Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Several days later, we have dinner with Edward Idaho.
He arrives two hours late, which I find unspeakably rude. I live in a world where a seven p.m. dinnertime is a seven p.m. dinnertime, not a nine p.m. arrival.
There is a hold-up down at the gate due to the untimeliness of the whole affair, which further delays their arrival. Mila is a nervous wreck. She has changed her dress four times, and every time she does, she feels compelled to repaint her nails. She has also put on a good amount of cosmetics that she sent out for the moment the dinner party was confirmed. Having met her without so much as a scrap of makeup on, it is quite interesting to watch my simple country bride transform into a smooth-skinned sophisticate. She looks gorgeous either way, but internally I think I prefer her without it. I like seeing her just as she is, not as she imagines she wishes she was.
But I understand that women have their battle paint, and that a social occasion, even one with those one hopes will be friends, is not without danger.
“Do you think they’re not coming? They would have said if they weren’t coming, wouldn’t they?”
“I don’t know,” I’d replied, largely because I do not know. Edward Idaho is a stranger to me.
“All the money in the world and I can’t get a place like this,” he says, shaking my hand. “They say something happened to your eyes. Is that what the glasses are for?”
“Yes.”
“Very cool.”
Interesting take.
Edward Idaho is tall, relatively young at thirty years old, and handsome in a rakish way. His even younger bride seems very much enamored of him. She giggles whenever he speaks, on the off-chance that something he said was a joke, I suppose.
“So you’re a war hero,” he says. “Very cool.”
“Indeed.”
“I suppose you’ve killed a lot of people,” he says. “I’m not supposed to ask that, I know, but eh.”
“Eh indeed,” I reply.
This conversation is going to be a difficult one.
Edward Idaho is a shark. I do not believe this happy go lucky rich idiot act for a second. He catches my eye and smiles. I don’t mind swimming with sharks, but I don’t play nice with them usually. Tonight is an exception to a long-held rule.
Being matched means making decisions and doing things I wouldn’t usually do. I want her to be happy, and this is the first thing she has seemed truly excited about since she arrived. So I smile back. Just barely.
“I think you and I are going to be great friends, Arthur,” he says.
“Sure we are,” I agree.
There’s no way we’re ever going to be friends. Edward is not my type of man. I’ve known plenty of men like him before. He’s smart, but he’s glib, and probably weak. The sort to talk a big game, but who will want to hide behind others when it comes time for that game to be played.
I catch Lydia looking at him with the same quiet distaste.
Mila, on the other hand, seems a hair shy of enamored with him. Not in a manner that makes me concerned, of course. I would never be concerned by a sprat like him.
“What a beautiful bride you have,” he says. “What beauties we’ve both been given. We must have pleased the Artifice, you and I, Artie.”
The familiarity makes me wince, but correcting him would introduce social tension, and probably embarrass Mila. I see her look at me with concern when he uses that diminutive term. She already knows me well enough to know I won’t like it. I’d consider that some kind of intimacy, but really, any sensible person would know better.
This makes me even more suspicious of Edward. He is trying to get a rise out of me. He’s pushing the limits already. He wants me off balance in my own home. He’s hostile, in other words.
“Dinner is served,” Cordingly says, bursting in with much needed cheerfulness.
I am very glad. If we eat dinner, then we are one step closer to the others going home. This evening has already gone on too long.
Mila and Elizabeth are deep in conversation about dresses and balls and weddings. Elizabeth is doing most of the talking, discussing the upcoming ceremony that she and Edward plan to have to celebrate their having been matched. Marriage is an arcane and outdated tradition in many respects, but of course Edward wants to make a scene, or a spectacle.
“What are your hobbies, Arthur? I’ve just gotten into hunting. You should come out with us sometimes. The deserts are absolutely teeming with things to kill.”
The deserts are full of life mutated at the end of the last war. The areas close to New Boston are monitored and regularly cleared, so there’s no real danger. But further out? There are monstrosities of the kind only a fool would willingly deal with.