Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters find themselves in. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy this latest chapter.
Lunch Plans
Harry's plans to be a better lover and mate failed to come to fruition. Over and over again. For bloody, fucking weeks. Not that he hadn't tried; he really had wanted to do better, but the work…all the bloody work they had to do. Every damn day for hours on end. From morning to night. And even with Roxanne's friend Amelia helping them out as their assistant slash secretary, there never seemed enough hours of the day to get everything done, much less spend time together being a mated pair. It was beyond ridiculous at this point!
He'd expected to find spanners in all the works, really, that had been a given since he had always paid attention to his father's businesses when they were mentioned in the newspaper or on the telly, but Harry had genuinely believed that Chester's obsession with wealth, status, and being the best meant that the bastard would have at the very least put knowledgeable men in charge of his various assets to see that they were as profitable as possible, or at least run correctly. And while some of those men were intelligent, highly trained individuals, they'd also been handicapped by Chester's refusal to listen to them when their views didn't align with his own, and Harry's ex mate had had, unfortunately, the final say in the matters. Not to mention the fact that there were plenty of others who'd been put into positions of authority simply because of their family connections and willingness to kiss Chester's ass. And heaven forbid women or ethnicities other than white be considered for managerial positions where the bigoted gobshite might actually have to deal with them.
If they were still mated, Harry was quite convinced he'd have murdered his former mate after spending three weeks doing little more than sleeping, eating, and working his arse off correcting all the bastard's fuck ups.
And if all the work and knowledge that he was a crappy mate weren't bad enough, Veronica had had to happen. On a Sunday, which was the only day of the week when he and Eggsy could cut back their work a little and spend some time at home. Too exhausted to do much of anything, of course, but at the moment sitting on their couch, eating some take away and watching something mindless and entertaining on the telly, sounded downright heavenly in comparison to what he was actually doing.
Unfortunately, when one was summoned to lunch with your Guild's consort, one had to obey. Even if one would sooner grab one of the forks off the tables he was passing and use it to gouge out his own eyes so that he'd have a legitimate reason to pass. But at least Colin and Rachel were going to be there, Harry reassured himself. That was some consolation even if this was all sure to be a train wreck given this was his first real interaction with Veronica since they'd switched places in the Kingsman hierarchy. Though he was a little confused about the location for the lunch, and would have questioned it, if not for the fact that the hostess had had a reservation under 'King'.
"Here we are, Sir. We have water on the table until the rest of your party arrives. Or would you prefer something else first?"
"The water is fine, thank you."
Having spotted Rachel and Colin, as well as three other members of their Guild that had been close to Veronica even before she'd become their consort, Harry was left with the undeniable fact that yes, he was in the right place. The other two omegas at the table were women Harry knew socially, as their consort, but had never been close to as they were both…well not bad women, but they were snobs, to put it bluntly, and a bit at a loss in their lives, with their children all grown and over half their lives past them. Which meant, unfortunately, that they had nothing better to do with their time than gossip and judge the newer generations.
Thanking the hostess for escorting him to the table, Harry pulled out the chair Rachel indicated beside her, noting that the spot not only put him at the end of the table, far away from the head where Veronica would no doubt sit once she showed up, but also meant that no one would be sitting on his other side. Putting him between Rachel and Colin would have been a little too obvious, with this a more subtle way of guarding him against their new consort's wrath since Colin was beside Rachel. A move he appreciated.
Exchanging greetings with everyone, and asking after everyone's families as good manners dictated, Harry wasn't at all surprised when Rachel stated that she and Colin had been discussing the restaurant before he'd shown up, and how they wouldn't have thought it at all their new consort's sort of place.
"Perhaps she heard good things about it from someone." Was the best explanation Harry could come up with for the fact that not only was this place not trendy or well known, but was in a part of the city that bluebloods like the snobs across from him never set foot in.
Not that there was anything inheritably wrong with this place, at least so far. It was clean and tastefully decorated, the wait staff seemed efficient as they went about their business, and none of the dining room's other occupants seemed unhappy. And the place would, Harry assumed, have food that was on par with the elegance and money that had obviously gone into the restaurant, though none of that changed where it was situated or the fact that it was apparently frequented by the middle class and new money. Harry hadn't even heard of it until he'd received the call from the consort's social secretary. He'd had to look it up. He and Rachel weren't the sort to care about that sort of thing, and Colin only so far as how his actions reflected on Edward, but the others invited AND Veronica…well something had to be up here that they were missing. She was the new consort after all, and if she'd thought herself judged when she was just Chester's mistress, she had no idea how much worse it would be if the old families found her lacking as their consort in any way.
If he didn't hate her, Harry would have felt sorry for her given that at least he'd been trained extensively for the role once his engagement to the Guild Master had been arranged. In Veronica's case everything had been rushed, the woman handicapping herself further by insisting on handpicking her own staff rather than keeping Harry's on to ease her into it.
And really he should start giving himself a pound for every time he thought that he should feel sorry for her, just to see how much money he could collect from himself in just a year. Hell, Harry mused with a grin, half a year, the way things are going considering the meal hadn't even started yet and already she was screwing up.
Though perhaps he should rethink the hating thing, Harry mused as the conversation turned to the menus they'd been provided with, Harry glanced over the excellent selection while mentally acknowledging the fact that he would have most likely not ended up with Eggsy if not for her. The gods only knew who Chester might have unloaded him on, after dropping him like a hot potato to find someone else to breed with.
The possibilities that came to mind threatened to kill his appetite.
"I've been here before with friends." Rachel confided from beside him, having not even bothered to consult her menu. "The steak was excellent, not to mention their garlic mashed. You look like you could use both."
"Oh?"
"You've lost weight." Was her critical evaluation, his friend wearing a motherly look of censor. "Merlin said that you and Eggsy are running yourselves ragged with work."
"Quite. And apologies for eating up so much of his time lately, by the way." Harry winced, knowing that it wasn't just him and Eggsy who were suffering during the work overhaul. "Neither Eggsy nor I know much about the latest technologies, and since we're revamping so much it only made sense to get the most cutting edge now." Harry's laugh was heavy with exasperation. "Though by the time we have everything in order the lot of it will probably be all out of date again."
"And Mr. Unwin doesn't mind you working so much?"
"It was his idea, actually." Harry smiled genially at Mrs. Saville, one of the snobs who was seated across from him and a close friend of Estelle Hesketh. "My father did originally train me to take over from him, after all, and Eggsy is still learning the ropes."
"Well I suppose it makes sense, since you don't have children at home that need tending to." One of Veronica's friends spoke this time, obviously trying to stir up trouble since she was utterly useless for anything else beside that and arse kissing in Harry's opinion. The omega was a silly twit at the best of times, and appeared in the gossip rags regularly. The Barker family lived in cold terror of her next splashy screw up.
"Yes, we do intend to wait until the business is in order before adopting."
"Given the way humans propagate like rabbits, I'm sure it won't be hard for you two to find some to take in." Was one of her friends' smirking response.
Determined to be polite, Harry agreed that it was true that there were a lot of children out in the world who needed a home. And, just to make his point and put the twits in their place, Harry launched into the horrible statistics out there concerning orphanages and the lack of proper funding for them. He had once been a consort, after all, and therefore had been involved in countless charities on behalf of their Guild.
Chester had not been big on parting with his wealth, Harry thought darkly, but the man had loved the good press it gave him and the tax benefits.
Needless to say the bitch twits were all visibly relieved when Veronica made her entrance with two more of her entourage and the expected Kingsman escort, the three women taking their seats while the guards moved in position. And seeing that all the seats at the table were now filled, those who attended these things regularly did their best to hide their stunned expression as they realized that no, Elizabeth Hesketh Saville had NOT been invited to this luncheon.
And that was a social faux pax that was guaranteed to bite Veronica in the arse on numerous levels for months, if not years to come.
The old matriarch was not someone to be slighted, not the least because she was the sister of their Guild Master's late first wife. A strongminded omega, with ties to all the most influential families and enough dirt on every one of the families to bury them, Elizabeth had become quite the social force to be reckoned with over the decades. And she was not above using that knowledge and her status within the Guild to make sure she was paid proper respect.
Not to mention that there were a few others Harry knew Veronica should have invited as well instead of her personal friends, since the whole point of these lunches was for the consort to connect with the mates of the most prestigious dominants in Kingsman.
Everyone would know about the slights by dinner time, judging by the gleams in the snobs' eyes.
Harry supposed it was small of him to allow himself even the tiniest of satisfied smiles.
)
A smile that morphed into a pasted on polite smile leading up to the meal as the barbs he'd expected their new consort to throw his way didn't come. And while it would be lovely to believe that despite her having excluded Elizabeth someone had drilled enough manners and such into Veronica that she was taking her new role seriously, Harry couldn't shake the feeling that she was leading up to something. The cat that got the cream smile he saw her wearing in his direction a few times made Harry wondered if she wasn't pregnant already, which would certainly be cause for her to crow and want to rub his face in it. But that was something that wouldn't be announced to them directly, that wasn't how it was done, and Veronica seemed unusually focused on making sure that the lunch progressed quickly and without delay. And the way she snuck glances at her watch as they waited for the food to arrive…just what was she counting down to?
Not that he was about to ask, or draw attention to himself.
But it was bloody odd how Veronica was allowing their table to be almost split in half, with Veronica and her cronies all talking and gossiping together about fashion, who was sleeping with who, and such, while the older omegas and Harry's friends made up the other half, talking about their mates, offspring, and small changes to their daily routines. Rachel of course had stories as a healer, and the snobs wanted more gossip to pass along about him, but generally it was all rather like any of the other mandated lunch dates he'd had to attend when he was consort.
Silently communicating back and forth with their eyes, Harry could see that Rachel was just as confused by all this as he was. Half this table was not made up of the new consort's allies, and the woman wasn't so daft she didn't know that she couldn't win Rachel and Colin over at the very least. And that both his friends had too much status on their own and through their mates to be trifled with. The snobs were both old enough to be Veronica's mother, and she was mostly ignoring them for the moment, which they were aware of and taking insult to, which the new consort was of course oblivious to.
And why wasn't Veronica and her entourage trying to pick fights with him? They were practically ignoring him along with the rest of his table's side, and that was not Veronica's style at all when it came to him.
Was this all a bad dream? A delusion or nightmare from losing sleep recently? That seemed more likely than Veronica and her ilk keeping their claws to themselves.
At least the food was good.
His phone vibrating in his pocket, Harry set down his fork and knife and then retrieved it after apologizing for his rudeness. He was expecting a call from someone, or at least that was the excuse he was using, since really he just wanted a distraction from listening to Mrs. Saville's detailed description of her recently redone parlor.
It was a text from Eggsy, which surprised him since his mate knew that he was at lunch.
'Just checking in to see if you need an excuse to leave. Note too, that I didn't use any short forms or emojis. I deserve a reward.'
Smiling, and grateful for the proper message given the abysmal ones he'd once gotten from Eggsy before he'd gotten it through the boy's thick skull to stop, Harry typed out a return message.
'Not so far.'
A light elbow to his side had Harry glancing over to see Rachel smiling at him knowingly.
"Eggsy?"
"How did you..?"
"Your expression." Was her smug response. "What's he up to, today?"
"Hanging out with a friend of his for lunch, he said. Then, hopefully, we'll have the afternoon and evening together, just the two of us." As old as it made him feel, Harr was hoping that at some point, possibly when he got home, a nap would be possible. Together would be nice, but either way he'd like to be well rested for the night, so that they could be intimate properly. When they were in bed together recently it was all rushed and rather unsatisfying in the long term, regardless of how lovely the resulting climaxes were. As shocking as the idea would have been to him a couple months ago, Harry actually found himself longing for the feeling of Eggsy inside him, stretching and filling him up, connecting their bodies on that most elemental levels. Hands and grinding were all well and good, but neither could compare to their bodies truly joining together.
"No need to ask what you're thinking about. It was that sort of text, hmm?"
"It was most certainly not. See." Feeling like he needed to defend himself, especially since he was mortified at the idea that his thoughts had been somehow readable, Harry brought up and then showed her the text message in question.
Rachel's grin was downright wicked. "Oh, really. Then what sort of reward is he expecting for good punctuation?"
Mouth dropping open a little, he hadn't considered that that was what Eggsy had meant, Harry didn't know what to say, especially since Rachel was only getting started with her teasing, judging from the gleam in her eyes.
Oh bugger.
"He doesn't deserve a reward for using proper spelling and grammar. That's just common curtesy. Not to mention it's ridiculous how young people make every shortcut they can when it comes to communicating something. It's no wonder so many of them depend completely on spellcheck at school."
And damn but that little rant made him sound old.
"No kidding. I don't know what Ian's messaging me half the time." Rachel rolled her eyes over her son.
"And they won't stay off their cellphones, even during meals." Mrs. Saville sniffed from across the table, having obviously been eavesdropping. "One would think they'd keel over dead if they didn't have it on hand. I keep telling my children not to allow them to bring their phones to the table, but do they listen?" The sound of indignation made it clear that no, they didn't.
Kids today, those in earshot all silently agreed. Things had been so much better when they were younger.
