Page 3 of Bred By the Silent Bidder
“You’re married, Harriet, happily,” I point out, my hand finally finding the shoulder of my coat. I pull it free.
“But you aren’t, dear cousin. And from what I’ve heard, the men at that auction are some of the most powerful in the country.”
I look at her with a snort of laughter. "You're telling me I should go to an auction and allow myself to be sold to some random stranger? That’s a whole new level of insane, Harriet, even for you."
"I'm telling you it exists." She examines her fingernails. "I'm also telling you that the men who attend have, as a rule, afairly particular profile. Old money or new money but always substantial money. Russian, Eastern European, American old guard. The kind of men your mother would find utterly alarming." She glances at me. "Or the kind of men you might find rather useful, depending on your current mood."
My current mood is that I’m tired, my feet hurt, and I want a hot bath with bubbles. But the thought does intrigue me…
"Is it safe?" I ask.
"From everything I've heard, impeccably so. Pietty runs it like a contract negotiation. Everything above board. Several women from very respectable families have attended."
"And the men?"
"Frightening," Harriet says cheerfully. "Absolutely terrifying, by all accounts. Rich, powerful, foreign, connected to things I don't think either of us should ask too many questions about." She pauses. "The sort of men who make Oliver Hartwell look like a potted plant."
Across the house, I can hear the sound of the party, my mother's laugh, my father's measured voice, Cecily's happiness filling every room it touches. I think about the evening I've just had. About being introduced to man after man as though I'm a problem that needs solving. About being told I'm particular, as though wanting something real is a flaw rather than a standard.
If my family want a husband for me so badly, I can find one myself.
The thought arrives fully formed and sits there in my chest like something lit.
Just not one they'll approve of.
"Harriet," I say pulling my phone from my clutch ready to cancel my flight. "How do I get in?"
Dayan
The room is too loud.
It's always too loud at these things. Every conversation in this room is a negotiation. Every smile is a calculation. I've spent enough of my life in rooms exactly like this one to know how to stand inside them without being consumed by them, which is why I've positioned myself near the far wall with a glass of vodka I've barely touched and my back to the corner.
Rovin found his seat at the table twenty minutes ago. I don’t know if he has realized yet that he is being watched.
Serik is somewhere near the bar. I hear him before I see him, which is always the way with Serik. Volody disappeared into the reception room with a woman on each side of him and the expression of a man who's already forgotten what he was supposed to be doing here tonight.
Rovin wants us married. There should be heirs. There should be stability. He looked at each of us in turn, and by the time he was done speaking the subject was closed.
So here I am. Drink in one hand, an unopened portfolio in the other.
I've attended four of these events in the past two years. Four dinners, four portfolios, four evenings of watching beautiful women being negotiated over by men who don’t want to do things the traditional way. Boy meets girl in a bar and liveshappily ever after doesn’t really work in our world. So men like Lionel Pietty conjure up auctions under the guise of networking dinners.
I lay the portfolio down on the table beside me. I don't need a folder of statistics to tell me whether I want someone. Either it's there or it isn't, and in four years of trying to find it at Lionel Pietty's carefully organized events, it hasn't been.
I finish what's left in my glass and set that down, too.
That's when I hear her voice.
It's coming from the hallway outside the main room, clear and dry and pitched low enough to be private but not low enough to hide the edge of amusement in it.
"I was told black tie. This is not black tie; this is Milan fashion week making direct eye contact with a crime syndicate."
A second voice, younger, stifled laughter. "What brings you here?"
There’s a pause, before finally the first voice says “Curiosity.”
The second voice is still laughing when they come through the door.
