He smiled because she needed him to. He’d stay long enough to support her through the purchase of this special gown that Jaenelle Saetien wanted for the dance. Then he’d return to the Hall. Or go to the Keep and get the help he needed to settle a temper that was now too sharp to deal with this childish performance that ignored everything his daughter had known since childhood about how to behave around a Warlord Prince.
“We really should invite Beron over for dinner soon,” Surreal said. “At least we know how to deal with his kind of drama.”
SEVENTEEN
Surreal had thought the shopping trip was going well until Jaenelle Saetien spotted another girl who was looking for a dress. When that girl loudly announced that the gowns weren’t good enough for her to blow her nose on, let alone wear to a special dance, Jaenelle Saetien looked mortified that she’d been seen in that shop—and suddenly there was nothing that was good enough for her to try on, so they got in the carriage and went to the next shop on the list.
Things should have gone well there. Jaenelle Saetien found a dress that cost more than a District Queen’s quarterly income, but the girl loved it and looked wonderful in it. And then . . .
Weary of drama, Surreal walked into the town house behind Jaenelle Saetien, who turned on her and screamed, “Why are you trying to ruin my life? Why are you being so mean? I hate you!”
Right now, the feeling is mutual, sugar.
“Ladies.”
Shit shit shit. That was the voice of the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. She just hoped Daemon wasn’t in a meeting with one of the Province Queens.
“If you have something to discuss, we’ll do it in my study,” Daemon said. “If you want to stand there and scream, then do it outside so that everyone in the square can hear why you’re in your current snit.”
A dismissive word for such a storm of emotion. A cutting word coming from him.
“You don’t know!” Jaenelle Saetien wailed.
“And I won’t know until you’re ready to discuss the problem.” He walked back into his study but left the door open.
Tearful and resentful, Jaenelle Saetien stomped into Daemon’s study.
“Young Ladies feel so much about so many things,” Helton offered as he eased into the entryway from the sitting room.
“Yeah,” Surreal replied.
“Perhaps a restorative tea?”
“For her or me?”
Tiny smile.
“I’ll let you know.” She walked into the study, determined not to participate any further in a battle that made no sense.
Apparently Jaenelle Saetien had given her father a condensed version of the afternoon.
Daemon gave Surreal a baffled look. “You told her she couldn’t buy a second dress?”
“Yes!” Jaenelle Saetien looked triumphant. “That’s what she said.”
“No, that’s not what I said.” Not exactly.
Daemon turned his attention back to his daughter. “Jaenelle Saetien, if you want another dress, you can certainly buy another dress.”
“I can?”
“Of course.” Daemon continued to look baffled. “As long as you have enough money in your account to cover the cost, you can buy as many dresses as you like.”
“But you’re supposed to buy it for me!”
Shit shit shit. Now he finally understands, Surreal thought as a chill came into those gold eyes.
“I agreed to buy one dress for this dance, and from what you told me, you found a wonderful dress,” Daemon said.
“But I need two! Everyone who is anyone will have two!”
“Why?” Surreal couldn’t hold back her own frustration. “Do you really think these girls are going to change into another dress in the middle of a school dance?”
Jaenelle Saetien turned on her. “You don’t understand anything!”
“I understand you’re being played by someone who is, at best, misinformed and, more likely, unkind.”
“Enough.” Daemon’s voice rolled through the town house like soft thunder, but that thunder was the prelude to a potentially violent storm. “You have the dress for the dance.”
“I can’t go to the dance. I can’t. Titian is going to Ebon Rih instead of going to the dance. I want to go too. I can’t be seen in that rag Mother made me buy.”
The girl ran out of the room.
“Well,” Surreal said, “I hope you don’t choke on the bill for that rag.”
Daemon settled in the chair behind his desk. She sank into a chair on the other side.
“Tell me what happened,” he said too quietly.
She told him about the shop and Jaenelle Saetien’s response to the other girl’s comment about the gowns, and ended with Jaenelle Saetien choosing a second gown after they had purchased the first and announcing loudly that her father would buy that one too. The drama exploded when Surreal informed her that Daemon wouldn’t buy the second dress but she was welcome to do so with her own money. Apparently the loud comment was meant to impress some of the other girls in the shop, and Surreal’s quieter correction was humiliating and vicious.
“Did you sense any power?” he asked, his voice still too quiet, too close to lethal. “Any spell or use of Craft that might have spurred this bizarre reaction?”
Surreal blinked. “You think . . . ?”
“Jillian’s behavior became erratic because of that ‘if you loved me’ spell. Is it possible someone at the school has wrapped a spell around our daughter and the other girls in the shop provided the key to releasing it?”
A spell that couldn’t be detected by someone wearing the Gray or the Black?
She thought about it, then shook her head. “The truth, Sadi? Peers are more important than parents right now, and even you couldn’t have competed with the opinion of that bitch in the first shop.”
“What about putting Jaenelle Saetien in a different school?”
“And have her hating us for the next few decades—or more—because we ruined her life? No, thank you.” Surreal hooked her hair behind her delicately pointed ears. “Those girls all come from aristo families. I’m sure they all go to that school, and that means they come from families with money. Jaenelle Saetien will be dealing with them for the rest of her life. If you don’t let her make her own choice about these girls, she’ll never forgive you. Not all the way forgive you.”
“Would you have, when you were her age?”
“If you had forced me to follow the choice you knew was better for me instead of accepting the path that had been my choice?” She sighed. “I would have hated you, especially once I realized you were right. That’s the truth of it.”
Now he sighed.
Best to tell him now. “I bought an estate a few months ago.”
One eyebrow rose in query. “I haven’t seen any paperwork about it.”
“It’s not a family holding. It’s mine.”
He didn’t move. She wasn’t sure he even breathed. “And you want me to stay away.”
She nodded. “But if I call for help, it’s because things are going to get very bloody, and I need your particular skills.”
He leaned back, folded his hands, and rested his forefingers against his chin. “Explain.”
“I purchased a run-down estate that had been owned by an aristo family who slunk away instead of paying their tithes to the District Queen—and who, as their fortunes declined and the whispers began, weren’t comfortable about being on the other side of a village that caters to one of the SaDiablo estates. Seems too many pointed questions were being asked by people of consequence in the village about how they were spending their fortune that they couldn’t afford to take care of the estate.”