“So?”
“Considering your status, I’m sure you’re looking forward to the money.”
“I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.” He frowned, trying not to shiver. Beside him, Chance held his gloved hands to his cold cheeks and looked longingly at the building.
Venture was about to ask her who she was and remind her that a champion’s prize was enough to change the life of a man of almost any status, when she stepped closer and whispered into the wind, “Your skills haven’t truly been tested against the best men yet, Mr. Delving. And you know how many things have to go right in a single-elimination tournament in order for you to win—even to place. You can prepare all you want, but in the end it’s a big gamble.”
“So?”
“So, what if you could have three quarters the Championship prize, guaranteed, and not have to fight a single bout? Not ever have to fight again.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Withdraw.” She smiled in spite of the severe look he gave her. “Leave the world of fighting, stop training with Dasher Starson, and you’ll be rewarded.”
“By whom?”
“I can’t tell you. But if you like, I can show you the money.”
“What cowards sent you to do their job for them?”
His tone was so intense, Chance took a few steps back.
“They thought you’d enjoy their offer more, coming from a woman,” she said, apparently unconcerned by his rising anger.
“They thought wrong. I would have enjoyed it much more if this offer came from a man. It would have been much more enjoyable to refuse it, in my own way. Saying
no
just isn’t as gratifying.”
“Perhaps there’s some message you’d like me to pass on, then, along with
no
?”
“If you were a man, your face would be the message.” And if she were a man, she’d be afraid.
“I told them you wouldn’t take it well.”
“Why’s that?”
“They wanted me to appeal to you as a woman to a man, but I’ve learned enough of you to know better.”
“Have you?” He crossed his arms again. “Don’t you read the papers?”
“I know better than to believe something just because it’s in print. I’ve learned a lot about you, from better sources than the
Crier
. I tried to tell them that contrary to what they might have heard, you aren’t the type to lose your head over the attentions of a woman.”
Ha
, Venture thought.
Except for one woman
.
“Apart from that, you’re more interested in being the best fighter than in the money. I knew you’d be hard to sway. But they wouldn’t hear it. ‘He’s a bondsman, after all,’ they said. They don’t understand that there are all sorts.”
Venture relaxed his arms a bit. “You’re a bonded servant too.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, I hope you’re free soon to find a better master. Tell whoever he is that Venture Delving can’t be bought, not for any price. And knowing that someone doesn’t want me to fight makes me all the more determined that I
will
fight and I
will
win.”
“I know what they’ll say to that.” She looked off into the distance, through the bare branches of an old elm tree, thoughtfully, perhaps even regretfully.
“What’s that?”
She turned her eyes on him sharply and pushed her hood back. Her voice wasn’t loud, but cold and clear. “Every man has his price. For you maybe it takes more than money.”
Venture snatched up a handful of her cloak, right at her neck, and twisted it tight in his red-cold fist. “What do you mean by that?” She offered him only a face of stone. He curled his forearm up, forcing her onto the tips of her toes. “Who sent you?” She merely blinked at him calmly, so he gave her a jerk. That forced out a little cry. “Answer me!”
“People are watching you, Venture Delving,” she threatened evenly. She nodded toward a pair of men a hundred yards or so away, squinting in their direction against the wind. “We wouldn’t want them to think you’re hurting me.”
Venture cared little about them; Chance, on the other hand, was frozen in place, his eyes round. Venture released her so abruptly that she stumbled, and would’ve fallen back in a heap, but he snatched her by the cloak again and set her on her feet.
“I have to go,” she said once she was set straight. “I wish you well, Venture Delving, whether you believe it or not. Your boldness has often served you well, but there are times when it’s wise to be afraid.”
“I should be afraid, should I?”
“If you choose not to cooperate, yes, you should be very afraid.”
“Is that why you do this? Bribe me, threaten me? Is this where your fear has gotten you?”
“Do I look like a fearful woman to you? But yes, I’m afraid of the people who sent me. I know them better than you.”
She strode away, and he called after her, “Who are they, then? Who sent you?” But his only answer was the wind, beating cold and cruel at his ears.
Venture stormed over to the center door and pounded on it with his fist. Chance jumped and Venture stopped. He put his hands over his face and let his head fall back against the door. Chance sank down on the steps and pulled his knees up to his chest. Earnest and Dasher weren’t here yet. No one was here yet, and he needed to talk to them, and it was so blasted cold.
Though they had one of the smaller, seldom used training rooms to themselves, people were always wanting to watch them work out, to talk to the reigning champion. So they liked to come early and get started before anyone came to distract them, then go off on their run once the center got busy. Earnest had the key Beamer had given them, and Venture had no way to get in without him.
Finally Earnest and Dasher came up the path, all smiles, until they saw Chance huddled there so miserably. They stopped dead when they saw the look on Venture’s face.
“Just open the door,” Venture said. “I have something to tell you when we get inside.”
Venture took one last look around the center grounds, searching for a glimpse of that woman, before he followed them inside.
When he was finished telling them what had happened, Earnest crossed his arms and leaned against the entryway wall. “Cresteds are behind this. None of the other fighters is worried enough about you to try anything this drastic, even if they had the money. No offense, Vent. You’re going to surprise a lot of people.”
Venture said, “I hope so.”
“They’d have a less refined approach, too,” Dasher said. “This is Crested, all the way through.”
“The Longlakes,” Venture ground out the name of his local enemies.
Earnest looked away, to hide the fact that he knew just how personal Venture’s suspicions had become.
“Maybe,” said Dasher, who’d heard the stories of how Prowess Longlake, and then his son Hunter, had marched into Beamer’s when Venture was a trouble-making young boy and demanded that Beamer expel him from his center. “Or someone further away. Higher up.”
Venture doubted it. “So now what?” he said.
Earnest clapped a hand on Venture’s back. “Now we train harder.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Venture waited under the plum tree for Jade. The last of its remaining leaves fluttered in the breeze. Everything was ready. The best carriage had been shined and the horses brushed. Silver baubles tinkled on their bridles as they shifted their feet and shook their glossy black manes. He focused on the dark, heavy front doors of the Big House, on the carving of a rose in full bloom, which spanned the greater portion of both doors. It had been commissioned for Jade’s grandmother, by her husband, before their wedding, as his way of making his family home hers as well.
The rose carving parted down the middle and Jade stepped out, followed by Grant. The weather had warmed considerably over the last few days, and it was a cool, but fine afternoon, as beautiful weather as one could expect in Autumn’s Third Month. Jade, too, was as beautiful as he could’ve expected. She was always beautiful, but today she’d put some real effort into it, with stunning results.
Not for him. For Hunter.
“I’m fine, Father,” Jade said. “You don’t need to follow me to the carriage.”
“Venture, you take good care of her.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.” Venture tried to sound reassuring, and not like he was about to snap.
Grant ducked back into the house, shaking his head, too caught up in his own concerns about Jade to notice Venture’s mood.
“Hello, Venture.”
Jade’s greeting was stiff. The wind picked up, loosening a few wisps of her hair from the thin magenta ribbon she’d tied at the nape of her neck and dusting her shoulders with a few dark purple leaves.
In spite of the autumn wind, Venture was sweating already. Given Grant’s generosity in allowing him to be away for the better part of the year and funding his training, a part of him wondered how he could think of doing the sort of things he was thinking of doing, how he could think of causing Grant such frustration and humiliation by pursuing the heart of his only daughter. But then, how could he not?
“Hello, Miss. Are you doing well this evening?” His greeting was polite, but his manner of looking at her, of following her gaze even when she tried to avoid his sharp eyes, betrayed his mood.
“I’m just fine, thank you. How do I look?” Jade shot him a look of her own that said,
Okay, I’ll take you on.
Venture looked her up and down thoughtfully, as though he hadn’t had ample opportunity to see her the whole time she made her way along the winding walk to the carriage.
“Very . . .” He looked meaningfully at her cleavage before finding the right word, “fashionable.”
“I meant for you to comment on my dress, or perhaps my hair.” Jade’s eyes narrowed at him.
“I thought I
was
commenting on your dress, which looks fine, although I prefer your hair down.”
“Stop that!”
“Stop what,
Jade?
”
“Looking at me like I’m some little tart for you to devour.”
Venture raised his eyebrows and grinned. Did she honestly expect him to comment on her taste in choosing this latest of Illesian-inspired fashions, with the silk ruffle they liked to call a neckline plunging entirely too far from her actual neckline, nearly to her midsection?
She blushed deeper and turned away, but not before he saw the hint of tears in her eyes. He felt a stab of guilt, a hint of warning, but just as quickly his pride and anger flared back up. She was the one with two of her best features on full display, about to fall out of her dress, as though he—or, God forbid, Hunter—might at any moment have to catch them in his hands. How could she expect him not to notice? Not to care?
“I’m sorry, Miss,” he said sarcastically, “I’m always forgetting my place.”
“Your place? This has nothing to do with your place!” She flung the carriage door open herself, saying, “You
are
a stupid boy, Venture Delving! I take back anything I ever said otherwise!”
With that, she climbed into the carriage unassisted and settled herself on the cushioned seat.
Fuming, he ignored her last remark. “All set to go then?” he asked with mock politeness.
Her eyes flashed at him in return, and he carefully closed the door, climbed onto the driver’s seat, took another deep breath, and mumbled a halfhearted prayer that he’d make it through this without killing anyone, namely Hunter Longlake. And then he called to the horses, and with a jingling of bells and a clomping of hooves, they were off.
He slowed the carriage to a stop in front of the Gilded, Twin Rivers’ best inn, leaped down from the driver’s seat, and opened the door for Jade. The Longlakes had lived in the High Judge’s Residence in Twin Rivers when he was younger, but now Prowess Longlake was Governor of the Western Quarter, and he lived in Lightward, while Hunter occupied the family estate, clear over in the northernmost corner of the county, too far away for him to make the trip home after spending an evening with Jade. Since Grant wasn’t foolish enough to invite Hunter to stay the night at the Big House, he’d become a frequent guest of the Gilded.
With the carriage door blocking the view of any curious onlookers, Venture leaned down, his face close to Jade’s—too close, closer than a servant’s ever should be—searching for words, searching his mind for a way to stop this. She was right; he was being an idiot earlier. A part of him just wanted to say he was sorry, for what, he didn’t care. Just beg her to forget about Hunter and to wait for him.
Jade shot him a fearless look and stood her ground. “I said stop looking at me like that, Venture Delving.”
“Why?”
She shook her head sharply, as though she couldn’t find the right words to say what she was thinking any more than he could. She gave him a shove instead. Startled, he stepped back to let her out. Though he held out his hand, predictably, she refused it.
“Why should I sit at home and wait for a man who wouldn’t do the same for me?” she said once she was on her feet. “Getting to know Hunter a little better is much more enjoyable than sitting home like an old maid.”
“You’ve been seeing him for a while, then?”
“Of course. Why do you think Father insists on sending you to drive me now that he has the chance? He thinks of you as his most loyal servant when it comes to protecting his daughter’s honor, regardless of whether she wants it protected against a particular gentleman or not. Hopefully he’ll never find out that you have no honor. It would break his heart.”
“Stop talking, Jade, before you say anything more that you’re going to regret!”
“Why would I regret it?”
She knew very well why; she knew how his mother had always urged him to be a man of honor. She knew how he feared disappointing her just as well as she knew how he needed Grant’s respect.
“I may be a stupid boy, but you’re being a foolish girl.”
“
I’m
being foolish?”
The memory rushed to his mind, of finding her under the willow tree when they were just fourteen. Kissing her forehead.
This
, he’d said between kisses,
is pure foolishness
.
“We were both foolish once.”
“Yes,” she said, taken aback. She remembered. But then she stiffened again. “We were, until you decided to keep your promise to Justice instead of keeping me.”