Alex pushed a bit of rice over the quail, to cover up the fact he’d tried none of it. He caught me staring and winked, his smile guileless and easy.
My breath caught in my throat.
He was so beautiful. So good and pure and completely not a part of this madness.
Wasn’t he?
I just needed to get through dinner and return to my room. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and then—surely then—I’d be able to work out a solution, work out exactly what was going on and who I was meant to trust in it all.
“What is the pomegranate meant to represent?” I asked, pushing the sorbet about with my spoon, trying to tamp down the waves of panic growing within me.
“Why, fertility, of course,” Dauphine said, taking a big scoop from her lavender-colored glass. She closed her eyes, savoring the flavor.
Gerard let out a bark of laughter. “Marchioly might be in your future after all!” He raised the sorbet coupe toward us, in a cheeky toast.
“What a night,” Alex groaned as we made our way down the corridor. “I am so sorry for my family. I feel as though they’ve collectively lost their minds.”
“They’re…excited,” I allowed, then cringed, remembering the knowing wink Gerard had given me after his little joke.
“They’re mad,” he persisted. “This wedding has turned the house upside down. I wish…I wish we could just race ahead through the next week and have it be over and done with.”
He rolled into the lift first and I set to work shutting the gate, flipping the latch. He waited until the steam went to work, its groans filling the air, before continuing.
“This will sound wholly blasphemous, but I don’t care a whiff about any of the wedding stuff. At least not the parts Mother is so fixated on. I want us to get Arina’s blessing. I want to see you come down the aisle to me. And I want to say our vows. That’s it. That’s all that matters.”
I wanted to believe him. Every bit of me wanted that.
The lift rattled to a stop.
I started the process with the latch and the gate again. Alex rolled free and I closed the door, flipping the lever. The routine had become second nature to me, movements I could do without stopping to ponder them.
Alex pushed his way down the corridor, turning to escort me to my rooms.
The pink candles were back, filling the hallway with their perfumed persistence and making my head spin. We passed the door to Gerard’s study and I paused before it, taking in the carved clusters ofEuphorbia marginatasgracing its front.
“Verity?” Alex called, turning his chair around as he realized I wasn’t at his side.
“I was just…” I trailed off, unsure. “I was thinking about my sisters’ letters. In there.” I glanced back to the door again. “Gerard has probably already forgotten about them.”
Alex offered a sympathetic smile. “I wouldn’t worry on it. Now that Mother knows, I’m sure she won’t let him rest until he brings them to her.”
A half-formed idea crossed my mind and before I could fully think it through, I plunged headfirst into it. “But what if he doesn’t? He can be so forgetful at times.”
Alex nodded.
“What…what would happen if he was to misplace his keys?”
“To the study?” Alex asked, and I felt a warning bell set off in my chest. He didn’t look suspicious, not quite, but there was a touch of bemusement, as though he couldn’t understand what I was getting at.
“Or the greenhouses or work sheds,” I said hastily. “The silver cabinets or vaults. He could lock everyone out of half of Chauntilalie with one errant mistake.”
“I’m certain his valet has a skeleton key for most of those things,” he said reassuringly.
“The study too?” I persisted, then cringed, wondering if I’d overplayed my hand.
Alex shrugged. “Probably not there but you know how Father is. Always has three sets of everything.”
I stilled, feeling like a lock myself as internal tumblers twisted and turned, falling into the proper combination. Once everything had clicked in place, the answer was revealed. “Sets of three.”
