Chapter Eight
The Mayles home was on the same shore as the hotel, but farther north where the mansions loomed tall and stately, rising from white sand and clear blue waves.
In size, it rivaled even the Abalone, but instead of the hotel’s white marble facade, the Mayles residence was crafted from sunstone bricks with a sloped terracotta roof and a wraparound terrace on the second level, set with stately columns and gilt railings that overlooked the beach on one side and a tree-lined street on the other.
When Mavis approached in her carriage, she admired the sheer beauty of it and tried to imagine a life in which a house like that wasn’t remarkable, simply a house like any other. A home, even.
In a world where Mavis was truly Delphinia Lindcourt, where the ring on her finger was meant to stay, that house would be hers one day soon.
She’d visited several times over the last two weeks, joining Thaddeus and Oriana for dinner and attending parties and luncheons, but in all that time, it never felt like a home to her, more like a set piece in a theater production—beautiful, but hollow.
The driver of the carriage the hotel had loaned her opened her door and handed her out, and Mavis made her way up the marble steps. The front door opened before she could knock, revealing a woman with frizzy gray hair sticking out from her lace cap and a white apron tied over her black dress.
Mavis offered the woman her brightest Luster socialite smile. “Hello, Gertie.”
“Miss Lindcourt.” The housekeeper barely managed to hide her surprise as she dropped into a shallow curtsy. “Mr. Mayles isn’t in, I’m afraid.”
She didn’t say more, but Mavis didn’t expect her to.
Those who worked as servants to Luster families were tight lipped as a rule, often not letting a hint of gossip slip out no matter how Mavis tried to charm and pry.
She wondered, vaguely, where Thaddeus was—perhaps visiting a mistress or off gambling at his club, but wherever he was, she was relieved he wasn’t here, where he would only get in the way of her plans.
“Actually, I’m here to visit Oriana. Is she in?”
It was a silly question, but one Mavis had to ask all the same, just as Gertie had to pretend not to know.
She invited Mavis into the foyer before hurrying up the stairs to inquire whether Oriana was accepting visitors.
The foyer was lit only by the afternoon sun pouring through two windows, as there was no electricity at Mayles House.
It had surprised her the first time she visited, though she knew that some Lusters were stubborn about updating their homes with modern amenities like electricity or plumbing, determined not to avail themselves of the new technologies that had seen their gifts made obsolete.
Still, Mavis thought she’d rather have running water and light bulbs over magic any day.
Thaddeus might be able to summon water, but the thought of calling for his assistance each time she needed to bathe or, Gods of Old forbid, use the toilet, seemed terribly inconvenient.
“She’ll see you in the library, Miss Lindcourt,” Gertie said, reappearing at the top of the stairs.
Mavis smiled her thanks and followed Gertie up to the second level—an area she was far less familiar with than the ground floor. Gertie led Mavis down a long hallway, coming to a stop in front of a large oak door. She pushed it open and ushered Mavis inside.
The library was better lit than the foyer, with sunlight flooding in from the large windows that lined the southern wall.
The other walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, each one packed to bursting with books.
At the center of the room, Oriana Mayles reclined in a pink-striped silk chaise, her sky blue gown pooled around her and her head propped up on her arm.
Her golden-blond hair was unbound, hanging in loose waves over her slim shoulders.
A thick book with a red cover laid open on her lap, her fingers hovering at the edge, ready to turn the page.
In Mavis’s experience with the other woman, she was rarely without a book in hand, and when she was, there was usually one tucked away in the pocket that she insisted her modiste sew into the skirt of every dress she owned.
When she heard Mavis enter, she looked up, smile at the ready.
“Miss Lindcourt.” Oriana set the book aside and rose to her feet, approaching Mavis with outstretched hands.
Mavis clasped the other woman’s hands in hers, letting Oriana squeeze them in greeting.
“I’m so glad I get to offer you my congratulations in person, though I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to dinner last night. ”
Mavis shook her head. “Oh, don’t worry about that.”
She took the opportunity to look Oriana over.
It was no mystery why Thaddeus had been fielding so many offers of courtship for his sister, dowry aside—Oriana was a great beauty, with a round face and rosy cheeks.
Her gray eyes were bright, and her full mouth was never far from a smile.
She reminded Mavis of stories her mother used to read her before she fell ill, ones about princesses trapped in towers, breaking all manner of curses with their pretty faces and kind dispositions.
“I do hope my visit isn’t an inconvenience—I’d hate to have interrupted anything.
” She peered past Oriana to the book she’d left on the chaise, reading the title emblazoned in gold on the front.
Affair of the Darkest Heart. Mavis wasn’t familiar with the title, but she guessed it was a romance, and she committed it to memory so she could pass it along to Arden.
Reading a book Oriana enjoyed was a simple enough way for him to earn her favor.
“Oh, not at all.” Oriana stepped back and not-so-inconspicuously nudged a throw pillow to cover the book’s cover.
That was interesting. Mavis wondered if Oriana was embarrassed to be reading the book or if her brother disapproved.
Thaddeus was a boar, and she’d heard him complain plenty of times that his sister was too interested in fictional men and not nearly enough in the flesh-and-blood men all but battering down her door.
“It is so wonderful that you’re marrying Thaddeus—he is so lucky to have found you,” Oriana said, sounding as if she truly meant it.
“Oh, truly, I am the lucky one.” Mavis glanced away, summoning a flush to her cheeks. “But that is precisely the reason for my impromptu visit. I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Oh?” Oriana sat back down on the chaise and gestured for Mavis to sit down beside her, which Mavis did.
“Well, since I’m marrying Thaddeus, that means we’re going to be sisters, but it occurred to me that we don’t know one another very well.”
A frown creased Oriana’s forehead, the very portrait of innocent bewilderment. “I confess, you have me at a disadvantage, Miss Lindcourt—I already think of you as a sister.”
Mavis struggled not to drop her smile. “I suppose neither of us have sisters, but I’m quite certain they call one another by their first names.”
Oriana laughed. “A fair point.” She paused before adding, “Delphinia.”
“Oriana,” Mavis returned, inclining her head.
Oriana shifted in her seat, clasping her hands on her lap, her ankles crossed in that prim and proper way Mavis had seen Luster women across the continent sit—she wondered if that posture was bred into them along with their magic or if it caught on the same way pinstripes and mutton sleeves had.
Mavis suspected it must be the former because as hard as she tried to emulate that delicate way of sitting, it never felt natural, as if her Lack-blooded, Low City–reared body knew it wasn’t meant to sit daintily on high-backed velvet chairs, making small talk in stately manor homes.
“Thaddeus said Llewellyn Everett was taking you to dinner last night. Did you arrive after we left?” Mavis asked, ignoring her own discomfort and focusing on the task at hand.
If she weren’t looking for it, she might have missed the way Oriana’s nose wrinkled at the mention of that name—the only sign she gave of her true feelings as she lifted her porcelain teacup off the table between them and took a sip.
“Oh no. I sent him away when he arrived to escort me—I was feeling ill, and I know I’d have made for terrible company,” she said.
Mavis looked her over. “You seem perfectly well now—how miraculous a recovery you’ve had.” Oriana didn’t take the bait, and her smile held fast, so Mavis continued. “But Mr. Everett seems like an understanding sort—I’m sure he’ll be happy to reschedule now that you’re feeling better.”
Understanding wasn’t a word often attributed to Llewellyn Everett, who seemed to understand little beyond his own vanity.
He likely could have gone to Montenari’s alone and spent the evening preening at his reflection in the back of a spoon, never realizing Oriana wasn’t sitting across from him.
But though Oriana surely knew this as well, she only shrugged.
“Time will tell, I suppose.” Oriana made no effort to even pretend excitement at the prospect of another outing with Mr. Everett.
Mavis studied the woman across from her.
She had no difficulty imagining her in the sort of voluminous white wedding gown that was all the rage this season, walking down a candlelit aisle—it was only when she imagined Arden that she struggled.
They would make a handsome couple, the picture of gently bred Luster excellence, and she tried to ignore the grip that tightened around her heart at the thought.
She had a duty to do, and there was no point in wasting time.
“Sisters speak frankly with one another too, don’t you think?” Mavis asked her.
Oriana’s hand stilled halfway to setting her cup back down on the table, but after a brief pause she looked up at Mavis.
“I suppose so,” she said cautiously.