Page 11 of Bought for Blood

The relief moves through him at the shoulders before it reaches his face.

“The house would be honored, my lord. There are standards for an evening like this. Privacy. No interruption.” He pauses, and something in his face tightens before he goes on. “And onemore, if you’ll permit the bluntness. She’s prime stock. I must ask that you not take her too far.”

“Define too far.”

“Further than she can give and be worth what she’s worth in the morning.” He says it the way a man discusses inventory, because that’s exactly what it is to him. “If it’s that kind of evening you’re after tonight, my lord—the kind that doesn’t have her walking out under her own power after—we can accommodate that easily enough elsewhere in the house. I’d steer you clear of the redhead. More trouble than the pleasure’s worth. But any of the others, or a boy—”

“I didn’t ask for others.”

He reads that faster than I expect him to. “Of course, my lord. Forgive me. I only wanted you to have every option open to you.” He clasps his hands. “I will admit that we have never had a call for such a large variety. Our appointments are normally for a particular appetite.”

“You have a good selection,” I tell him. “I’m impressed.”

His smile broadens. “I am glad that you noticed. Our collection is well curated. During your patronage, you’ll come to find that we have something for everyone. Magic in all forms to give the very best experience, every tasting unique. And our stock is well maintained, unlike many of the other…” his nostrils flare, “establishments.”

I think of those pale, half-drained women standing along the wall. Clearly cleaned up for the occasion.

“Good,” I say. “Of course, I’d want to know I’m not exposed, should the evening go further than either of us intends. What measures does the house take, in that case?”

“It hasn’t happened under my management.” His eyes shift.

“I didn’t ask if it’s happened. I asked what happens when it does.”

A beat, and he recalculates me. Not a degenerate after all, or not only that. Careful. Good.

“There’s a physician on retainer. Sedatives, if the need arises. And should the house ever need to account for a…loss,” he says it delicately, the way he’d report a shipment gone missing, “we deal with it quietly. Discretion is the house’s finest asset, my lord. No client of ours has ever been made to answer for an evening spent here. Not once.”

“Who is your clientele, exactly?”

“My lord, you understand there are names I’m not free to give. Even to you.”

“Give me what you are free to give.”

He weighs that, how much flattery costs him against how much information does. “Only that they come from the very best lineages. Old blood, older names. The sort that doesn’t advertise what it collects.”

Old blood. Old names. That’s worth carrying back.

He rises, smoothing his jacket. He clears his throat. “And then, of course, the matter of the fee.”

“Of course,” I say, waving a hand.

The number he murmurs is high enough to flatter us both. Low enough to tell me the truth. He’s not selling tonight. He’s finding out what I’ll pay once he knows how much I want her.

Let him run it. I know what he’s doing.

“My lord.” He gestures to the doorway. “Please. Allow one of our attendants to take you to more suitable surroundings.”

They move me to another room deeper along the same floor, the first room in this building someone’s furnished for staying in, not passing through. A fire. An armchair in deep leather. A decanter and one glass. Books, real ones, old ones, spines cracked with actual reading. I wonder whose library was emptied to furnish this room. I pick one up, turn it over, put it back down unopened.

A knock. A young woman in compound uniform comes in with a fresh decanter and kneels at the hearth to build up the fire. Pale. Quick hands. She doesn’t look at me once.

“Anything else, my lord?” she asks once the fire is blazing.

“How often has this room been used?”

“I couldn’t say, my lord.”

“Convenient answer.”