Rebels and Lovers (3 page)

Kaidee Griggs leaned on that same railing and stared down at Horatio Frinks with equally narrowed eyes, ignoring the tall, wide-shouldered Takan bodyguard hulking threateningly behind. “What about the two thousand I gave you last week?”

“That leaves thirteen—”

“Which you will get, Frinks, when I get paid. You know that. We discussed that. It’s not my fault the Empire’s dumped more slagging restrictions on cross-border trade. I’m not the only free-trader caught up in this.”

“But this ain’t no trader debt, and it’s over a year old now. I don’t like it. Orvis don’t like it.”

The Taka nodded slowly. He wasn’t Orvis but, like Frinks, was hired muscle.

“And
I
don’t like it, but damn it, I can’t pay you if I can’t haul goods. You have an issue? Go to slagging Aldan Prime and talk to His High-Whatever Tage. I would have paid that debt off four months ago if it wasn’t for him.” Well, maybe not
paid off
, but she’d be a lot less in debt if restrictions, fines, taxes, and penalties hadn’t been slathered on to free-trader operations by His High Asshole Darius Tage. For the betterment of the Empire. Of course. And at the command of Emperor Prewitt III. Of course.

It was always the emperor who commanded these things. Tage was just his obedient servant.

In a
crigblarg’s
eyes.

Sheldon Blaine’s claim to the throne was starting to sound more and more attractive—the terrorist tactics of his Farosian Justice Wardens notwithstanding. At least Blaine—who even from prison still claimed to be
the real heir to the royal Prewitt line—would want traders going to and from Tos Faros and other points in Dafir sector.

Now it was damned near an impossible task to get across the B–C border into Calth. And even traffic in the commercial space lanes in Baris was subject to “unannounced inspections.” As if she had Philip Guthrie tucked in her cargo hold?

She
knew
Philip Guthrie—though she doubted many on Dock Five would believe her if she said so. And if she did have the man on her ship, she’d not waste his talents by stuffing him in a cargo hold. He’d flown right seat with her and Kiler a few times. The man was impressive. She could almost forgive him for being a Guthrie.

Frinks made a disgusted noise and turned away. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She shoved herself back from the railing and headed for the
Rider’s
airlock, fear warring with frustration. Seven days. She couldn’t get to Calth and back in seven days even if the Empire didn’t have a destroyer sitting out there with Dock Five in its sights, inspecting and impeding traffic.

The best she could do in seven days was to get off Dock Five the minute the restrictions were lifted and never return. Let Orvis hunt her down. That could buy her a month, maybe three.

But it would also put her in a serious financial bind. One of the few intelligent things Kiler had ever done was to prepay the
Rider’s
docking-bay fees on a two-year contract and sign the ship on as part of the CalRis Free-Trader Collective. The CFTC, its contacts, and its contracts—for all the annoying rules and restrictions—were the only things keeping her and her
ship alive. Leaving Dock Five meant leaving all that behind and starting from scratch again.

Just like they did when they left Guthrie Global.

Another thing to thank Kiler for.

That and a twenty-five-thousand-credit gambling debt—with the
Rider
as collateral.

She’d always worried that it would be her heritage, her family history, that would derail her life. How damnably odd that the handsome, respectable—well, respectable back then—pilot she had married turned out to be the source of all her troubles.

And that the very family history she was so afraid of was the main reason he was interested in her. So much for true love or forever after.

She closed the airlock behind her and leaned on the bulkhead’s hard edge, her back against the wall in more ways than the obvious.

Thank you, Kiler Griggs. What in hell am I going to do now?

It was almost dawn in Port Palmero when Devin’s limo glided silently over the long, tree-lined drive leading to his parents’ estate. Lights in the main house—an imposing four-story brick-and-streamstone mansion—glowed golden, as they would when a guest was expected; lights in the family and guest wings were more muted. Lights in the servants’ quarters were bright, as always. One never knew when a Guthrie might want something.

No, to be fair, his parents were exceedingly good employers, but one never knew when a Guthrie Global Systems executive might arrive from the far reaches of the Empire, body clock and local clock out of sync.

Devin’s body clock was definitely out of sync. He
was no night crawler, and his wristwatch and body clock told him he’d been traveling for eighteen hours. The local time was a quarter after five.

Another forty-five minutes and he could join his father for coffee in the informal dining salon adjacent to the patio that overlooked the eastern gardens. J.M. had his coffee promptly at six every morning. An hour later, his wife, Valerie, would bring her bowl of seasonal fruits and light cream to the table, and they would start another day with soft, companionable conversation.

J.M. never raised his voice before breakfast.

Devin wondered if today was the day the old man would break that rule.

“Welcome home, Mr. Devin.” Barthol, the house’s chief steward, met Devin on the southern patio, where the limo driver—knowing Devin’s preference for unobtrusiveness—had pulled the vehicle up the rear garden drive. Devin made no move toward the suitcase the driver deposited on the brick walkway. Barthol, unlike J.M.,
would
argue before breakfast.

A Guthrie did not lift luggage.

Neither, actually, did the balding, pale-skinned Barthol. At least, not any farther than the few inches from the walkway to the antigrav pallet humming by his black-clad legs.

“Thanks, Barthol. How’s your wrist?” He fell into step with the man who’d been the Guthrie steward since Devin was a child.

“All healed. Thank you kindly for asking.”

“No more basketball with Trippy and Max, I take it?”

Barthol’s wide mouth stretched into a grin. “Your nephews keep me young, just as you and your brothers did. But my jump shot isn’t what it used to be.”

Barthol was somewhere between seventy and eighty—at least, that was the best Devin and Philip had been able to deduce. He never talked about his age, and to see his rangy form lunging around the estate’s basketball court, it would be easy to shave ten or fifteen years off that total.

Or more. Barthol had seemed old to Devin when Devin was in grade school, as Max was now. He must seem ancient to twelve-year-old Max and his nineteen-year-old brother, Trippy.

Shame Trippy wasn’t here. Of all his nieces and nephews—and there were currently seven—Jonathan Macy Guthrie III was his favorite. “Triple trouble,” Valerie Lang Guthrie had intoned when her first grandchild was born. So Trip, or Trippy, he became.

Devin had been sixteen when Trip was born. He was almost as close in age to Trip as he was to Trip’s father, Jonathan.

The patio’s glass-paneled doors, sensing human presences with accepted biopatterns, slid open silently.

“Do you wish to retire to your suite for a few hours?” Barthol asked as they headed for the rear elevators. “Your father should be at the east patio shortly.”

“I caught a couple hours’ sleep on the ship.” If lying on the soft bed and staring at the cabin’s ceiling could be called sleep—and it wasn’t just Baris–Agri keeping him awake. “I’ll freshen up, then join him. Do you know if Jonathan’s coming over this morning?”

Barthol glanced at the silver wristwatch edging out from beneath his white cuff. “He alerted security to his and Miz Marguerite’s arrival in fifteen minutes.”

So it would be J.M.
and
Jonathan over coffee. Devin loved his family, but not when they double-teamed him. Devin stepped into the carpeted elevator,
Barthol on his left and his luggage in front. His suite was third floor, south.

“We’ve been informed that Miss Tavia will be in around nine this evening,” Barthol told him as they exited into the hallway. “Your father requested the Blue Lily Suite for her.”

Right down the hall from his. How convenient.

Devin touched the palm pad at his door, which read his biopattern and opened immediately. The browns, gray-blues, and greens of his living room were familiar—his mother often threatened to redecorate to something brighter, more cheery, but somehow he was still winning that battle.

“I know it’s a bit early, but the staff and I would like to offer our congratulations, Mr. Devin,” Barthol said, as Devin tossed his jacket over the back of the dark-green three-cushioned couch.

Not condolences? Devin never had the feeling Barthol truly approved of Tavia Emberson. He wasn’t even sure he did—other than that Tavia was one damned good handball player and didn’t try too hard to reform his unsociable tendencies. And wasn’t averse to a long engagement; neither was in a hurry to wed. “That’s very kind. Thank you.”

“Shall I unpack for you, sir?”

“I don’t have much.” He’d packed only what he needed for the flight. Anything else he could find in his closets, which held a smattering of things he’d left behind from recent visits but more so from his university and postgraduate days—the last time the Guthries’ Port Palmero estate had been his home. Fashion—much to Tavia Delaris Emberson’s dismay—never concerned him.

Barthol retreated, AG pallet in tow, the door closing behind him. Devin left his suitcase where the pallet
had deposited it and trudged through his bedroom—his bed still sported the comfortably worn gray-and-blue quilt—then through his dressing room and into his bathroom. Lights came on around him as the rooms monitored his presence. He leaned over the expansive pale-green marble double sink and examined his reflection in the mirrored wall, then took off his glasses and rinsed them under the faucet. There were shadows under his eyes—which were a murky blue, not bright blue like his mother’s and Philip’s—but the shadows were to be expected from one who’d been traveling all night and part of the next day. He put his glasses on the marble countertop, then rubbed one hand over his chin. He should shave. He should probably even shower, because then, at least for a few hours, his short-cropped hair wouldn’t stick up quite so haphazardly in spikes. But a warm shower would relax him too much, make him sleepy.

He needed to be awake to face J.M. and Jonathan.

He settled for shaving and changing from his cream-colored business shirt to a round-necked, somewhat misshapen soft sweater almost the same brown as his hair. It was his favorite sweater, and he’d annoyed himself by accidentally leaving it behind a few months ago.

The fact that Makaiden Griggs, working double duty as his bodyguard, had helped him pick it out at a spaceport mall on Aldan Prime three years ago had nothing to do with it. It was a comfortable sweater. He liked it. He’d bought it.

Makaiden was the one who told him the sweater matched his hair.

He always thought it matched her eyes.

He shut the closet door with more force than was
necessary, the hard crack of wood against wood spearing the silence of his suite.

Anger vibrated through his body, surprising him with its appearance and intensity. It had to be because he was overtired; the Baris–Agri and Galenth projects weren’t his only duties. There were also several ventures tied to the recent restructuring of the Empire that had kept him working late hours the past few weeks, and now this last-minute summons and the all-night travel … He was tired, that’s all. Not angry. Devin Jonathan Guthrie never permitted himself to get angry. It was a useless emotion that interfered with rational, analytical thought. It let others know they could get to you, manipulate you, hurt you.

Anger was a waste of time.

Moreover, he had nothing to be angry about.

Not even being told you’re getting married?

He’d been in a relationship with Tavia for almost a year now. It had started on the handball court, had progressed to occasional dates at the symphony or dinner with other GGS executives, and had eventually ended up in bed. She was an Emberson—not old money like the Guthries, Petroskis, Tages, or Sullivans, but respected money, especially on Garno.

Tavia Emberson was, as his sister-in-law Marguerite would say, “a good match.” Devin was, after all, the youngest Guthrie son. Marguerite, a Petroski, had landed the eldest Guthrie, a marriage the society vids deemed “an excellent match.”

So yours is only good. That doesn’t make you angry?

No, that made him a realist. But even a realist had rights. Yes, he would agree to a public announcement of his engagement to Tavia. He was Devin, not Philip.
He wouldn’t rebel outright. But if and when he married would be on his terms, on his schedule.

Not, as Jonathan had informed him through the deskscreen of his Garno office, before their mother’s next birthday several months from now.

J.M. and Valerie Guthrie wanted Devin settled and a grandchild on the way before Valerie turned seventy-seven.

Devin would give them engaged. The rest he was withdrawing from negotiation.

He would not end up like Ethan.

“Devin. Good to have you home.” His father, already in business attire of dark pants and a pale-blue collared shirt, rose from his chair at the glass-topped table and clasped Devin’s shoulder in a firm grip. He was only slightly shorter than Devin, his straight posture belying his years—as did the thick dark hair that he wore combed back from a craggy face. His brows were bushy, more silver-tinged than his hair, which Devin suspected benefited now and then from retouching. But his father was almost eighty, and if he wished to indulge in a little vanity, Devin would not be the one to take that from him.

Devin leaned into his father’s half embrace, patting the old man on the back. That was about as demonstrative as the men in his family were known to get. He took the chair on his father’s right.

“Mr. Devin, good to see you again, love!” Audra, the Guthries’ longtime head chef, appeared at Devin’s elbow with a pot of Mountain Gray, his favorite tea. Unlike the rest of his family, he wasn’t a coffee drinker.