Even I fussed and fussed about what I’d wear and couldn’t wait to see Keir in a dinner jacket. I thought about taking up smoking so that I could use one of those extensions designed for keeping over-the-elbows white gloves clean and stray bits of tobacco away from lush, red lipstick, the kind I swore I’d never wear.
Life is strange. I would go as none other than Rita Hayworth playing the title role in Gilda and was sure that no one there would get the joke.
That, my daily visits with the puppies, and Keir Culain were the only things staving off panic attacks. At one point I’d thought there might be time to prepare for being a judge, but as the event drew nearer I began to think there weren’t enough days in a lifetime to prepare for being a judge.
“What is it that has you so worried?” Lochlan had asked on our morning moors walk.
“Doing the wrong thing.”
“How are you defining wrong thing?”
I gave that a few minutes’ thought as we walked in silence. “Punish someone who’s innocent.”
“Cross that one off your list. Your intuition will not fail you.”
“It won’t?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
He slanted his eyes toward me, and I knew what he was thinking.
“What’s next on your list?”
“How can I know that my solution is the right solution?”
“Rita, if most of the judges in the world were concerned about such things, the world would be a much better place for humans.”
I sighed. “No. It wouldn’t. There wouldn’t be any judges because nobody would take the job.”
He laughed. “You simply need the confidence that will come from successfully presiding over Court Week. You’ll see that you, and you alone, are the right person.”
“I love that you’re so sure.”
“It’s not part of my job to be…”
“A cheerleader?”
“Em, well, perhaps. I want you to understand that my faith in you is not false flattery.”
“That’s very kind, Lochlan. What would I do without you?”
“Well, you’d be working as an insurance adjuster, living in a sordid little motel, trying to find the funds to pay a third-rate divorce lawyer who would help your husband’s attorney take you to the cleaners.”
I looked at the ground ahead with wide eyes. “Wow, Lochlan. Go ahead and tell me how you really feel.”
“I just did.”
“By the way, how’s the divorce coming?”
“Oh, it’s been done for some time.”
“Done. As in final? And you didn’t tell me?”
“You were otherwise occupied with your life and your future here. As you should be. I thought you’d put it out of your mind.”
It was hard to argue with that. Because I had. “Thank you for taking care of that. And for saving me from the, um, sordid little motel.”
He grinned. “Too dramatic?”
“A tad.” His playful grin lingered. “So where are we on the docket?”
“First day’s full. I’m trying to schedule the middling cases for days two and three. We want to have those out of the way before we begin the case of the kelpie’s capture.”
“Say that three times fast.”
“What?”
“Never mind. You’re thinking that case may take two days to present?”
“I think it’s a good idea to leave that. Building flexibility into the schedule is always a must. Some things will take longer than expected. Some things will be brief.” I laughed at his pun, but the expression on his face told me it was unintended. He probably secretly thought I was a crazy woman who occasionally barked out laughter for no reason at all. “It’s an important hearing because the young prince’s family is very powerful. If you rule against him and they disagree with your proclamation of resolution, it could be tricky.”
“Tricky how?”
He shrugged. “The sephalian might have to do something other than sit around and look pretty.”
“Why, Lochlan. That sounded like you think Keir is two things. Pretty and lazy.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound that way. We all have our jobs. Certainly, I could not do his and, just as certainly, he could not do mine.”
“Are you, in your sly way, suggesting that the office of the magistrate is political?”
“No.” He scowled. “Not at all. That would be the undoing of the very system that sustains us.”
“You’re just saying that feathers can be ruffled and, when that happens, Keir has to be called upon to restore order.”
“Just so. I’m not saying that will happen, mind you.”
“And yet there are a lot of references to the sephalian in the journals.” I looked out at the horizon and wondered what my new life would be without the various people