“I’m sorry my family is so awful. I don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
“Oh, never mind that. I’m used to people being snobby little shits and yammering on about repopulating the fleet. They have trouble grasping that queer people can have children as well, thank you very much. Or, a radical notion, I know, that some people might not want to have children at all!” She pulled me into an alcove so we could observe the room at greater advantage. “So clue me in to who’s who. And why are there only twenty, thirty young people, tops? The ball was crawling with hotties last night, but I don’t see even a quarter of them here. And why are there so many parents?”
“Welcome to Night Two of the Valg Kickoff, Super-Elite Edition,” I intoned wryly. “The concert is invite-only from the captain. It’s a chance for the parents to scope out the very best matches of the Season and push their hapless children in the direction they would like. It’s the last event the parents get to attend, though.”
“Then how the heck did we get invited? I’m under no delusions as to how people like you—no offense—feel about new money.”
“My cousin thought you were the ‘right kind of people.’” I couldn’t help but do air quotes as I recited back Klara’s words.
“Who is your cousin?”
“Oh, Klara Lind. She’s also the captain’s daughter, so—”
“The knockout blonde with the exquisite dress sense! I’m starting to put the pieces together now. Is everyone here related?”
“Now you know why we need the Valg Season to find partners,” I quipped.
And as if we had spoken her into being, Klara walked through the lounge doors at that very moment, resplendent in a dark-navy tulle dress overlaid with sparkling gold stars.
“I’m going to go chat with her—you want to come?” Evgenia asked.
I opened my mouth, ready to say yes, when I caught my father’s searing gaze. He gestured to my left and widened his eyes for emphasis. “No, that’s okay,” I told Evgenia. “I see a potential wealthy suitor, and if I don’t at least attempt conversation, my father will whine about it all evening.”
“Godspeed.” She patted me on the arm with encouragement before sashaying off in the direction of my cousin.
Now to suffer the shortest conversation possible with Lukas Hagen.
“Lukas, I didn’t think you enjoyed classical music,” I said by way of greeting.
“I don’t. My mom made me come.”
He waved at someone behind my shoulder, and I twisted around to see Baroness Hagen, eyes narrowed in my direction. Her lips turned down into a grimace. Not a fan of me, then. The elevated royal title that would come from a match with me was not enough to override the uncouthness of Father flinging me toward anyone with money, it seemed.
“Well, at least the food is good?” I grabbed a puff pastry from a passing tray, relieved my family wasn’t footing the bill for anything this evening. I planned on stuffing myself.
“Should you be eating that?” Lukas eyed me up and down, lingering on my perfectly proportional hips, thank you very much. It took all my strength not to fling the pastry in his face. But then I’d have lost the buttery, flaky pastry and salty cheese that passed my lips as I bit into it with great relish, just for Lukas’s benefit. As another tray passed, I snatched up a cucumber sandwich and ate it with equal care. Lukas took the hint.
“I’ll see you after the concert, then,” he said, though I doubted very much that that was true. He turned and went to find his seats.
Surprised to find her alone, I spotted the captain off to the side and saw an opportunity.
“Captain Lind?” I tapped Klara’s mom on the shoulder, allowing myself a deep, steadying breath before she turned around. Talking to Captain Lind required nerves of steel.
“Leonie, darling!” she exclaimed, engulfing me in a stiff, perfunctory hug. This was Freja Lind in a nutshell: all superficial charm with an undercurrent of stiff cool. Klara took after her. “You know to call me Aunt Freja, my dear,” she continued. The captain used endearments like weapons.
“Well, I wanted to talk business,” I hedged.
“Oh?” Her hostess’s veneer slipped. Freja smoothed her hands over the crisp pink sateen bodice of her ball gown, a subconscious gesture I’d seen her make with the fabric edges of her captain’s-uniform jacket a million times. “Still.” She coughed. “Call me Freja, even for business.”
“Okay, Aunt Freja.” I followed her instructions but remained on guard nonetheless. “I wanted to talk to you about my water-filtration system again—”
She cut me off. “I just don’t think it’s the most prudent course of action for us. The retrofit would be costly and time-consuming, and I just can’t get past the . . . urine thing.” She wrinkled her nose in disdain, as if I’d waved a urine-soaked rag beneath it.
“It’s completely clean and safe,” I pleaded. “We’ve been using it on the Sofi for over a year, and my father and sister haven’t even noticed!”
“You mean they don’t know?” The captain literally clutched her pearls. I had to pinch myself in the thigh to stop a giggle. “My dear, that’s precisely proving my point. You don’t want to reveal to them the source of their water, and I absolutely cannot and will not lie to my people.”
I was naked, castigated under her piercing blue-eyed stare.
“Only a small fraction of the potable water supply comes from the wastewater,” I mumbled, though I knew my pitch was done. The captain was family. If I couldn’t get her to buy into my filtration system, then I was doomed with other ships, wasn’t I?
“I’m sorry, Leonie.” She gave me a patronizing pat on the arm and a halfhearted smile. “You’re so like your mother. A hopeless idealist. May she rest in peace,” she seemed to add perfunctorily. Come to think of it, it was the first time she’d mentioned my mom in years.
“What are you sorry about, Mother?” Klara breezed in, sipping at her champagne in lieu of eating. I knew she rarely ate at these things. It was unseemly and would ruin her lipstick, she always said.
“I was saying sorry that she hadn’t found a suitor yet,” Freja answered smoothly, making things both better and worse. She covered the embarrassment of my failed business venture but opened up a whole other can of worms.
“Ugh, Mother, not everyone is gagging to get married,” Klara groaned. I nodded in agreement.
“You’d do well to get comfortable with the idea,” Freja scolded her daughter. “I won’t live forever. You need a well-positioned spouse if you want to run for captain—at a future time of my choosing, of course. And Leonie has other concerns for marriage,” she added. Well, there it was. “I saw you rebuff the young count from the Sternshiff.” My aunt frowned at me, the spitting image of my father. Parental disappointment was a universal look.
“We don’t have very much in common,” I said.
“You rarely do.” Freja sighed.
A loaded look passed between my cousin and me, both thinking of her father. He’d been a strategic Valg match, and, well, it hadn’t ended on the best terms. He’d left when Klara was twelve, off to parts unknown and a pregnant mistress, and my aunt had refused to talk about him ever since. How she didn’t understand why her daughter was deeply resistant to marriage was beyond me. Or she understood but didn’t care.