Strangers and Lies Read Free Page A

fashion. They wore perfectly pressed clothing, and took excellent care of their mustaches, if they had them, but this man was clean shaved. The man in burgundy, who seemed to be from the army, wearing an actual uniform, if a dressier than normal one, stood as well, after a few moments, smiling grimly. He had a gray mustache, which was large enough it looked like a mouse was glued to his upper lip. His hair was short, but not a buzz cut. Actually, out of everyone, the most military looking person in the room, to Gwen's eye at least, was Darrick.
    She was probably a close second.
    "Miss Farris, your man, Winslow, rebuked us rather sharply for our poor manners after you left. I feared he'd have to thrash us for a moment, but he left off, to get us some coffee, thankfully. I'd like to apologize for our poor manners. It was early when we left from Worthington, but I assure you, the sun was fully up." This came from the Con-sev man, whose name she still didn't know at all.
    Gwen nodded a little, knowing better than to excuse them for it. If the butler had spoken harshly to them, it was a huge breach of protocol, wasn't it? The man never did anything in an improper fashion himself. The military man gave a sharp look which was directed at Adam, who glanced back with an almost dull gaze, not intimidated at all it seemed.
    The man in burgundy sighed and then started to apologize for the Westmorland, which got Darrick to hold up his right hand, still seated.
    "Miss Farris is on duty . Notice the uniform? That means she came to work, not be coddled and cosseted. Trust me, if she felt we were being too rude to her, we'd know about it. Probably because we'd still be crawling around the back yard, clutching ourselves and wondering what had happened." He grinned a bit, and gestured the other men down with a wave. "I'm not at all certain that wouldn't simply have been the literal case either. I saw her fight, and kill , a full cohort of Saracen Mercenaries once, starting from an unarmed position. She didn't even know how to use a crin at the time. I think we can take our survival at the moment as a sign that we're forgiven, right Gwen?" He laughed about it slightly, but let his eyes go steely, looking directly at the other men, as if challenging them to question his word on what he'd just said.
    Neither of the other men did, and while one of the Westmorlands she didn't know looked slightly amused by the idea, the other elbowed him and gave a single head shake. It was a true story after all, even though it wasn't a thing she liked to dwell on. Before coming to this place she'd had to fight several times a year, trying to survive in a world that hated freaks like her. But she'd never killed anyone. Here it had taken about a month and a half before the need arose. It had given her a slightly skewed image of the world she found herself, which was for almost everyone a good bit safer than where she was from.
    Winslow came with the coffee on a nice silver cart, and started to serve everyone with very precise movements, as if he hadn't dressed these same men down not ten minutes before. She took hers black, since that was the polite way of doing things here, if you cared about that kind of thing. All the men took a cup too and drank it stoically, as if the slight bitterness was something that took manly resolve to conquer. She did too, but it really just didn't bother her at all. There was the slightest hint of cinnamon to it, which was nice. It was also served very hot, so she sipped carefully for a while, sitting without being told to, since no one here would, except Adam, and it would come out sounding pissy if he had to do it.
    The conversation that started then was a lot different than she'd figured it would be. Instead of pestering her about laser sights the men started talking about the new Students Service, which was a program that she and little Erica Westmorland had put together on the fly one day. It was pretty much the Hitler Youth, if