There was a scrambling pause before Finn attempted to answer. “I—I—ah! I can—”
“You can what, Finn?” He let it come out sharp, and pulled his hands back. Finn slipped down on the sofa, chasing his touch.
“An audit,” he said, desperately. “I can audit her expenses.”
“Hmmm.” Aristide kept his lips closed but soft, ready to give in.
“Plague take it, what now?”
“Nothing,” said Aristide, casting a treacle-slow glance upwards to meet Finn’s pleading eyes. “Only I never knew accountancy could be so thrilling.”
Finn’s snarl was like a wounded animal’s. “Oh, shut up!”
And though Aristide usually gave the orders in his own boudoir, this one he obeyed.
*
In the morning, Aristide rang for his breakfast from bed. Finn didn’t wake, even when Ilse budged the door open with her hip and settled the tray over the folds of the duvet. The Morning Telegraph and the Clarion were folded into neat bundles next to a dish of shirred eggs and a pot of steaming coffee. Aristide poured himself a cup while Ilse folded Finn’s abandoned trousers briskly over her arms. “I’ll get these brushed and pressed,” she said. “Looks like last night took it out of him. You ought to be a little gentler, Mr. Makricosta.”
“Hmm?” Aristide looked up from stirring sugar into his coffee. “Oh, he’ll be fine after he’s had a bite to eat. Perhaps a few layers of powder before he goes out.” Bruises spattered Finn’s neck like crushed berries. Aristide swept his thumb across the red-and-purple skin.
Ilse cleared her throat. “Will that be all, sir?”
He nodded absently and picked up the Telegraph. Flipping it open, he scanned the headlines. Peace negotiations in Tatié—no doubt the Ospies were turning their attention to Amberlough, and Moritz had got the order to redirect resources from the border dispute. Aristide didn’t bother with the article below the bold type—his spectacles were in the parlor. He set the Telegraph aside and picked up the Clarion. Though he kept his face from showing his surprise, the breakfast tray jumped across his knees.
“Sir?” Ilse lingered in the doorway, watching him.
“My spectacles,” he said, deadly calm.
“Where did you leave them?”
“Parlor. By the wingback chair. Now, if you please.” Even without corrective lenses, he could read the two-inch headline perfectly. Culpepper in custody. Plague it all, this was why he needed Cross in the Ospies. So he would know when things like this were happening. Squinting, he read painfully through the first paragraph, then cursed and threw the paper aside. If the Telegraph hadn’t put this story on the front page, it meant they were in the Ospies’ pocket. The editor had always leaned radical; with Hebrides dead and Acherby on the rise, he must be happy as a maggot in a midden heap.
Finn stirred, blinking sleepily from the depths of his pillow. “G’morning.”
“I think you’ll find it isn’t.” Before Finn could ask what he meant, Ilse returned. Finn blushed and buried his face in the linens. Ilse smiled at Aristide and rolled her eyes. He took his spectacles without returning her bemused expression. “Thank you. That will be all.”
She slipped away. Aristide set the breakfast tray on the bedside table and turned to Finn.
“Your offer,” he said. “It still stands?”
“Hm?”
Well, he hadn’t even remembered his name, toward the end of the night. Of course he needed a little reminding. “You’ll act as go-between in my communications with Merrilee?”
That erased the saintly peace sleep had leant to Finn’s expression. He looked pained. “Ari, I—”
Snatching the Clarion from where he had thrown it, Aristide shoved it under Finn’s nose. “I can’t afford to be surprised like this again. There are things at stake I’d rather not risk.”
Finn’s eyes moved as he read. His mouth fell open. “Plague and pesteration…” Then, scrabbling into a modicum of comprehension: “But Cross can’t possibly help you now. The Ospies will take the Foxhole. They’re the ones who’ve had her arrested, I’d wager a year’s pay.”
“Of course they will. But Cross is one of them.” A small secret to part with, and not dangerous to Cross, not now.
“What?”
A thought struck Aristide then. “Will they keep you?”
“Cross, an Ospie?”
“Finn, will they keep you? In the bursar, will they?”
“Um.” Finn shook his head, like a horse scaring off flies. “Maybe not forever? But they can’t exactly sweep the whole place clean and go without. I imagine it’ll take a few weeks to even get down to us accountants.”
“A few weeks is plenty of time. Finn, please.”
There was a pause Aristide could have measured with a yardstick. “I don’t want to know what they say.”
Aristide let out the breath he’d been holding. “I won’t tell you. And all the messages will be in code.” Gathering Finn into his arms, he petted a stray piece of orange hair back into place. “Perfect, b-b-brilliant boy,” he said, kissing Finn’s forehead. “What would I do without you?”
CHAPTER