“I’m the spare. My brother, Blaise, is Redding, but you have me at a disadvantage. Who are you?”
It was like watching a chess match.
Red was the son of a duke? Ciaran glanced over at him. Yes, yes, he could see that. Red did have a certain proud arrogance about him. He knew his place in the world. It wasn’t just him wanting to protect his family. He saw it as a duty, much like Ciaran did.
Marcus and Patrick looked at each other for several long moments, then back at Red. Marcus opened his mouth to speak, but Ciaran stopped him.
“We can get intae who ye are in a moment. I want tae ken more about this IN Council.”
Red frowned at him, quirked his mouth to the side, and promptly ignored him. “How do you know my father so well? I know as a Regelen you’d be familiar with him because of his role as Councilman, but you have more than a passing acquaintance, don’t you?”
Ciaran gave him a frown of his own, which very obviously had no effect on Red. No surprise there. Red did not get intimidated. For good measure, he gave Marcus a frown too, and again saw no repentance, so Ciaran sighed and gave up. He’d let them get the introductions out of the way, then get them all back on track.
“Your parents are… were close personal friends.” Marcus paused for a moment, then dipped his head. “The Marquess”—he placed a hand to his chest, then gestured to Patrick—“and Marquess-Consort of Winstol. At your service.”
Red and Louisa sucked in a breath at the same time and seemed to rob the entire room of air, or perhaps it was Ciaran’s own shock.
His lungs seemed to quit working, as did his mouth. He gawked. Marcus and Patrick were titled nobility? Hell, they outranked him. “I’m nae sure how many more surprises I can take today.”
“I raised ye tae be stronger than that, laddie,” Marcus said with perfect brogue, the teasing making his nobility even more obvious. He winked at Ciaran.
Ciaran smiled and shook his head. As he turned, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.
Red and Louisa were sharing some sort of silent communication. Her eyes flared wide, but then Red shook his head at her. They turned and noticed him watching, and both turned away to focus back on Marcus and Patrick.
What was that about? Before he could ask, Marcus interrupted, dragging all their attention back to him.
“The IN Council is the governing body of the IN. Each planet that has a treaty with the IN has a councilman on the council, and all the admirals in the IN have a seat. Administrative and fleet admirals.”
“The admirals outnumber the planetary representatives,” Red added as though he hadn’t been acting strange only seconds ago.
Ciaran decided to let it go for now. “But what do these admirals want with Skye?”
Marcus, Patrick, Red, and Louisa all shook their heads.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Kilts are more fun to look at than to actually wear.”
—Timothy on fashion yet again.
May 27, 4831: Blae Mountain Pass
“I don’t care what you say, leaving a letter for Captain Kindros in French was a good idea.” Bannon rode up on Louie’s left side, close enough to reach out and touch her. They’d been riding for fifteen minutes now. Out to check on the building that Patrick was convinced was for the IN, to check the progress and check in with the men sent to keep an eye on the site, and see if Bannon and Louie could spot something different than what Patrick had seen. Something that would tell them that the building was definitely IN.
“Except for the fact that longitude and latitude in French are spelled exactly the same in English. You’d know that if you hadn’t bribed me to do all your French homework.”
Bannon stuck his tongue out at her. He had done some of his French homework.
Technically that was art history, not linguistics.
Not that it mattered. Marcus and Patrick had nixed the idea of leaving a message at the crash site, and since they were the ones going there…. “Do you think Marcus will be able to recover enough stuff from the crash to be able to construct something to contact home?”
They’d given Marcus the com-pad yesterday. The com-pad, with the blue rhinestone-encrusted back, could only have been Prissy’s, so on a whim Louie had them try George Gordon—aka Lord Byron, Prissy’s hero—as a password, and it had worked. Marcus thought