Page 51 of Bought for Blood

“Then let’s see the food,” she says.

The laugh gets out of me before I approve it. Short, real, the first one this room has heard in years. Both attendants find something to study on the sideboard.

“You look beautiful,” I say, drawing her chair. I say it because I mean it, and that surprises me. I lost interest in beauty a long time ago.

“I look expensive. There’s a difference.”

“There is. I’ve bought many expensive things.” I push the chair in under her. “Beautiful walked in on its own and asked if she could leave.”

She giggles, then covers her mouth with her hand.

And I am charmed.

The first course goes down. Her hand hovers over the row of forks.

“Outside in,” I say. “Invented by people with too much silver and little to talk about.”

“Which are you?”

“Both. With any luck, you’ll change that.”

She tries the soup carefully, inhaling as she does. Then her eyes close over the spoon, one breath, and when they open, she catches me watching. She lowers her eyes and keeps eating, faster now, the way you eat when plates get taken away.

“There’s more,” I say. “There is always more. Send an empty plate down and ask again. The kitchen will love it.”

“What is it?”

“Venison, from the estate.” I watch her over my glass. “You’re free to ask for anything else. Tell them what you like, it appears. Tell them what you miss, it appears twice.”

“What I miss.” She looks at me while she decides whether to open up. “My grandmother made a stew. Lamb, white beans, rosemary. Every Sunday the whole house smelled of it by noon.” Her voice stays level all the way through. Against the table, her hand has closed on the napkin.

“Then on Sunday,” I say, “your house will smell of it by noon. You can have anything you want.”

She looks at her plate. When she looks up, something in her face has eased, just slightly.

“Anything?”

“Name it.” I’m feeling benevolent. Maybe it’s a mistake.

She licks her lips. “My sister. Grace. They took her too. I don’t know if she’s alive. I don’t know what happened to her after they split us up, and nobody in that building would ever tell me.” The words are rushed. “Can you find out?”

I set my glass down.

“I’ll look into it,” I say.

She holds my eyes, deciding how much of that to believe. Then she nods once, and lets it go.

There’s silence while I watch her eat. She breaks it.

“You’ve got a lot of paintings.” It’s awkward, and she’s trying, and I like it.

“Family,” I say, as if it’s a topic I enjoy. “My aunt Célestine.” I nod at the portrait behind her. “By marriage. She poisoned two husbands. One for cruelty, one for boredom. She considered boredom to be the worst crime. She was never charged, and she lived to ninety-one, and every wife in the district sent flowers to her funeral.”

Serenity turns right around in her chair to look. Célestine looks back down at her, lace to the chin, lapdog under one arm.

“Boredom,” Serenity says. “The worst crime.”

“So she said.”