Page 40 of The Devil and the Dancer
Vivian got straight to the point after obligatory introductions. “I want to buy twenty of your bourbon casks.”
“Why?”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Yeah.” Cormac leaned back in his chair. “Why?”
His office was as eccentric as he was. The desk was an antique, but the chair behind it was a battered wooden thing with cracked vinyl on the headrest. The shelves behind him were filled with books—actual books and not show books—as varied in subject as they were mismatched in appearance.
Agricultural journals and an outdated edition of theEncyclopædia Britannica. Novels in six different languages that Gavin had spotted. Motorcycle-repair books and a truly impressive collection of manga, along with a well-worn set of the Harry Potter hardbacks, original covers.
Gavin used to think that Cormac’s eccentricities were for show, to throw immortals off. He’d thought Cormac was playing a clever game of disrupting expectations.
He’d come to realize that Cormac was just strange. He was a strange man with offbeat interests and little care what anyone thought of him other than his surviving brothers and his favorite child.
Vivian clearly didn’t know what to think of the man. “My distiller is experimenting with brandies at the moment, and he has requested—”
“Yeah, I get that, but why do you wantmybourbon casks?”
Vivian did not take well to being interrupted. Her tone was acid. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your confusion, Mr. O’Brien. Do you have casks to sell or do you not? It’s not really any of your business what I do with them.”
“No, it’s not.” Cormac rocked forward. “I’m being nosy because I can be. Because I know that your distiller originally asked for whiskey casks, not bourbon in particular. In fact, you’ve been trying to buy whiskey casks for about six months now with no luck.” Cormac glanced at Gavin. “So I wondered: Why won’t anyone in Ireland or Scotland sell casks to Vivian Lebeau? She’s not known for being cheap. She pays her bills on time. So what could it be?”
Gavin knew she had an ulterior motive. He just knew it. He forced himself not to sigh. He turned to Vivian and waited to see how she would respond.
She remained silent for a long time. “Do you have casks to sell or not?”
Cormac took his wire-rimmed glasses off and cleaned them with the edge of his shirt. “Tell Gavin why you’re coming to me, and we can negotiate.”
Vivian pursed her lips, but she turned to Gavin. “Because I stole the Ramsays’ winemaker and they told all the whiskey makers in Britain not to return my calls.”
This was the first Gavin had heard of it, but he wasn’t surprised. He owned a distillery in Scotland, but Vivian didn’t know that, and the day-to-day operations were placed in the hands of a trusted manager who wouldn’t bother calling him about a sales matter.
Gavin rubbed his temple. “Youstoletheir winemaker, Vivian? How? And why?”
Terrance Ramsay and Gemma Melcombe were the vampire lords of London and also the immortal world’s most successful blood-winemakers. But as far as Gavin knew, Vivi hadn’t gotten into blood-wine. At all. She liked her wine and her blood. She did not like to mix them and only drank blood-wine if preserved blood was the only other option.
Please tell me it was money. Please tell me you offered him an insane amount of money to change wineries because of a new business opportunity you just couldn’t pass—
“The man is a red-blooded one.” Vivian’s smile turned seductive. “And far more virile than I expected for his age. We met at an event and he was enchanted by me. What could I do?”
Gavin looked at Cormac and his eyes said it all.
Siblings.
“So you seduced the Ramsays’ winemaker and convinced him to come work for you,” Gavin said. “And… are you two making blood-wine now?”
Industrial espionage was hardly unknown in their world. In fact, it was considered a perfectly legitimate way to beat competitors. Gavin knew it was something else.
“No.” She curled her lip. “Disgusting. Rene is taking a holiday. Deciding what he would like to pursue in the future. He’s a very gifted painter, you know.”
So you fucked with the Ramsays just to fuck with them and get laid.
Classic Vivian.
Gavin asked, “Cormac, how much for the casks?”
Cormac quoted a number that was at least three times the normal asking price for used bourbon casks.
