"Then I'll demand an explanation from him myself," Averifa said, furious, and swept forward.
The impossibly long dress betrayed her at the second step. She pitched forward — and Lynn moved like a flash and caught her, effortlessly, before she was halfway to the floor.
"Thank you," she said, straightening. Then, since he was already holding her arm: "Escort me."
They went down the grand red-carpeted staircase arm in arm, and found Ares waiting at the bottom of it.
He began to scold them for being late and stopped cold in the middle of the sentence, his eyes narrowing on the place where her hand rested.
"You two seem awfully close," he said icily.
"Forgive me, Marshal," Lynn said at once, startled, and let go.
Averifa did not let it move her off her purpose.
"What," she said, "is the meaning of this gown?"
Ares sidestepped the fury entirely. He looked away, with the faintest color in his face, and asked a very simple question.
"Did you like it?"
She was floored.
"I am wearing a white gown and a sparkling purple necklace," she said. "I look like I'm at my own wedding."
"I don't mind."
"I certainly do. Do you have any idea what people will say—"
"There's no time," he said, cutting her off, and took her hand and pulled her firmly along.
Whispers erupted as they strode through the hall. The guests could not help themselves; the two of them made a jaw-dropping couple and every person there said so to the person beside them. Averifa felt the eyes on her, all of them, and one gaze that burned hotter than the rest.
Lorenza was in the crowd. The floral choker at her throat drew the eye and held it, and above it her face was cold and entirely unreadable as she watched their every move.
Ares led her into the main event hall, where their mission was to begin.
Their entrance silenced the room. Then the music started, and he led her onto the floor.
Their movements were flawless. Whatever the whispers had been about, they stopped, and what replaced them was stunned admiration; every eye in the hall was locked on the pair as they glided across the floor with the ribbons of her pristine white gown flowing behind her.
"We're drawing a great deal of attention," Averifa murmured.
"A duke," Ares said coolly, "should be used to it."
When the applause came it was too much on top of everything else.
"I need air," she said.
He looked genuinely concerned, but she was already going.
The terrace was quiet. She stood there in the elegant white dress with a glass of wine in her hand and the starlight making the fabric glow, and for a moment there was nothing at all but the cold and the sky.
Then a cry for help shattered the night.
Her eyes went down into the gardens below and found the scene at once. Lorenza, struggling, and holding her in a rough and aggressive grip, Ares's younger brother.
Rupert.
Averifa froze. Her expression hardened as she placed the voice. The dark underbelly of this party had not waited long to reveal itself, and she had a front-row seat.
She heard all of it.
"He feels nothing for you," Rupert said, his face cold as ice. "Nothing. Do you understand that?"
"Stop it—"
He twisted the knife deeper, and his words were laced with venom, and he used the gown up on the terrace as his ultimate weapon.
"He gave that woman a white dress," he sneered. "White. My brother's absolute favorite color. Think about that."
The revelation landed on Lorenza like a physical blow. Everything she had built her hopes on came down in one motion, and her face was a mask of pure shock.
Rupert did not stop. "Admit it. Say it out loud."
"It can't be true," she cried. "It isn't—"
He shoved her hand roughly away.
From the shadows of the terrace above, Averifa watched the sad display and swirled the deep red wine in her glass. She found she felt a brief flicker of pity — for Rupert, of all people, who could stand there tearing a woman apart with the truth and still never be looked at, not once, because Lorenza would only ever look at his brother.
"Eavesdropping isn't very nice."
Ares had come out onto the terrace behind her.
"Don't tell my brother what you heard."
"I won't say a word," she replied coolly, and took a sip of her wine. "Besides. Rupert and I have nothing to do with each other any more."
She turned the whole thing over as she looked out at the dark garden, and her resolve set like diamond. If she truly wanted a life different from her tragic past, she had to forget a man like Ares completely. As for the dress — he must have chosen white by chance. It meant nothing. He and Lorenza were fated to be together anyway; she had watched that fate play out once already, all the way to its end.
"Aren't you returning to the party?" Ares asked from the glittering doorway.
He was standing close. Too close. Getting any closer than this, she recognized, would be a dangerous mistake for the life she was trying to build.
She made her decision quickly.
"I'm leaving."
"Averifa—"
"Clingy men aren't popular," she said, cutting him off. "I'll be gone by morning. I imagine you'll be quite happy about it."
Then she pivoted and strode away down the grand hallway, leaving him alone in her wake, speechless, one hand pressed to his chest as though her words had dealt him a physical blow.