"We have an extensive wine cellar. I'm sure we could find you something to suit your tastes." She smiled, not the dazzling smile she'd started the visit with but a smile nonetheless. It was an encouraging sign, but I shook my head.
"I'm sorry, Maeve, but I really don't drink this early in the day."
"Early," she said, perfectly plucked eyebrow arching. "Honey, this isn't early by L.A. standards. If it's after lunch, it's perfectly acceptable to be drinking."
I smiled, gave a small shrug. "Thanks, but really, I'm fine."
She frowned at that, but nodded at the maid, who went off toward the house, to fetch Maeve's drink, I assumed.
"I really do hate to drink alone," she said again.
"I'm sure you've got a husband around here somewhere."
"You'll be meeting Gordon later after we've finished our business." There was no teasing now.
"And what business would that be?" I asked.
"It's private."
I shook my head. "We went over this with your flunky earlier in our office. Where I go, my bodyguards go." I glanced at her own personal wall of muscle. "I'm sure you understand that."
She nodded impatiently. "Of course I understand, but could they all sit just a little farther back so we could have some... girl talk?"
I raised my eyebrows at the girl talk, but let it go. I glanced at Doyle and Frost. "What do you guys think?"
"I suppose we could sit at the table in the shade while you and Ms. Reed have your... girl talk." Doyle managed to put a lot of disbelief in that last phrase.
I hid my smile by turning my head and looking at Kitto. He wasn't going to want to be in the shade of the umbrella. I didn't even bother to ask.
"Doyle and Frost will sit at the table, but Kitto has to stay with me."
Maeve shook her head. "That is not acceptable."
I shrugged. "It's the best you're going to get if you insist on being outside in the open like this."
She cocked her head to one side. "That is awfully blunt for a princess of the sidhe. In fact, you've been very blunt, nay rude, for a princess of the blood."
I fought an urge to look back at Doyle. "I could say I was raised out among the humans."
"You could, but I don't think I'll believe you." Her voice was very quiet, almost angry. "No one that human would be so favored by the Lady and the Lord as you were just moments ago." She shivered, pulling her robe tighter around her shoulders. It was eighty and the sun was warm and soft. If she was cold, it wasn't the kind of cold that a robe could help.
I did the best bow I could, sitting in the lounge chair. "Thank you."
She shook her head, sending her long yellow hair sliding around her body. "Do not thank me, for I shall not thank you for what you have done to me."
I started to tell her that it had been an accident, but stopped. Maeve had deliberately used magic to try to persuade me. It was a grave insult between one sidhe noble to another. We never used wiles to that degree against another noble. It showed clearly that she considered me a lesser fey, so the rules of sidhe chivalry didn't apply to me.
She was looking at me curiously, and I realized I'd been quiet for too long. I managed a smile. "The sidhe have been speculating for centuries about why you left us."
"I did not leave, Meredith. I was cast out."
Here at last was something I wanted to know. "Your exile was the bogeyman for all the younger sidhe in the Seelie Court. 'If you don't please the king, you'll end as Conchenn did.' "
"Is that what they believed? That I was exiled for not pleasing the King?"
"When pressed, that is what the king says. That you did not please him."
She laughed, and it held derision so thick that it was almost painful to hear. "I suppose I didn't please him, but didn't anyone question that such strict exile was a harsh punishment for merely not pleasing the king?"