ice-drawl snakes over my head—

“On my tab. And a bottle of single malt.”

I don’t look over my shoulder at Dray. Ifeelhim advance. Feel the frosty warmth of his presence coming up behind me.

I wait for my order, face like I sucked and fucked a lemon.

This, this is what I despise about our world, our snub-nosed elite bullshit.

Hatred sees him pushing me over when no one’s around, but if I tripped on my own, among our kind, our rules expect that he helps me up.

He will order for me, buy my drinks, but spike them with a brew to make me ill, he will compliment my dresses but ruin them with chewing gum or whatever concoction he dreams up.

It’s all veils and masks with the aristos, and all slights have to be done in therightway at therightmoment, and no other time or else it defies propriety.

I always thought it silly.

Growing up, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

To stab a man in a room of people is a terrible thing. A great crime, an atrocity. You will be judged.

But, then, to stab that same man in a dark room, with no witnesses, then to appeal for help?

Well that is different.

He got what was coming to him.

He will disappear.

No one will ever know.

Took me too long to learn that all terrible things are allowed, if they are done properly. If they are done in way that allows blind eyes, turned cheeks and, of course, the classic coverup.

But we are in the business of coverups, the Videralli, and most of all the aristos. We have the cleanest of dirty hands—and the dirtiest of clean hands.

Suppose it makes sense that all this sneaky, whispering backstabbing bullshit happenswithinthe circles, too.

I outstretch my hand just as Jim slides the cans across the bar to me. The cold metal presses to my palm.

I snatch them both up before I draw in a deep breath, as though it’ll somehow help me turn to face Dray.

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