Mrs. Westcliffe was addressing a man who was leaning against the piano with one hand. I wasn’t surprised to see that he was dressed to match the chamber. Only the ring on his finger shone with color.
He wore a ruby, a big one. I knew at once it would be clouded.
“… and—ah, here she is.” With her back to the man, Mrs. Westcliffe threw me her pinched do-hurry-up look. “Come, Miss Jones. Come at once, if you please.”
I did. I glided past the others and stood with my lovely, absolute obedience before the man and his ruby.
“Your Grace, may I present Miss Eleanore Jones, the latest happy beneficiary of your great goodwill. Miss Jones, I have the honor of introducing His Grace, the Duke of Idylling.”
I sank into a curtsy so low it made my knees ache, my gaze fixed to the floor.
“A true pleasure to meet you, sir,” I murmured, rising as slowly as I could.
“And you,” the duke said back to me in a plummy, bored tone.
I took it as permission to look up at him.
I saw Armand before me and not. The duke was both taller and thinner than his son, with sallow skin and startlingly concave cheeks. I recognized that combination too well; it was the look of unhurried starvation. It seemed impossible to conceive, though, that a man with this house and a gemstone nearly the size of a robin’s egg on his hand would live starved.
He did share the same wavy chestnut hair as Armand, but the Duke of Idylling’s face was, at best, intriguing instead of handsome, and his eyes were brown instead of blue.
He was freshly shaved and pomaded, smelling of a lemony soap. When he removed his hand from the piano it quivered noticeably, and he tucked it into his jacket pocket to disguise it.
I moved on to my next scripted phrase. “Thank you so very much for inviting me into your home.”
But the duke had no interest in my script. He was staring at me, staring at me hard, just as his son had done when we’d first met.
“Good God” was what he said.
I froze, my gaze flying to Mrs. Westcliffe. She looked from him to me, her eyes narrowed.
“You …” the duke began, and pressed a fist to his chest, still staring.
“Sir?” I whispered.
“Your Grace.” Mrs. Westcliffe was abruptly professional. “Do forgive Miss Jones. She’s unused to such exalted company, you may be sure, but we—”
“No, no.” The duke began to laugh, strangely high-pitched. “It’s not that, Irene. I thought I’d seen a ghost. Good God,” he said again. He turned away from us all, collapsing into a chair. “Armand!” he called. “Have you met her, boy? Have you?”
“I have.”
I don’t think any of us noticed that Armand had entered the chamber. He strode toward us, mannered and composed as his father was not.
“It’s the eyes,” Lord Armand said, looking square at me. “That’s all it is, Reginald.”
“Yes, yes. You’re right. Her eyes. Of course.”
It seemed everyone around us exhaled; the gentry felt it safe to begin to breathe again.
“You have something of the look of my mother,” Armand explained. “It’s quite subtle, really. Hardly noticeable.”
His father gave another laugh, but this one seemed despairing.
Mrs. Westcliffe came to the rescue.
“I hadn’t realized,” she said, beaming. “Well! How interesting! You’ve been given quite a compliment, Eleanore. Her Grace was said to be a true beauty.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed His Grace, sounding leaden. “Yes, she was.”
I hesitated, then curtsied again. “Thank you.”
Chloe drew breath to speak. “Mandy, I—”
“Shall we pick a table?” Armand offered me his arm.
Perfect student.
I took it and smiled. I hoped it wasn’t too insincere.
• • •
I did not sit with the duke for his tea, nor with any of his other guests. Armand and I had our own smallish table next to the larger one that hosted the rest of the group from Iverson. There was space at ours for His Grace, a vacant chair next to mine; I saw him look at it, look at me, and turn away.
He sat between Chloe and Mrs. Westcliffe. The whole time he neither ate nor drank, only shot me those odd, uneasy glances when I supposed he thought I couldn’t see. Only Chloe glared at me more.
My, yes. This was going so well.
Maids came; food appeared; refreshment was poured. I noticed that tea for the adults evidently meant wine, as well. The chatter in the room began to climb steadily. A few