Breaking Her In (Court of Paravel 2)

“Horses aren’t my problem.” He gives me one last baleful look and stalks out of the stables.3CassianI can still feel the imprint of Lady Aubrey’s body in my arms as I haul hay bales around, muck out stalls and cart wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of horseshit down to the manure pile. One paying customer, and it had to be her. If there are gods then they must be all in hysterics.

I can feel the ghost of my father seething over my shoulder that it’s come to this. The Levanters are at the top of the heap, again. That I’m reliant on the Levanters to eat. That I’m still reliving how Levanter’s daughter felt falling into my arms. I wonder if I’d kissed her then if she would have wriggled against me and pushed me away before or after she kissed me back.

I throw my shovel back into the empty wheelbarrow, head up to the house, kick off my boots at the back door and stalk into the kitchen. Muriel’s there, one hand on a walking stick and the other reaching for the kettle.

I get there first. “I’ll do that. You sit down.”

My old housekeeper heads back to her chair, and I finish making tea. I slam the sugar bowl down on the tray, making the teacups rattle.

Muriel looks up at me. “You’re in a fine state today. What’s happened?”

I slide half a dozen cookies onto a plate and take the tray over to her. “Sorry. Nothing. New client.”

“That’s wonderful news. I know how worried you’ve been since the revolution.”

I force a smile as I pour her a cup of tea and hold it out to her. “Yeah. It’s great.”

“It used to be me making the tea and looking after you,” she says, with a wistful smile, as she accepts it.

I study her as she blows on the hot liquid. This woman is more than a housekeeper. She’s been a mother to me ever since my parents passed away. The only mother I’ve ever known. Muriel’s only in her mid-sixties, but she’s as frail as if she were a hundred. She’s always suffered from nerves and had trouble sleeping. All through my childhood, I’d have to rouse her from nightmares that would leave her sobbing. I think she saw too much in the days after Varga seized control of the country.

There are a stack of newspapers and magazines by her elbow, all covered with pictures of the King and Court and headlines about the new Paravel.

Seeing the direction of my gaze, she places a trembling hand on the papers. “I can’t help but wonder what he’d think of all this.”

He. My father. I don’t remember the man, but I know he’d be livid with all his hard work being undone. Muriel was his housekeeper, and even though he’s been dead for more than twenty years, she’s still in awe of the ruthless, ambitious man she shared a roof with.

She takes a cookie from the plate, but doesn’t eat it. “I’ve thought about him more in these past few weeks than I have in years.”

I pick up my own teacup and add a sugar lump to it, and sit down on the fat little footstool in front of her. “Yeah. Me, too.”

I’ve watched old Paravel be dismantled, the flags taken down, the street names changed, the hospitals and government buildings renamed, the palace opened and restored. The People’s Republic was all I’ve ever known, and seeing it torn apart has made me realize the work my father must have done to put it together.

“Do you miss the old days?” I ask, meaning the People’s Republic under Chairman Varga. I take a sip of my tea, wondering how many veins would burst in Jakob Rasmussen’s skull if he could hear this conversation. He’d probably put me up against the wall and shoot me.

Muriel gazes out the window, her blue eyes cloudy. “I don’t know. Most of the time, I worry what these new ones will bring.”

I follow Muriel’s gaze out the window and see Lady Aubrey leading her horse across the yard, her body svelte in her riding gear. She doesn’t have a care in the world, despite her wah-wah-poor-me routine. This country belongs to people like her, now. Spoiled. Too rich for their own good. Paravel has always been one big party for the people at the top. The only thing that’s changed are the names on the invitation cards.

“Is that your new client? Who is she?”

“Levanter’s daughter.”

Muriel sucks in a breath, her watery eyes glimmering with sudden fear. “Oh, Cassian. You won’t go near her, will you? She’ll only make trouble for you.”

“I know that.”

“All that you have, her father could just rip it away from you.”

“I said I know.” I lay my cup aside and take her hands in my own. Her skin is powder soft and wrinkled. “I’m not going to get mixed up with a girl like that.”