Grommet did know, from personal experience growing up with Finister, that she had always thought talk of love was silly. She had become fanatically loyal to her adoptive parents, but even that seemed to be more out of a sense of survival than from any tender feelings. She had also realized the importance of status to survival, and had understood the effects of her burgeoning charms at a startlingly young age, using them to keep the boys firmly on her side, ensuring her dominance over the other children, even the girls who were four and five years older than herself.
So he wasn't terribly surprised that Finister could not understand how Cordelia had won Prince Alain's affections against every curve that Finister could throw. "You're going to have to work awfully hard," he said. "The Home Office still says there will be an alarming number of successful brats issuing from Cordelia's marriage to Prince Alain."
"You don't have to remind me!" Finister rounded on him. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your life watching the lack of events in some village out in the boondocks?"
"No, no," Grommet said quickly. "You know I want to be as near you as I can, Chief."
"Yes, I know," Finister said, gloating. She could see how her tone twisted inside Grommet, and felt a glow of satisfaction—and pleasure. She turned away, pacing as quickly as she could toward the forest. "They don't ever seem to remember Magnus having had any children, though."
"No," Grommet admitted, "but we here can remember that he did. Only because the old Chief Agent wrote it down, of course, just before he died."
Finister suppressed a quick shiver of delight at the memory of how the old man had passed away. The prelude hadn't given her much pleasure; but his dying had—and had given her a great deal of power, too, since he had named her as his successor. Of course, by that time, he would have said anything to win some time alone with her.
Foolish or not, Grommet was in the mood for revenge. "The future is still saying that, only a generation down the timeline, one of Cordelia's children becomes king with extremely republican ideals."
"Yes, I know," Finister hissed, "and worse, all his siblings will have been raised to be intensely loyal to himonce they're grown up."
Grommet didn't like the sound of that last. "Of course they'll grow up!"
"Not 'of course' at all," Finister corrected. "That can be changed."
"What?" Grommet stared at her, aghast. "Their growing up?"
"Of course." Finister gave him a saccharine smile. That shook Grommet down to the laces in his bootsbut he was even more appalled to discover that, no matter how much of a monster she suddenly appeared to be, he still would have killed to get into bed with her. His loathing turned inward.
"So, for that matter, can Cordelia's marriage," Finister informed him.
"Can what?" Grommet stared. "Be changed. Of course."
Grommet suddenly understood—and also understood that there was a great deal of Finister's self-esteem at stake here. He would have to tread carefully. "But they're engaged..."
"Yes," said Finister, "but the wedding is still three months away, and while there's bachelorhood, there's hope."
Grommet gave a humorless bark of laughter. "Chief, with your talents, even after the wedding, there's hope."
"Yes, there is, isn't there?" Finister said, preening. "Marriages can always be wrecked."
"And if you don't mind my saying so," Grommet said, "no one's better fitted for the task than you."
"You say the sweetest things, Grommet. Yes, I am well suited to the task, aren't I? Which is why I have to take charge of Geoffrey Gallowglass's case personally."
Grommet looked up in alarm, to her satisfaction. Had he really thought he had sidetracked her? Yes, none of her agents had anywhere nearly as good a chance of ensnaring Geoffrey as she had—she shivered at the thought of how she would go about that ensnaring. Certainly that was the reason—or one of the reasons, anyway; the shiver summed up all the rest.
In her natural form, Finister was a voluptuous, striking beauty—striking anyone who could be lulled into lowering his guard to her charms. But she depended on artifice more than nature, appearing to the Gallowglasses in a host of disguises, which made her appear even more beautiful than she was. She was a projectile telepath, and therefore skilled at casting illusions. She was also skilled at stimulating men's ardor, both telepathically and otherwise.
"So you've taken a personal interest in the case?" Grommet asked, with irony.
"Personal in more ways than one," Finister countered. "He's escaped me once already. Curse the fool! Doesn't he know I can see how badly he wants me?"
"From what you've told me, he hasn't made any effort to disguise how much he desired you," Grommet said shortly.
"No, he hasn't," Finister agreed, "but he seems somehow to be infuriatingly proof against my spells!" Forget the spells, Grommet thought—her physical charms were enough. "He must be the only man you've ever met who is."
"Definitely the only one." But Finister reflected grimly that Geoffrey was also the only man who might be capable of enjoying her favors without being captivated by them. "It's a challenge I can't resist."
Nor could she, really, resist Geoffrey himself. She could not explain this obsession—he was handsome enough, surely, but there were men who were more handsome still; Geoffrey was certainly not what she would call a gorgeous hunk of male animal. Oh, he was male enough, to be sure, and a hunk—she had seen him without his doublet, and knew that he was muscular enough to make Adonis blush for shame; his chest and arms were magnificent, and the way he wore tights was distinctly unfair to every unattached female in his vicinity—and perhaps to some of those who were attached, too. Still, there were men enough with handsome displays of pectorals and biceps, and many of them were even more handsome than Geoffrey—so what was it about him that sent pangs of covetousness coursing through her whenever she thought of him? She could not make sense of it; she only knew that she had to have him, and would have him, some day.
Have him permanently, if she was bewitching enoughand she knew she could be.
"But what are you going to do with him once you catch him?" Grommet asked.
"What?" Finister looked up, startled at his words having matched her thoughts so well. Grommet was no telepathbut even if he had been, she was very adept at shielding what she was thinking. Covering her surprise, she snapped, "What am I going to do with him? I'm going to light such a flame of lust in him that it will never die down! Once I've done that, I can transmute it into what fools like him call love, even though it's just an obsession surging up from the gonads." She saw, with satisfaction, that Grommet was suffering. "Once I've done that, he'll realize that he absolutely must have me with him always."
"Meaning that you intend to marry him," Grommet said softly.
"Of course." Finister tossed her head, "I'm every bit as good as any of those highborn trulls he might be thinking about, when he gets old enough. In fact, I'm a lot better!" Was that a groan she heard from Grommet? Well, maybe a very soft one.
"You know that and I know that," Grommet said, his voice low, "but his parents don't."
Finister shrugged. "They'll object to my class, of course—peasant girls are all very well to bed, but not to marry. When the time is right, though, I'll reveal that I'm really the long-lost daughter of some forgotten earl who secretly married a woman who conveniently died in childbirth."