Conspirator

“What willbe our schedule?” Toby asked him finally, prompting Cajeiri’s immediate attention. “Shall we be out and away directly after breakfast?”

“I think so,” Bren was in the process of saying when a servant slipped up to him and said, quietly. “There is a call from Mospheira, nandi. Your staff ca

“A woman.” He was a little bemusedc until Barb threw down her napkin and left the table without an excuse, and Toby leapt up and went after her.

Thatnarrowed the field of possible guesses.

He got up, bowed to the distressed staffer, and to the youngsters, who had also risen in some degree of concern. “Please finish your breakfast, young lord, you and your household, and please excuse me for a moment. One suspects this is a social matter.”

Nothing to do with politics, Cajeiri’s father, or armed disaster, at least. He left the dining room at a sedate pace, heard from the servant that the phone call might be received in the study, and walked there, also at a sedate pace.

There a servant waited to offer him the phone, which he took.

“This is Bren Cameron.”

“Bren!” He knew that voice. “Bren, I’m so sorry to interrupt your morning. Is my husband there?”

Jill.

“Yes, Toby’s here.” He was quite careful not to refer to Toby as her husband, which, to his recollection, Toby was not. At least—Toby had said it was final. “But he’s not in the room with me. Is there something wrong?”

“Julie’s been in an accident.” Tears broke through. “She’s in the hospital.”

Toby’s daughter. Bren’s pulse rate ticked up. “Serious?”

Sobs. “Bren, she’s hurt. She’s really hurt, broken arm, broken legc”

“My God, what was she doing?”

“It’s not my fault!” Jill cried. “It’s not my fault! She was cycling down Velroski and it was raining and she had an accident.”

“Her head?”

“She had a helmet. But she hit a pothole and the cycle’s a wreck and they don’t know how badly she’s hurt, Bren. Bren, I can’t deal with this by myself. I’ve gotto talk to Toby.”

How in hell had Jill known Toby was here? Had Toby been in contact? Had she gotten it out of State, via Sonja Podesta’s office?

“I’ll go tell him. Can you stay on the line?”

“Yes!” Jill said, so he laid the phone down, told a servant not to hang it up, and headed down the hall to Barb and Toby’s suite.

He knocked once. Pushed the door open. Toby was standing in front of a closed bedroom door, and looked toward him in some distress.

“Toby,” he began.

“I don’t know how she tracked me. Dammit, Bren. It’s Jill, isn’t it?”

“Toby, Julie’s had a cycle wreck.”

The anger drained from Toby’s face. So did the color. “Oh, my God. How bad?”

“Broken arm, broken leg, hit a pothole in the rain. Jill’s still on the line. She wants to talk to you.”

“Damn it!” Toby said. “Damn it! Where’s the phone?”

“My study,” Bren said, and stood aside as Toby left out the door, at a near run.

He was still standing there a heartbeat or two later, wondering whether he ought to go to the study and risk interrupting what those two had to say to each other, and delaying what Toby needed to learn about little Julia—hell, little Julia was a young woman now. It had just been that long sincec

The bedroom doors flew open. Barb stood there, red-eyed. “Where’s Toby?”

“Barb,” he began to say.

“ Where’s Toby?”

“He’ll be on the phone. His daughter’s been in a wreck, Barb. Ease up.”

“Oh, in a wreck! How bad is it?”

“Broken leg, broken arm.”

“Then she’ll live,” Barb said shortly. “How in hell did Jill call here?”

That was a real question. “Probably she phoned Statec Toby works for them, doesn’t he? Or is it Defense?”

Barb scowled at him and started for the door.

“Damn it, Barb, calm down. The kid’s in the hospital. Jill wants advice.”

“Oh, sure, she’s in the hospital. That’s the magic word. And he’ll come ru

He was appalled. The hell of it was—it echoed Jill herself, when Toby would drop everything for their mother’s every minor crisis. And the last, that hadn’t been minor. It echoed the whole situation that had driven Jill to leave Toby. His warnings to Toby hadn’t mattered then. Wouldn’t matter now. This time he tried logic with Barb. He snapped, “Well, where did youmeet him?”

At the hospital, that was to say, when they’d both, she and Toby, sat up with Mum and started an affair that had led here.

But maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to have said, after all. Barb’s eyes widened and she looked at him as if she’d like to hit him.

So he added, “It’s also where you’ll lose him if you don’t use your head about this.”

She did hit him, right across the face. Fortunately for her, Jago wasn’t there, nor were any of his aishid. He simply absorbed it and looked at her quite, quite coldly.

“You only wish I would break up with him,” she shot back.

“If you think I have any shred of feeling left for you—you’re quite mistaken. It’s what I told you before: hurt him and you’ve got a lasting enemy in me. Other than that, I don’t give a damn what you do in your life, if you make him happy. It won’tmake him happy if you come ru

Barb stared at him, then renewed her start for the door.

He snagged her arm. “If you don’t want to lose Toby for good and all, don’t everget between him and those kids. He’ll make a choice, believe me, if you put him to it. If he wants to leave here and go to the hospital over in Jackson, you smile and you go with him and you speak nicely and sympathetically to Jill and to Julie, if you have a brain in your head.”

“ Let go of me!”

He did. She massaged her arm in high theatrics and stalked out the door, with sharp, measured strides.

He delayed a moment, asking himself whether he had played that round correctly, but he thought he had. At least he’d told her the plain facts, if Barb had absorbed a single word he’d said. That was always the problem with Barb: somewhere in her head, between her eyes, her ears and her brain, there was some filter that only let through what supported her beliefs.

And right now he was probably the villain. He gave that phase about ten minutes, about as long as it took Toby to tell her something she didn’t want to hear, either. And she was here with no way but Toby’s boat for transport back to the island, so those two would have to work through itc though he wondered for a heartbeat or two if he couldn’t get her on a flight to Mogari, where she could pick up a routine air freight flight or a boat to Jackson, with the ca

No. If the relationship really, truly blew up today, somebody would have to escort her—namely him, and he wouldn’t get in the middle of Toby’s problem with her—no way in hell. They’d just have to patch it up and ship back together, speaking to each other or not.

So he composed himself and walked out into the hall, receiving a concerned look from Ramaso, who had watched the drama and had very little information.

“There’s been an accident on the Island, nadi-ji. One of Toby’s children-by-prior-contract is injured and the mother called with information. Nand’ Toby is greatly concerned. Barb-daja—” He hesitated just a heartbeat on a polite lie, and then decided the household needed pertinent facts. “—is disturbed by the notion he may take some sort of escape to void their contract.”

The old man was properly dismayed, and bowed. “One comprehends the distress, then, nandi. Are the injuries life-threatening?”

“No, which is to the relief of us all. You may pass the word on to staff,” he said, amazing himself, he was so completely cold-hearted about his brother’s distress and Barb’s outburst. “They should not accept any blame for the lady’s distress or her discord with nand’ Toby. Likely the decision will play itself out in his decision to stay for the rest of his visit or go to the bedside of his child, which will either please or distress Barb-daja, or him. In either case, it is not your fault, nor can I intervene with a solution. This one is theirs to work out.”