how people can cheat you, the less likely you’ll be cheated.”
“So it’s all right to cheat?” Mira asked slowly, obviously struggling with the concept.
He shook his head. “Lying and cheating is like playing with guns. When it’s real, it’s very dangerous.
You have to be very careful, but we Whistlers always thought it was a good thing to know how to do it well, and more importantly, how to tell when someone else is doing it.”
Jerin realized that someone else was in the room. He glanced up to meet the gaze of a young woman leaning against the door, watching them. Judging by her auburn hair, fair skin, and delicate features, she could be none other than the mysterious Princess Trini. Her look was a mix of amusement and dismay.
Lylia wandered back into the room. “Trini, there you are! You haven’t met the Whistlers yet. This is Jerin.”
Princess Trini straightened up with a scowl at her younger sister. “Well met. Master Whistler, but if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do than to play with toy soldiers.”
The others, minus Eldest Whistler, returned to the playroom. Barnes, they said, had fetched Eldest to meet with a visitor. The Whistlers showed off their skills at sleight of hand for the youngest princesses, making coins and balls disappear and reappear. The children and Cul-len picked up most of the basic moves, but Lylia, laughing at her own fumble-fingeredness, couldn’t get it.
“Finally,” Cullen gloated, “something I can do that you can’t!”
The young princesses’ tutor arrived, announced playtime was over, and shooed the visitors away. The group decided to troop back to the Whistler suite for tea. They reversed their normal marching order, with Lylia and Jerin leading, while Summer and Corelle, flanking Cullen, trailed behind.
Reaching the suite first, Lylia opened the door and halted.
Eldest Whistler and Kij Porter stood in the room, the tension almost visible between them. If Kij and Eldest Whistler had been armed, surely both would have hands resting on their weapons. Seeing them standing thus, it struck Jerin for the first time that the Porters were built much like his sisters-tall, lean, and broad in the shoulders.
“You’ll have to give us time to decide.” Eldest’s voice was carefully flat, void of any emotion. “I won’t be pressured into a snap decision.”
“I don’t see what there is to decide,‘’ Kij said lightly. though her eyes were narrowed in something that might be anger. “We’re willing to offer twice the amount you’d get from commoners. We’re a powerful family with ancient noble lines. There isn’t a family greater than ours in all of Queensland.”
Jerin’s heart quaked in his chest. Offer? The Porters?
The two women realized that he stood in the doorway. They turned toward him, Eldest with a flash of irritation, Kij Porter with a look close to greed.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Eldest stated firmly; it was unclear if she spoke to Kij or Jerin.
“Jerin!” Kij came to claim his hands, squeezing them possessively. “You’re more beautiful every time I see you.”
“It’s the clothes,” he murmured, ducking his head shyly, but then glancing up to study her. Did he want Kij as a wife? Kij and her sisters were handsome women- stronger in features than the delicate royal princesses, which some would say was a bonus. Certainly they did not tend toward freckling like Lylia.
Kij’s eyes were the hard blue of sapphires.
Jerin could not find a single spark of warmth for Kij. Was it because he had given his heart totally to Ren already? Was it just a lack of knowing Kij?
She leaned toward him. A month ago, he would have missed the warning signs. Thanks to his experience with the royal princesses, however, he realized she was going to try to kiss him. He stepped backward with no conscious thought in the action, not even aware he’d avoided her until she straightened with a slight frown.
“Come, what’s the harm in a simple kiss? A sample of what I’m buying?”
“My brother is not a horse, nor a whore.” Eldest’s voice was toneless with her controlled anger. “We’ll need a contract and brother’s price in hand, a secure betrothal, before anyone can try for a sample.”
Not counting royal princesses, of course. Jerin studied his feet as his face burned. Hopefully that comment won’t blow up in our face.
Kij didn’t seem put off in the least. She chuckled softly and murmured, “Ah, I do enjoy taming a spirited colt before mounting and riding.”
“Good day, Porter,” Eldest snapped.
Kij nodded to them and went out.
“I don’t like her. Eldest,” Corelle muttered.
“You said he wasn’t a horse,” Summer growled.
“Corelle. Summer,” Eldest snapped. “We don’t discuss family business in public.”
Lylia and Cullen! Jerin turned around and found the two hovering by the door, looking paler than any of his sisters.
“This is not a good time,” Lylia said, blinking rapidly. “We’ll leave you to discuss this.”
She went without seeing if Cullen followed. Cullen opened his mouth, closed it again, and hurried after his cousin. The Whistlers stood in silence, the younger siblings waiting out of habit for Eldest to speak.
“Well?” Corelle finally asked. “What do we do?”
“We wait,” Eldest stated firmly, leaving no room for discussion. “This is only our first offer. We have time. We wait.”
Ren was in her office in town when Lylia came in like a firestorm.
“Where is she? Barnes said she came to the offices, and her office said she mentioned she was coming here! Was she here?”
“She, who?”
“Trim!” Lylia shouted. “That cold, self-centered bitch of our sister!”
“Lylia!” Ren snapped. “You will not use that language when speaking about one of our family.”
“Kij offered for Jerin!” Lylia wailed. “And that- that-Trini refused even to meet him!”
Ren sat. She had no choice as her legs wouldn’t support her. “Whistler didn’t accept?”
“She said they would need time to think, thank gods. It worked just like I planned. I got Jerin and Trini both to the playroom, and just as Odelia predicted, he was terrific with the youngest-I’ve never seen them so good. But all she did was stand at the door and sulk. Then- then!-to top everything off, she insulted him!”
“She didn’t!” Ren suddenly felt like calling Trini a few choice names herself. “What did she say?”
“Oh, nothing really bad. Just that she had better things to do with her time than play with soldiers.” Lylia deflated slightly at a look from Ren. “Oh, okay, it wasn’t really an insult. It just seemed like a slap in the face to me, after Jerin was so nice. He’s such a sweetie. He can do magic!”
“Magic?” Ren could think of only one thing magiclike that Jerin did-and she hoped that he hadn’t done it in front of the youngest.
“He can make coins and little balls disappear. He’s so clever with his hands.”
Ren recalled Jerin being clever with his hands and her body pulsed with a sudden need to be with him again. Had he done magic on Lylia too? The kiss she interrupted seemed mild compared with the embraces she had shared with Jerin.
“What do we do?” Lylia asked, drawing Ren out of her air dreams.
“I’ll order Trini to spend time with Jerin, let her get to know him, and then push the issue. We’ve got to get married, and we want our husband to be Jerin.”
Eldest Whistler was waiting for Ren in the princess’s study at the palace.
“I’ve heard,” Ren said.
“No you haven’t.” Eldest held up an envelope addressed in thin spidery writing. “Eldest Picker has died.
Meg is now head of the Picker family. Someone ap-proached her with a better offer. She’s going to hold us strictly to the terms of our contract. Payment for the store will have to be on the contracted date, or she’ll sell it to the other party.”
“I thought you had an exclusive contract.”
“We do, until Jerin’s birthday, which we were assuming would be his betrothal day. We had hoped for some traveling time beyond that, but Meg Picker’s disallowed it. We need to be back to Heron Landing by that date. If we don’t hand the Picker sisters their money on that day, then we owe them the penalty and they are free to sell to the
