The Kelpie's Curse (book #1 in the Kelpie's Entrapment trilogy)

Day 6 pt. 7

"What do ye think of this one?"

    Renestrae cocked her head slightly to the side as she looked at the painting in front of her. The painting held more colors than she knew existed that twirled around each other until they formed a vortex, the eye being drawn to the very center of it. In truth she knew very little about modern art but she didn't want to seem unappreciative of Dageus bringing her out here with him.

    "Umm..." she began but quickly trailed off as words to describe it failed her.

    "Ye dinnae care for it." Dageus chuckled into her ear.

    "It's not that." she began, once again not wanting to say something wrong when she was so far outside her element. "If it's supposed to make you feel dizzy then I'd say that it's succeeded marvelously."

    She had to force herself to keep from wincing the moment the words left her mouth. During the two hour car ride to the gallery she had calmed down considerably to the point that she had found herself actually looking forward to it despite how much she didn't know about the subject. However it didn't take long after entering the gallery for her to realize just how far out of her depth she really was.

    The fact that this was not her world was obvious just from the way the people around her were dressed. Sure, her vintage style dress was dressy enough to be passable but it had taken her three months worth of ramen noodle dinners to be able to save enough money to afford it. Something told her that dropping two hundred dollars on a dress wouldn't have made the well dressed ladies around her think twice.

    "I'm afraid ye may be correct lass. Perhaps we should move to the next pi-"

    "Dageus, so good to see ye."

    Renestrae nearly jumped out of her skin as the booming male voice sounded from directly behind her. Once she was sure that her heart had eased out of her throat and was safely back inside of her chest she turned around.

    She watched with interest as Dageus shook hands with a man that she would guess was anywhere between his mid forties to early fifties. They talked about business for several minutes before the man, who's name she had yet to catch, glanced over at her and abruptly stopped the conversation mid sentence.

    "Dageus, who is this lovely creature."

    Somehow, with great restraint, she resisted the sudden urge to roll her eyes. As much as she hated being talked about as if she wasn't standing right there she was Dageus' guest. The last thing she needed to do was make it obvious that she didn't belong here.

    "Renestrae Frank, Mr..." She trailed off so that he could introduce himself at the same time that she held out her hand. However as the seconds ticked by with the man in front of her making no move to shake hers and looking down at her in displeasure it became painfully obvious that she had already made a blunder.

    "This is Marcas MacNaois" Dageus supplied for her when it became obvious that Marcas wasn't about to introduce himself.

    She smiled as brightly and sweetly as she possibly could before trying again. Perhaps there was still time to fix her mistake.

    "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. MacNaois."

    This time instead of looking down at her in displeasure his eyes became as wide as dinner plates and were filled to the brim with surprised as he swung his gaze back to Dageus.

    "Do correct me if I'm wrong but if I'm not mistaken that's an American accent."

    Renestrae was aware that Marcas was addressing Dageus and not herself. However due to his apparent thinking that women should only speak when spoken to and the fact that he seemed oddly displeased that she was American she chose to ignore the small voice that told her to keep her mouth shut.