A Little Knowledge Read Online Free PDF Page B

more careful than that,” he whispered. “I thought after the last time you’d have learned, but what you did in there was ten times worse!”
    Her eyes flashed and she twisted her wrist from his grip. “I was holding myself back! Believe me, I could have said much more.”
    “You shouldn’t have taken that tone with him.”
    She took a step up one of the stairs, putting air between them. “Will, you’re not about to prove the need for this new court by siding with those idiots, are you?”
    “I’m not siding with anyone! I have every right to discuss your behaviour. I am the Duke and I am the one who will have to answer for your little display in there.”
    “Just stop and listen to yourself! My behaviour? My ‘little display’? I’m a grown woman who expressed an opinion and took a bloody idiot down a peg or two. If you can’t handle that, you’re no better than the rest of them.”
    Will drew in a deep breath, using it to cool the anger in his chest. This wasn’t the time or the place to have another row with Cathy. But before he could say anything, a door opened on the floor above and there were footsteps on the stairs. One of the pages rounded the corner and stopped.
    “Begging your pardon, your Grace, but Sir Iris has requested your presence immediately.”
    Will’s stomach dropped into his shoes. Neither the Patroon nor his wife had been at the Court. How had it got back to him so quickly? “Thank you, I’ll be with you in a moment.” He looked at Cathy. “Go home. Do not talk to anyone about this until I return. This conversation is not over.”
    Cathy’s back straightened. “I won’t be talked to like a child, and I refuse to feel bad about what I did in there.”
    “I fear Sir Iris will see it very differently.”
    “I’d be more than happy to give him a piece of my mind too. I can defend myself, Will. You don’t have to do it for me.”
    He sighed, looking up the wide oak stairs, torn between rage and fear. “It’s not you I will have to defend,” he said. “Go home, before you upset anyone else.”
    “You know,” she said, “considering that it’s women who are supposed to be weak and emotional, it’s quite a revelation seeing how easily these men are upset.”
    She picked up her skirts and marched down the stairs. He watched her go, fearing he’d created a monster. He’d only given her a modest amount of freedom to speak and she was already doing more damage than a drunken Buttercup.
    “Your Grace?” The page appeared at the top of the stairs again. “The Patroon was most insistent.”
    Will turned and carried his heavy legs towards the roasting he was about to get. There was no doubt about it now; he had to tell the Patroon about the Poppy magic, before Cathy destroyed herself, and him with her.

3
    The beer tasted the same, and the pub’s decor was just as dingy as Sam recalled, but something didn’t feel right. Sam looked down into his pint, trying to ignore the feeling that this had been a terrible mistake.
    “So he said that if I’d actually taken the time to get a full brief from the client, the architecture wouldn’t have to be redesigned.” Dave was on his third pint and hadn’t noticed that Sam was only halfway through his first. “What a prick! Everyone knows that the client is the last person on Earth who knows what their real requirements are. I could have spent two days on site and been none the wiser. So I…”
    The pause in the diatribe made Sam look up from his beer.
    “You’re not listening to me,” Dave said.
    “I—”
    “Nah, I don’t blame you. I’m a boring twat when I get onto work stuff. I just haven’t had anyone I can vent at since you left.”
    “Since I was fired.”
    “Well, yeah, but who gives a fuck about that now, eh?” Dave grinned, belched loudly, and patted his beer belly. “You should’ve seen the boss’s face when I took in the paper with you on the front page.”
    Sam sank a fraction lower in his seat. Only in