Free When Demons Walk by Patricia Briggs Page B

wouldn’t take a woman of questionable taste as his mistress. Everyone knew that the Reeve had never taken a mistress, so she had to be extraordinary. With her angular features and slender body, that left her wardrobe.
    The dress she wore was black, a color that the Cybellians used only for mourning. She’d had the seamstress lower the bodice and take off the sleeves, leaving most of her upper body exposed. Small sapphire-blue flowers, torn hastily from another dress at Shamera’s request, were sewn here and there on the satin skirt of her gown.
    Her hair, free of its usual restraints, hung in thick softwaves past her shoulders and halfway down her back. She’d colored her lips a soft rose and lined her large eyes and darkened her lashes with kohl. Her face she’d powdered until it was even whiter than usual, a shocking contrast to the darker-skinned Cybellians. She had even changed her movements, exchanging her usual boyish stride for a sultry swaying walk that covered the same amount of ground in a completely different way.
    When she’d emerged from the dressing room at the dressmaker’s, Talbot had started laughing.
    â€œNo one, but no one, is going to confuse ye wi’ Sham the thief.” Even the outrageous bill that she’d run up hadn’t been enough to take the wide grin off his face.
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    S HAMERA DIDN ’ T BOTHER to knock at the Reeve’s door, but thrust it open hard enough that it hit the wall behind it with a hollow thud.
    â€œ Darling ,” she gushed in heavily accented Cybellian. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard that you were ill. Is this why you broke off with me?”
    After a dramatic pause at the door, Shamera rushed over to his side trailing expensive perfume behind her and ignoring the stunned looks on the faces of the man and woman who were sitting in chairs next to Kerim. As she crossed the floor she looked at them from the corner of her eye.
    The woman was small and beautiful despite the fine lines around her mouth and nose. Her coloring was the same as the Reeve’s: thick dark hair, warm brown skin, and rich dark eyes. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful as a young girl; even now, with strands of silver and a slight softening of the skin of her neck, she would have brought a pretty penny at any of the higher-class brothels in Purgatory.
    The man sitting next to her was similarly beautiful; his features were fine-boned and mobile, a refined version of the Reeve’s. The dark eyes were large and long-lashed. A warm, approving smile dawned on his lips at her appearance, revealing a single dimple.
    Shamera reached the Reeve’s chair and leaned over, pressing a passionate kiss on his mouth, lingering longer than she’d really intended when he responded with matching theatrics. Breathing a little harder, she pulled back before she ended up sitting on his lap in front of the woman who, judging by the look of moral outrage on her face, could only be his mother.
    â€œBut sweetheart, what is it they are feeding you?” Sham looked with honest horror at the mush on the tray that sat on a table beside Kerim’s chair. She picked up the tray and sought out the servant standing in the shadows, where a good servant learned to make himself at home.
    â€œYou, sir, what is your name?”
    â€œDickon, my Lady.”
    â€œDickon, take this back to the kitchens and get something fit for a man to eat.” She thickened her vowels deliberately when she said “a man” it might have been her accent.
    The servant came forward to take the tray, stiffening slightly as he got a good look at her face. But he took the gold inlaid wooden slat without commenting and left the room before anyone had a chance to object to Shamera’s order. She turned back to the remaining three occupants in the room and noticed that Kerim had lost control of his laughter.
    She widened her eyes at him and gestured dramatically, saying,