Isaea paced the floor of the study angrily, kicking at anything within reach. His mother was going to rake him over the coals for not abducting that Patricia woman, but he hadn’t dared to do so if it would attract the Radiant Heart’s attention. Blast it, she still looked so harmless! Yet so many of their plans and operation had gone awry since the woman had escaped from their ally’s stronghold that it could scarce be coincidence. He wondered how much of the blame he could shuffle onto the shoulders of the other members of the Network.

The door opened and Lady Constance glided in with queenly state. He advanced to kiss her hand with the extreme formality she made him affect even here at home. “Mother dearest,” he said, “how well you look! A few weeks in the country always bring out an extra glow in you.” He didn’t allude to the real reason for her discreet absence, which he knew very well had more to do with an assignation with her long-term lover and ally.

She looked at him grimly. “Isaea, you have failed to follow my directions. Why is that upstart wench not in the cells this moment? I told you to have her arrested on a charge of solicitation!”

“Mother, it was not so simple as that… there was… interference.”

“Psha!” his mother snorted. “What sort of interference?”

“A group of those Radiant Heart blunderers happened by, and one of them recognized her. He engaged her in conversation, and I could not bring the charge against her without implicating him as well. It would have raised too much talk, Mother, and I knew you would not wish that. I had to let her leave with him.” He added hastily, “I am certain she was still ignorant of my real intentions; I had not yet begun to play my hand. The wench seemed totally unsuspicious.”

He was encouraged by his mother’s silence. She was at least reserving judgment so far…. “Mother,” he said, “have you considered the possibility that this girl is not in fact our real enemy? I ask because from something she said to this Cadril, it seemed that she is no longer involved with that Delryn brat….”

Lady Constance’s head snapped up at that. “Did she now! Well, a little dissension in their ranks could prove most useful, indeed. Lord Saerk will be most interested to hear of that.” She gave a long, slow, catlike smile. “Perhaps I shall have pay a call upon that gentleman this afternoon. It has been quite a while since I have met him.”

All of a few hours, Isaea thought. Good grief, she’s worse than a quean cat in heat. Mother’s had her claws into the man for two weeks at the Dower House on the estate, yet she’s still not sated! Or perhaps, just perhaps, she’s been sneaking around on him again with some new toy. I’ll have to do a little discreet probing myself the next time I go there….

His mother stood, lithely stretching her still-taut body. “I shall be meeting with some of our… business partners… this afternoon,” she said off-handedly. “I had best be hearing some good news from you soon. This woman… she is pretty, yes?”

“Quite attractive, yes,” Isaea said in an equally casual tone.

“Well, before you deliver her as per our contract, perhaps you should spend a little time… interrogating her. I’ll tell Lady Asphodel to send her body back intact, if the girl pleases you. We can always get a good price in Calimshan when you tire of her, so long as you remember not to mar her.”

Isaea grinned. “Whatever my lady mother wishes,” he said. Those lessons he had learned from an expert in the art.

“No,” admonished his mother, cutting at him with the riding crop she always carried, “as Loviatar wishes. Now I must go put on some more suitable attire….”

She ankled out of the room, black hair and eyes proudly flashing. Oy, he thought, I wonder what Lady Farrahd would say if she knew that when my mother calls on her husband about “business”, she’s wearing nothing underneath her huge cloak but a very skimpy suit of scale mail and carrying a cat o’ nine tails….

He jumped when his mother’s head peeped back around the door. “And Isaea, I expect some explanations about several of our other operations as well. Have your report ready by the time I get back, or I may be forced to discipline you in the name of the Maiden of Pain.”

His heart sank. Now he would have to admit that they were in danger of losing control of the graveyard, as well as having trouble with their slave shipments…. It would take all his creativity to make the damage seem less than it was, and he knew Lady Constance Roenall would see through his deceptions anyway. It was not easy being her son; she used him just as she used everyone else, only she cloaked it in the guise of affection. Father was only still among the living because he was so wool-headed he was far more valuable alive than dead; Constance used him as a smoke screen. But he must get to work on that report; Mother would want to see the hard numbers, she always did. He dragged the ledger that contained the cunningly disguised real accounts from its hiding place, then went to the study door.

“Go get my writing kit from upstairs,” he tersely ordered his waiting guard, who turned around and saluted, then lumbered slowly off upstairs. Not the brightest of the lot, that one, which was why he was posted there. Too dumb to make sense of anything he overheard. Isaea settled down to crunching numbers.