Page 81 of Hazard a Guest
So she had been ruminating on it, thinking about it when she ought to be asleep, testing names on her tongue the way an expectant mother might when her womb was near to bursting.
How to marry the Tod and Vixen with Brigid’s Forge? How to honor this bridge they were building?
She would tell them today, once the paint had dried on the sign, once the Flaming Fox had settled into her wooden home. She would unveil her and be proud in the doing.
So what if no one had actually agreed to it yet? Ember knew it was right. They would, too, once they saw it.
She turned to find Joe, his sleeves rolled up, tapping a nail into the space over the new fireplace, flagstones still oiled and gleaming from the installation. He had chosen this piece, had taken a lot of time with artisans and the architect, and now that it was done, she saw the echo of the one in Blackcove in its frame.
It didn’t have large grotesque faces to taunt and tease the guests, no. Not large ones. You’d have to really look to find them, and if you cared enough to do so, Joe had reasoned, you’d have already won their approval.
When she’d asked why he liked the little imps so much, he had shrugged and said, “I just do. I like them very well.”
She believed him. After all, he had married one.
The others had reacted with a sedate kind of unsurprise when Joe and Ember had returned from the coast engaged.
“Oh?” Millie Murphy had said. “Already?”
“Why wait?” Dot Cain had answered, nodding in approval.
“Goodness, he looksverydifferent,” Claire Hightower had said, craning her neck to observe as dear Joe had been none the wiser.
“He isn’t, though,” Ember had told them. “He isn’t different at all.”
Merryn and Jones arrived some moments later, the former carrying mail and the latter carrying a set of crates. Both looked pink-cheeked and flustered, avoiding one another’s eye as often as they caught it.
“You’ve letters from afield,” Merryn said happily, waving the stack. “One from the Cotswolds and one from Cornwall too.”
“Cornwall?” Ember said, reaching out in surprise. “Who the devil is writing me from Cornwall?”
“Lord Penrose, of course,” Merryn told her with a tut. “It’s your invitation to this year’s party.”
“My …?” Ember cut herself off, skepticism curling the corners of her lips. “Surely it is addressed to Beck, not me.”
“No, ma’am, this one’s yours,” said Merryn, blinking guilelessly. “He invites all the London owners, doesn’t he?”
Ember took the letter and reviewed it, her eyes scanning the words with no small amount of disbelief. “Well, how about that,” she managed to say. “It seems he finally does.”
Joe was trying not to frown. “Are we … are we going this year?”
“Don’t be daft,” she said with a chuckle, dropping the letter onto a table with the other documents she needed to sort or burn. “Of course not. I never wanted to go in the first place. I just wanted to be invited.”
“Ah,” said Joe, looking beautifully puzzled in his way as she cupped his cheeks and rose on her toes to kiss him. “All right, then.”
“Mr. Beck isn’t going either,” Jones told her from the bar, where he was prying the crates open, inspecting each new glass againstthe early-evening light like a jeweler before setting them into neat rows. “Said he didn’t care for it.”
“Didn’t he?” Ember replied with a raise of her brows.
“Maybe he only enjoyed the guests,” Joe said quietly. “A guest. She won’t be there this year.”
“No,” said Ember, “no she won’t. And speaking of the Lazarus family, we ought to get home and wash before dinner. They said they eat right at sundown, and I won’t be a tardy guest.”
Joe didn’t argue with that. It seemed to Ember that since they’d both relinquished their London flats, buying a new and larger one for married life, that he wished to be home more than he wished to be anywhere else in the world. More, even, than the Law Offices of Cain & Cresson.
Well, maybe only a little more. Joe had treated the painting ofthatsign with damned near the same amount of reverence as securing their marriage license.
She had teased him about that, of course. And he had scoffed, his growing tendency to tease her right back surfacing at that moment with a quip about her new lot and her own new business partnership.
