Yes, he had a ward – that was one of the things people liked to whisper about him, that Mr. Echelon-Arnost must have taken in a bastard child. Callista thought this kind of speculation unkind, particularly when quite unproven; and he did not seem ashamed to be speaking of him. So he did a few odd things, this bachelor – like taking in wards and representing vampires in court – but that hardly made him any less moral a person.
“My father and brothers more so than I, I will admit,” Callista objected lightly, but that was principally for the business, and port cities were not the same as the occasional trip to the fashion-houses of Paris or home to Lagos to visit the family still in Nigeria. “And moreso in Africa than in Europe,” she added. “And never to Berlin, in my case. What is your favourite thing about it?”
“My father and brothers more so than I, I will admit,” Callista objected lightly, but that was principally for the business, and port cities were not the same as the occasional trip to the fashion-houses of Paris or home to Lagos to visit the family still in Nigeria. “And moreso in Africa than in Europe,” she added. “And never to Berlin, in my case. What is your favourite thing about it?”
