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Chapter Thirty-Three

" S orry?" I ask, freezing. "Did you say Laura Secord?" I let her hand go, feeling like a complete tit, and wipe my now-sweating palms on my thighs as discreetly as possible. Which is to say, not at all discreetly. "As in, the chocolate?"

She tilts her head impishly. "Mr. O'Connor named his company in my honor, yes."

"I hope they pay you your imaging license fees in chocolate, at least," I say, which is a stupid thing to say.

My whole brain has been thrown for a loop and all that's coming out is my Mum's small-talk platitudes.

I try to reboot, but my mouth keeps running.

"I, uh, just tried it for the first time, you know. S'good."

Dav winces. He usually finds my mumble-mouth charming, but we're supposed to be trying to make an impression. A good one.

I don't even want to look at Simcoe's face.

"Oh?" Laura-war-hero-of-the-nation-Secord says. "Why just now?"

"Um, I'm allergic to chocolate. Or, at least, I was," I start, and then bite my tongue. Shit. I shouldn’t be talking about the benefits of dragon-roasted coffee.

Instead of looking surprised, Laura nods knowingly. "Ah, The Gift."

That…

That's not what I expected her to say.

Dav's eyes go wide. The bastard's realized something, and he can't share because Simcoe is still watching us like a rapt bird of prey.

Dav swallows hard, cornered. "I was working up to telling him."

"Tell me what?" I ask, annoyed at Dav for putting me in this position. He looks as thrown as I feel, though, so at least we're idiots together.

Yup. We’re totally charming everyone. Absolutely according to plan. Uh-huh.

"Naughty naughty, Alva," Laura tuts at him. "You’re usually so eloquent. I’ve no fear that you’ll frighten him off."

"You flatter me, Laura," Dav says. They cup one another's clothed elbows, kindly and comforting. With Laura's head tilted back like that so she can look up at him, it's sort of cute. "But then, you always have."

"Nonsense," Laura laughs, beaming up at him. "I only ever say what you are too humble to put words to, dear."

A frisson of jealousy spikes, but quickly evaporates.

Dav's looking at Laura the same way he looks at the kids—there's affection here, but it's nothing I need to worry about.

The band strikes a flourish, and Dav and Laura startle apart.

Dav immediately reaches for me, crooking his arm.

I've read enough historical romances to get swoony as I take it, and let him lead me further inside.

The ballroom is 1930s jade-and-gold art deco, more modern than I expected. A few dozen couples are lingering by the high-top tables sprinkled with candy bowls, while a handful more square up on the dance floor.

"How's your cotillion?" Laura asks me, falling into step with us.

"Non-existent," I admit.

"Tsk tsk, Alva," Laura teases Dav again, and he ducks his head, like aw shucks .

"Show me how it's done, babe." I say. A little audacity never hurt anyone, so I grab Laura's hand and press it against Dav's shoulder. "Go on, wow me."

"Thank you, Mr. Levesque," Laura says, startled but happy. She dons a pair of gloves from her reticule. "How kind."

"It's just Colin," I tell her. "Now shoo."

Dav nudges the side of my head affectionately with his nose, and then promenades Laura onto the floor.

"Alva has been neglecting your education," Simcoe says from behind me, and I jerk around, because fuck that guy is good at sneaking. Somebody oughta put a goat bell on him.

"Uh." I wish I had pockets. I don’t know what to do with my hands. "We haven't been going to ballroom classes, if that's what you're getting at."

Simcoe smiles meanly. "If you'd been raised in a coterie, as proper Favorites are, it would have been part of your upbringing."

Oh. Okay. That's the game we’re playing? Fine.

"Laura’s doing okay." I gesture at where she and Dav are swoosh-hopping back and forth. "Wasn’t she born in American New England before it was annexed? No fancy education there, I bet."

"I make her practice," Simcoe sneers. "She's come a long way from the colonial boor who first attended our parties."

"Aren't you colonial, too?"

"I was born in England." The scales around his hairline encroach a little more on his flesh.

Ha.

Score one for me.

Simcoe relieves a passing waiter of two frail glasses of sparkling wine, and presses one at me. I hold it still when he chimes his flute off mine, and take a sip because he's watching.

"What do you think?" he asks.

"It's fine."

"It's French ," he corrects.

Snob.

"Niagara produces sparkling wines just as good as the Champagne region," I defend.

"Ah yes," he simpers. "I had forgotten Alva had captured himself a pet winemaker."

"Biodiverse viniculturist," I correct. "Two different jobs. Though I don't expect you to know that. I don't imagine you spend a lot of time mucking in with your hoard."

Simcoe sniffs. "Certainly not."

Fucking snob.

"I couldn't help but notice the front door," I venture. "Your father was very accomplished."

Simcoe's knuckles whiten on the stem of the flute. "He was. It is a shame illness took him so soon. As I believe your father was also taken?"

Grief stabs at my heart, and I gulp the wine. That was low. Well, what did I expect? I was the one to bring up dead dads first. I deserved that.

I'm about to offer another volley, try to get my own back, when Laura whoops with laughter. Dav’s facing the wrong direction in the line of dancers.

Laura tugs him playfully to catch up. It's sweet.

I like seeing Dav with someone he's comfortable with.

Those almost-dimples are on full display as he laughs at himself.

A plume of smoke escapes the corner of Simcoe’s mouth.

He's jealous , I realize. He's seeing the exact same thing I am, yet he totally thinks that Laura's, what, cheating on him?

I don't see it. How insecure is this prick?

Whipping Dav for making people happy, curating a night so fancy that half his guests look hella uncomfortable, bragging about the wine to someone he barely tolerates, and now this.

"They look like they're good friends ," I say, trying to diffuse the rage radiating off Simcoe.

"In deed ," he snarls.

"If you and Dav are such good old chums and all, you can probably trust him to—" I bite my tongue when Simcoe swings around to blaze a glare at me. "Sorry. Guess it's not my place to comment."

"And you would do well to remember it," Simcoe snarls. "You, Mr. Levesque, have a great deal to learn about the expectations of our society. If Alva fails in his duty to bring you to heel, do not doubt for a moment that I will gladly step in."

Holy fuck , is that a threat?

I think it's a threat.

Because I am not completely suicidal, I lower my eyes as demurely as I can manage, a good little romance heroine pretending to be cowed by the villain.

"Alva may have the peninsula, and his little coffee fan club, but he will not have—"

"Frank," Laura laughs, sliding up to us breathlessly, red-cheeked and windblown. "Come, Frank, you simply must fetch Mrs. Simcoe and—oh my." She darts a curious glance between us. "Are you well? You look… peaked."

"Quite well, Mine Own," Simcoe lies badly, struggling to pull himself together.

"Come, come," Laura says, and bustles him away. "You oughtn't let yourself get so affected…"

Dav, who had detoured to the bar, rejoins me and hands me a red wine.

"That is some serious jealousy." I whisper.

Dav makes a little serpenty hissing noise. A glance out at the crowd—more than tripled in size since we arrived—shows Simcoe glaring daggers at his back from across the room.

"He has nothing to fear. What little there was between Laura and I is quite over."

"Oh my god! Did you two used to…?"

"It was a very long time ago, Mine Own."

"That's not a no."

"She was widowed and without protection. I had just come into my majority. It was… mutually beneficial, until she was established in society."

"Oh my god!" I repeat, delighted. "I've been dicked down by the dick that dicked down Laura Secord!"

It takes Dav a second to parse what I mean, and then he laughs. "Nothing so crass! We simply… held a deep affection for one another. But I was too young for a Favorite."

"So how…?"

Dav's face puckers. "Laura was much admired among the Draconic set. If I was unwilling to, ah, offer for her, there were many others who were."

"And she chose that. Do you think she's happy?"

"It's no longer my place to work for her happiness," Dav says diplomatically.

"That's not what I asked."

"I know, Mine Own." He lifts my hand to kiss the palm.

"Simcoe hates me."

"Of course he doesn't," Dav says. "He deeply dislikes not being in control, and the coffee phenomenon put us outside of his censure and into the limelight."

"For which he whipped you."

Dav shrugs, as if those weeks when he was gone weren't the worst of my life since Dad died.

"Frank is arrogant and selfish," Dav allows. "But we are old school friends. My happiness is his happiness."

"Especially if you're too busy with me to go sniffing around Laura."

"It's a grave thing, to trifle with another's Favorite," Dav says. "Besides, why would I ever throw you over?"

"Romantic asshole," I accuse.

"I learned it all from your delightful books—ouch! Colin, that’s my foot!"

"Oh, is it?" I bat my eyelashes at him.

"You're a menace."

"And you love it."

"Lord help me, I do." He kisses my hand again.

I drag Dav over to a table and help myself to a fun-size chocolate bar from a candy bowl, because I can.

"Are you going to tell me what The Gift is," I ask, holding it up demonstratively before I snap the chocolate in half with my teeth. "Or am I going to have to corner Laura?"

"I'm so foolish," Dav says with a groan, and nips the other half of the candy out of my fingers without even asking. "Laid out so plainly, I don't know why I didn't see the correlation. There is no biological reason why The Gift should be reserved solely for Favorites."

I'm tempted to step on his foot again. "Explain."

"Favorites in close proximity to a dragon experience a strengthening of their constitution.

Disease does not touch them, the afflictions of age pass them by.

Just as drinking the dragonsfire coffee did for your allergy, and Hadi's insomnia, Laura’s aging has been retarded.

However, it is also not a guarantee," Dav says.

"It’s been unevenly successful, historically. "

"Well, if it’s all down to the infectious rate of dragon spit, there'd have to be some serious hanky-panky if you’re not breathing all over the food. And if every relationship isn't sexual…?"

"They're not," Dav agrees.

"Then the platonic Favorites don't get the literal benefits of their friendship?"

"Quite," Dav says. "I am beginning to wish we'd paid greater attention to Pedra."

"No kidding." I let that sit between us for a moment. Then, softly, I ask: "Why didn’t you tell me?"

"I suppose I wanted to see if it would take, before I—"

"Before you what?"

Dav pushes the mask up my face, and leans down for a soft, gentling kiss. For all his talk of no PDAs, he's being awfully handsy. And tongue-y. Still, illicit dark-corner smoochies are on the list of my fave Halloween activities.

Dav backs me up against the wall, into the pool of shadow cast by a nearby pile of jack-o-lanterns, and whispers: "Before I told you that you have every reason to expect to live for exactly as long as I do."