Page 88 of Hearts of Stone

“You’re the girl that drove the men from the club,” the elderly woman in the Chanel suit said, her pink lips thinning.

“Ahh—” I started to say.

“Oh yes,” another woman said, with a frown. “My David said something about that. Came home in a terrible snit.”

“Right. So—”

“The Wildfyre Club has held its meetings in Whiteley House for over a hundred years, young lady.”

“Sure—”

“And some girl who’s barely even come into her power shouldn’t be throwing her weight around, tossing her betters out on their ear.”

“So, Jade,” a soft, almost mumsy-looking woman said, leaning over the table. “Have you put any thought into marriage?”

“Oh shut up, Phyllis,” the ancient woman said. “This girl could be more powerful than Merlin himself and it’s not going to help the Junipers become the power they once were.” She shot me a dark look. “Her son’s a pervert who prefers the company of the dolls that he animates, rather than real women, anyway.You’d be much better off with my Gerald. He knows how to use a firm hand.”

“Oh my god—!” I muttered.

“All of this arguing won’t get anyone anywhere.” Meredith’s lip curled, discreetly, of course, ensuring the others saw as her keen eyes slid down my neck, and past the foundation I’d slathered across my skin and underneath the double loop of pearls to the bite mark Seneca had left. When she noted it, so did others, and the Savoy-by-marriage woman beside me pulled back as if I had cooties or something. “You accepted a mating mark.”

The way she said it was as if she was accusing me of eating human excrement for fun. There was the same kind of confusion, curiosity and revulsion. But suddenly I found my backbone, straightening up to sit tall and meet the gaze of every woman at the table.

“I did, just last night,” I announced.

“So you’ve decided to sleep with the help,” sneered the elderly woman across the table, turning away with a sniff.

“I knew we should’ve approached the estate before now,” Phyllis muttered to the person next to her. “With no one to teach her, she didn’t know any better.”

“Did you think about your children?” another woman snapped at me, disapprovingly.

“What children?” I asked in alarm, as if they might materialise from the air at the mere mention.

“Any children you might have,” she said, drawing back with a grimace. “You can’t expect them to be accepted.”

“Accepted where?” I snapped. “I haven’t had any children, and if I do…” My hand dropped low, to a place that still hummed with the remnant heat of pleasure. It felt like a fire I could warm my hands around, warding off the chill of the scorn of these women.

“You’re intending to bearthemchildren?”

The tone was how one might speak about a woman determined to have puppies with her pet dog, and I guess in their minds there was a similarity. They obviously treated gargoyles and other creatures in a similar way. I shook my head, unable to work out how I’d made it back to the ‘nerd’ table in the school yard, with the alpha bitches staring at me from their perceived position of social superiority.

At the thought of how all that hierarchical bullshit was still being played out by these adults, I felt the weight of everything that I’d been dealing with—along with the double whammy of my hangover and lack of sleep—hit me with a wallop. Rather than feel overwhelmed, I reminded myself I wasn’t in high school anymore and I didn’t have to talk to any of these people. With a sense of relief, I pushed my seat back from the table, ready to find Mellors and book it out of there. As I was about to get to my feet a masculine voice cut through all of the female twittering.

“Jade, can I borrow you for a second?”

I looked up and had a disconcerting moment when Adam’s face came into view, because superimposed over his perfectly formed face was an identical one. Adam’s was flush with life, his lips quirking up at one corner in barely suppressed amusement, whereas Wulfstan’s… But before I could follow that train of thought, Adam offered me his hand.

“Yes,” I said, sliding my palm into his. “Yes, of course.”

Chapter 49

Jade

“You looked like you needed rescuing,” he said, moving my hand to his arm so we could promenade around the room.

“You have no idea how much,” I retorted. As we walked, I scanned the ballroom, looking for Mellors. Any hope I’d had of this event actually being useful had been well and truly dashed. “I need to find Mellors and bail.”

“He was the one who sent me over,” Adam replied, smoothly. “He’s a little caught up.” And sure enough, the estate’s lawyer was engaged in an earnest conversation with several stuffy-looking types. “But if you wanted to get out of here…?”

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