He wasn’t intimidated.
As a merchant who’d braved the kingdom’s roads and wilderness for decades, he’d seen far too much to let three women, no matter their reputation or ability, intimidate him. By the saints’ grace, he wouldn’t lose his nerve before the king himself.
That said, Mr. Richard had to admit that closing the distance did nothing to diminish their presence. Rather, it enhanced it. Except, there was something about the noblewoman. The merchant couldn’t put his finger on it but something about her…irked him. Which was surprising. She was beautiful, just as attractive as her wife, her clothes tailored to show off her moderate curves wonderfully despite being masculine in design. Mr. Richard, a connoisseur of pretty faces, should have been interested but the closer he got, the more the woman irked him.
Despite that, he pasted a smile on his face. Both of their distinct gazes tracked him as he approached. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and his gut churned under their scrutiny but there was nothing but cheerfulness in his tone as he greeted them. “The saints bless me to have such beautiful ladies grace my party.”
“See love? He’s happy to see us.” The Tome woman chuckled. “She had some silly idea that barging in unannounced would lead to trouble, but I told her to perish the thought. Everyone likes a nice surprise.”
“Yes, yes.” The elf ran a hand through the Tome woman’s hair. “My Lou loves to gloat.”
“I do. Almost as much as I love a good party. I’ve got a nose for it, see?” She tapped a nostril, her smile widening. “Here we are, enjoying the night, when I catch a whiff of cheap perfume, bad wine, and flattery. At first, I couldn’t believe my nose. I mean, what kind of crazy bastards would throw a party when the city is under threat of war?”
Mr. Richard inwardly winced at her volume. Part of the reason for his party was to reassure his out-of-town partners that the mess with the north wouldn’t hurt business. The last thing he wanted was anyone or anything reminding them of the madness.
“Well, I figured whoever they were, they were my kind of crazy! Though seeing this…I might have been a little hasty.”
It was a struggle to keep his polite demeanor, but he managed, just barely. “Our gathering may be humble but partake of it as you like. There are some people who—"
“Humble! No need to be coy.” The elf leaned forward and winked. “We know the real party is below.”
The Tome woman chuckled. “It’s those ears. Not just there to make her look pretty, eh?”
Mr. Richard surreptitiously looked around the room. Seeing no trace of either of his children, the largest knot of tension in his abdomen relaxed but his heart pounded, spurred on by fear for his life. No matter what, he couldn’t allow the two of them into the basement. “You misunderstand. There’s nothing going on down below.”
“Nothing? Buddy, let me tell you, my ears are almost as good as my wife’s. There’s either a party going on downstairs or the worst rat problem in the kingdom. You got rats, Mr. Richard? I hope you at least don’t deal in anything organic.”
“It is not rats, my love, unless the vermin have learned to imitate us.” His attention was taken up by the elf as she moved closer to him, dropping her voice further. “I can hear much more than you think. The glasses clinking together in a toast. The footsteps of the shifting crowd. The murmur of conversations. But no music.” Sweat beaded on his brow as she smiled, revealing incisors that were white as pearl but too large. Almost beastly. “Perhaps not a party then?”
“Come on, Kii! Has my nose ever been wrong?” The Tome woman scoffed. “Forget it though. I may crash a party uninvited, but I do have some tact. Never go into a man’s basement without his permission, eh, Mr. Richard? You’re liable to see something you don’t want to. I’d bet my last crown there’s some weird sex thing going on down there.”
“It is not!” the merchant shouted indignantly, worried at the way the crowd listening intently to their conversation began to whisper.
“Of course it isn’t.” The noblewoman leaned toward the elf as if she meant to whisper but if anything, she raised her voice. “Of course it is. People don’t huddle in musty darkness for anything other than strange vices they don’t dare share where people might see them.”
“Mm. Drinks?”
“Eh, those won’t do.”
“Food?”
“Definitely won’t do.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Hmm. Women?”
“…they might do.”
Mr. Richard’s unease around the noblewoman grew at the lecherous smile she flashed. By the saints, he wished wealth gave him the kind of power he’d need to throw them both out but as it was, all he could do was prepare himself for more unruliness. He reassured himself with the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to deal with them for long. If his son had any sense, Bertrand would already be out of the building and fetching the guards. They didn’t have the power to evict the women either, but it was well-known, at least to the people who made it their business to know, that the women, for all their menace, had made a point of not terrorizing the city’s official defenders.
All he had to do was stall.
“We’ll handle this from here, Mr. Richard.”
And perhaps he might not even have to do that. The merchant turned to see several hunters moving toward him. At their head was a average-looking man with tanned skin, a head full of blonde hair, and an impressively neutral expression. Simone, the bastard that had informed him, not asked, that the guild would be making use of his property.
Mr. Richard didn’t like hunters, but he had a special distaste for the consuls of the Shadow Wolves guild. It was bad enough dealing with the sword-swinging barbarians in a professional setting. Recruiting smart people and teaching them to wield pens and contracts was simply unfair. It left the merchants and administrators without a leg to stand on. The guilds always ran the city, but this new wave of legal-hunters was determined to make sure they kept it and were busily hounding the few free businesses that had managed to sprout despite the guilds’ tyranny.
For the first time, Mr. Richard was glad of the consul’s domineering streak. Simone strode with the purpose that declared he intended to take command of the situation. The merchant hated that attitude when directed toward his business, but he was more than happy to let the man take hold of the alchemical bombs in the guise of women. If he was lucky, he might slip away before they went off.
Despite the deferential calling, Simone stepped in front of the merchant, clearly asserting himself as the one in charge. His dark eyes glared at the two women, who looked at him with the same mix of amusement and something else the merchant couldn’t identify. “Lady Tome, Miss Kierra. I can’t say I’m surprised to see the two of you making trouble.”
The Tome woman’s smile turned whimsical. “Do I know you?”
That didn’t make Simone happy. “I was the one who tried to arrange a business arrangement between the brewer and the guilds before your asinine antics ruined it.”
“The one with the shady contracts, my love,” the elf added.
“Ah! The conman!”
“I am no conman!” the consul groused. “We were negotiating—"
“Oh, we’ve established then we have different understandings of what it means to negotiate,” the noblewoman said, raising her voice further. “I think of a negotiation as two parties in open discourse, working together to reach a favorable outcome. While you—" She raised an accusatory finger. “Your version of negotiating is doing everything you can to take advantage of the other side’s ignorance, littering your words with traps that would bomb their future if they aren’t quick enough to spot them and enslaving them with unfair contracts.”
The hunter grit his teeth. Mr. Richard felt bad for the man. It was common knowledge that the business world was a cruel place and it sometimes required a cruel heart to survive it but having one’s practices pointed out couldn’t feel good. “That is yesterday’s matter—"
“Yesterdays make our futures, as they say.”
“Today’s matter is that you and your wife are trespassing. I kindly ask you to leave.”
“And what gives you the authority to do so? From what I understand, this is a party hosted by Mr. Richard there and he told us we were free to partake as we like.”
Simone looked to him then and the merchant did what he could to communicate a shrug with just his eyes. What was he supposed to do? Firstly, he had a reputation to maintain and secondly, he didn’t dare try to kick the women out when he had no power to do so.
“But, come to think of it, I have noticed quite a few hunters about. More of them than I’d expect even knowing what kind of city Quest is.” The noblewoman stepped forward, leaving less than an arm of space between her and the consul. The kind of distance anyone would feel offended by. Mr. Richard could see the tension in Simone’s shoulders and the men behind him were just as tense.
“Maybe this isn’t a gathering of merchants.” Violet eyes swept the room. “Maybe…this is a gathering of hunters. But what would a bunch of hunters be doing scurrying around in the dark like rats?”
“Rats are cowardly creatures,” the elf added. “They are plotters and schemers that hide until their prey is weak before attacking.”
“Hmm. Is that what’s going on beneath our feet?” the noblewoman sneered. “Plotting and scheming?”
“It’s none of your business,” Simone growled, unflinching in the face of the unspoken threats.
“…you’re right!”
“Huh?”
“I said you’re right.” The noblewoman danced away from him, laughing as she did. “I’m only here for the party. What do I care what you’re getting up to? But do you know who should be concerned? All of you!”
Mr. Richard’s stomach dropped as she turned to face the crowd. He had a bad feeling about where the conversation was going, every instinct he had telling him to head the woman off. He’d learned to obey those instincts over the years and called out, but her voice drowned his out. “I mean, if there were some shady dealings going on beneath your feet without your knowledge, what would that make all of you? Distractions? Shields? Given that an establishment with a connection to the guilds recently went up in the flames with people still inside of it, I’d be very concerned if I was in one such building and people were keeping secrets from me.”
The murmurs of the crowd became an uproar. A scant few made for the exit immediately. Mr. Richard could almost feel his reputation being crushed beneath the weight of supposition and quickly raised his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, please! There’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“Yeah?” The merchant didn’t recognize the voice that called out to him. “Then tell us what’s going on beneath us. And what the guilds are doing here.”
“Yes.” The noblewoman’s smile was unmistakably predatory as the crowd became rowdy. “Tell us.”