She wasn’t totally sure what she was going to do with this stuff, but she had some ideas. In particular, the CD-ROMs full of detailed maps of the continental United States and the other bits of software she’d slipped in under his nose ought to come in handy. Even if they didn’t, she figured that if Angbard expected her to shop like a dizzy teenager, then she ought to get him used to her shopping like a dizzy teenager. That way he’ll have one less handle on me when I stop, she thought, a trifle smugly.

Twelve thousand dollars went really fast when she was buying Sony notebooks, and even faster when she switched to Hermes and Escada and less well-known couture. But it felt unreal, like play money. Some of the clothes would have to be altered to fit, and delivered: She took them anyway. “I figure it can be altered on the other side,” she murmured to Roland by way of explanation. He nodded enthusiastically and she managed to park him for a few minutes in a bookshop next door to her real target, a secondhand theatrical clothing shop for an old-fashioned long skirt and shirtwaist that could pass for one of the servants. Theatrical supplier, my ass, she thought. The escape committee is in!

Around two o’clock she took mercy on Roland, who by this time was flagging, checking his watch every ten minutes and following her around like a slightly dejected dog. “It’s okay,” she said, “I’m about done. How about we catch that lunch you were talking about, then head back to the house? I’ve got to get some of these clothes altered, which means looking up Ma’am Rosein, and then I need to spend a couple of hours on the computer.”

“That’s great,” Roland said with unconcealed sincerity. “How about some clam chowder for lunch?”

Miriam really didn’t go for seafood, but if it kept him happy that was fine by her. “Okay,” she said, towing along her designer escape kit. “Let’s go eat!”

They ate. Over lunch she watched Roland carefully. He’s about twenty-eight, she thought. Dartmouth. Harvard. Real Ivy League territory and then some. Classic profile. She sized him up carefully. Shaves well. Looks great. No visible bad habits, painfully good manners. If there wasn’t clearly something going on, I’d be drooling. Wouldn’t I? She thought. In fact, maybe there’s something in that? Maybe that’s why Angbard is shoving us together. Or not. I need to find out more about the skeletons in the Clan closet and the strange fruit rotting on the family tree. And there were worse ways of doing that than chatting with Roland over lunch.