Read The Emerald Staff for Free Online

for
one, was now ravenous.
    As they were entering the restaurant, she
heard a familiar voice calling her name and all three turned in its
direction.
    “Hey, Frederick,” she responded with what
she hoped sounded like pleasant surprise. “Fancy seeing you
here.”
    Of course, she had planned this spot for him
to meet up with them, and then she would persuade her father to let
him join them for dinner.
    “Dad, you don’t mind if Frederick joins us
for dinner, do you?”
    Her father narrowed his eyes for just a
second. He knew when he was being set up. He hesitated for just a
heartbeat, and then conceded defeat, knowing it would be futile.
The glimmer in his daughter’s eyes told him that much. “Of course,
not, darling.”
    It wasn’t as though he didn’t like Frederick.
In fact, he couldn’t fault the young man at all, even though he had
tried on more than one occasion to find something, anything, he
could hold against him. No, it wasn’t Frederick who was the
problem. It was that Henry was unwilling to admit his little girl
had, almost overnight it seemed, turned into a young lady. And the
fact she was now interested in young men was par for the course.
Henry was just having a hard time dealing with it, that was
all.
    “Would you like to join us for dinner?” she
asked the already redundant question.
    “Thank you, that would be most kind,” Faen
replied in his usual courteous manner.
    Her father sighed inwardly. Even the young
man’s manners were impeccable.
    They entered the restaurant and Faedra was
relieved when they were seated without delay, as was her grumbling
stomach. The hostess led them to a booth and they settled in to
wait for their waitress.
    “I’m so glad you don’t mind me not having the
party at the house,” Henry said after the waitress had taken their
order.
    “Mind, Dad? Why would I mind?” Faedra
asked.
    “Well, I thought it would be fun to have it
there. The place is so old with lots of character, but I thought
Anna had a very good point when she suggested we hold it in the
city. I mean, most of the people coming live around here, and we do
live somewhat out in the sticks. At least this way they can get
taxis home without it costing them an arm and a leg.”
    “And we won’t have to clean up afterwards,
either,” Faedra admitted. “I think the place you have booked has
loads of character, too. It will be perfect, especially after we’ve
trimmed it up with all those decorations.”
    “Actually, Anna picked the place.”
    “It’s a good choice. I can’t wait to meet
her. I bet next week is going to drag on.”
    The new lady in her father’s life had
persuaded Henry to hold the party in one of the many pubs in the
city. Most of them had a room they hired out for just such
occasions. And more to the point, most of the pubs were hundreds of
years old with plenty of olde worlde character.
    The city was a medieval city, after all, and
once boasted a church for every week of the year and a pub for
every day. Faedra thought it quite amusing to see where people’s
priorities lay in years gone by. Things hadn’t changed much over
the centuries either. A lot of the churches were now defunct and
housing anything from a puppet theatre to a nightclub. The pubs,
however, were still prevalent and the one Anna had chosen for their
Halloween bash was aptly named The Murderers.
     
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Faedra knew the week would drag on, and it
did, which came as no surprise to her. Quite often during her
classes, she found herself drifting off, wondering what Faen would
pick for them to dress up as for the party on Saturday. This class
was no different but at least they were nearing the end of the
week. She was so looking forward to letting her hair down and finally meeting her dad’s new girlfriend.
    He had been floating around the house all
week and it was driving her crazy. She asked him on more than one
occasion to invite Anna to dinner so she could meet her before the
party,