The Bounty Hunter

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Four

Safita’s days passed peacefully and she spent them learning her way around the city as well as visiting, or being visited by, Favia, Lalia and numerous other people who seemed to want to get to know her. By far her favourite person to spend time with was Favia but slowly Lalia grew on her and she began to listen to her a little more; compared to the other brash women who came to gape at her as if she were some kind of wild animal and ask her incessant and intimate questions – as well as threatening to ‘help her find a husband’ – Lalia’s quietness was refreshing and she began to appreciate the well-meaning conversation which she had with her.

“There’s an enormous ball being held up at the palace soon,” Favia mentioned one afternoon as they strolled around the walls of the second tier. Above them the houses of the first tier loomed overhead and, just visible over their many roofs, the towers of the palace shot into the sky, their stone walls and many windows shining in the sunlight.

“How do you know?” she asked curiously. Favia’s dismissive hand fluttered momentarily in the air and she said, “Oh just through my parents. My mother was as desperate as always to marry me off to some rich prince; she means well but it’s not quite for me.”

“Will you go?”

Favia pursed her lips and pouted, gazing out at the city below them as she tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well I’ve nearly run out of excuses so I suppose I’ll have to attend this one… But only if you come too.”

“I don’t think I’ll be invited,” she scoffed, a small grin spreading across her face as she thought she had escaped it.

“Nell will be though and I’m going to make him bring you,” she laughed.

“Can’t you just leave me in peace?” Safita exclaimed. “I don’t want to go to a ball! Can you imagine me at a ball?”

“With about as much effort as it takes me to imagine myself at a ball,” she replied. “Come on, you can’t refuse an invitation from the palace. Most people would be falling over themselves to get an invitation to it.”

“I am hardly most people and neither are you,” she pointed out, accompanying her words with a gentle and teasing shove which caused Favia to stumble slightly.

“Please?” she begged. “I promise all we will do is arrive, look pretty, smile for ten minutes and then head into the garden for ‘some air’ and sneak away. It’s hardly taxing and I’m sure it will make Nell happy.”

“Fine,” she sighed, “if I am invited then I will come, if only to prevent you from doing something ridiculous in a misguided attempt to make the night more interesting.”

“Me?” Favia exclaimed coyly. “I always behave when I am in public, especially at the palace! It’s only in private that people realise what a terror I am.”

True to Favia’s prediction a gold embossed envelope was brought into supper nearly two weeks later by one of Nell’s footmen. Nell opened it absentmindedly, busy as he was debating with Safita the merits of joining with an elite jeweller and trading his wares too, before grinning.

“What is it Nell?” she asked disinterestedly before spearing another potato. “Why are you grinning like an urchin with a bag of coins?”

“It’s an invitation,” he said mysteriously.

“Oh not another dinner,” Safita moaned. “There’s barely anyone I can stand talking to at those things!”

“Not a dinner per se,” he mumbled through his lamb, “it’s an invitation to a ball.”