“If my presence doesn’t make you too uncomfortable,” she said, smiling icily. “We could pick up a bootblack along the way if it would help redress the balance.”
Von Strahden beamed good-humoredly and turned to me, speaking in a mock whisper as I walked unsteadily out to the carriage. “Lady Dahria is making fun of my egalitarian principles,” he said.
“And what are your plans for today, Mr. Von Strahden?” I asked, mustering what confidence I could and putting on a demeanor I thought matched my costume.
“Dull stuff, I’m afraid,” he said. “Survey teams to dispatch, results to examine, more teams to dispatch, more results to examine. Endless, and undeserving of our conversation.”
Willinghouse’s driver paused when he saw us emerge from the house. “Miss Dahria,” he said. “I didn’t know you planned to go into town today. Your brother must have forgotten to tell me.”
“Quite,” she answered. “And you will forget to tell him too.”
I loitered in her shadow, offering an arm when she climbed up into the carriage. The driver did not give me a second look, and I don’t think he realized who I was. Von Strahden watched her, eyebrows raised.
“Miss Sutonga thinks I should have more adventure in my life,” she remarked.
“Quite right too,” said Von Strahden as the carriage rolled off. The seats were, as he had said, remarkably comfortable. “It isn’t good to stay cooped up in the house with those insubstantial friends of yours.”
“My friends have as much substance as you or I,” she returned.
Von Strahden snorted derisively. “Gossip and fashion and which spoon to use on the grapefruit,” he said dismissively. “Not exactly the stuff of life, is it?”
“I just don’t understand why some people are embarrassed to acknowledge their own class,” Dahria purred.
“Embarrassment has nothing to do with it,” said Von Strahden. “I just don’t happen to think it healthy to mix exclusively with people of your own social standing. Sometimes our betters have less than we do.”
“I will agree,” Dahria said, still smiling dryly, “that class is not entirely about income.”
Von Strahden gave me a knowing look and spoke sotto voce. “A dig, I fear, at my humble origins. Unlike the lady here and her brother, I was not born to wealth and fortune. My father, when he was my age, was a factory worker in a flax mill on Deans Gate. Worked his way up to foreman and eventually to shareholder. Spent what he had on my education. I was never dirt poor,” he confessed, returning Dahria’s smile, “but I know what it is to work, to want, even to go hungry, and I don’t intend to forget those things now that I have a little power and influence. Indeed, it’s because of those things and those people that I sought that power, and I intend to use it for their benefit.”
“Hear! Hear!” said Dahria, parodying the voice of an elderly backbencher.
“Yes, yes!” said Von Strahden with a self-deprecating smile. “I’m an absurd and na?ve political windbag, but I am at least sincere.”
“And you would have my vote if I was allowed to cast one,” I said, emboldened by his speech.
“And that will happen in your lifetime,” said Von Strahden, earnest again. “When we are in power—”
Dahria cut him off, speaking through a theatrical yawn. “If you are going to discuss politics all the way there,” she said, “I will throw myself under the wheels. I swear, Von Strahden, you are worse than my pious brother.”
“I will take that as a compliment,” he said.
“And while Mr. Von Strahden luxuriates in that,” she said, turning deliberately to me, “perhaps it’s time you told me exactly what you plan to do with me today.”
*
VON STRAHDEN DROPPED US on the corner of Crommerty Street and drove off with a smiling nod and a “ladies” addressed equally to us both.
“It seems you have made a friend,” said Dahria. “But don’t get your hopes up. Mr. Von Strahden has love in his life already.”
I bristled. “I’m not here to hunt for a husband,” I said.
Dahria smirked and said nothing. It struck me as strange that someone with more than a drop of Lani blood in her should be so much more at home as an aristocrat than a white, male politician who might one day have a hand in leading the country.