Chapter Nineteen #3
Hearing Oriana call Arden by his first name clawed at Mavis, and she had to fight to hold on to her smile.
“And will you catch him?” Mavis asked.
Oriana didn’t answer right away, instead focusing her attention on her lap, smoothing away invisible wrinkles. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Mavis couldn’t suppress a frustrated sigh. “Arden Ryskamp is handsome, clever, kind, and his family lineage is impeccable. The only reason I can think for you to be so dismissive of him is if you’re in love with someone else.”
She threw the last bit out on a lark, but when surprise and alarm flickered over Oriana’s face, Mavis wondered if the notion of Oriana having a beau wasn’t all that ridiculous after all.
“Don’t be silly, Delphinia,” she said when she managed to school her expression into placidity once more.
“Is there someone else?” Mavis pressed.
“No.”
“But—”
“My romantic interests are none of your concern.” Even though Oriana’s words were a rebuke, they were delivered so gently Mavis barely felt it.
Still, she knew there was no more prying to be done.
It wasn’t necessary anyway—she was quite certain Oriana did have a secret paramour, and while that complicated matters for Arden, it was a mess she didn’t know how to untangle.
“I am sorry,” she told Oriana, holding her hands up in a show of surrender. “If you tell me you’ll be perfectly happy to spend the rest of your days in your brother’s house, I’ll believe you,” she lied.
Oriana didn’t answer for a moment, her pale-gray eyes turning calculating as they swept over Mavis. “One might think that you find the idea of living in my brother’s house for the rest of your days an unappealing fate, Delphinia.”
Mavis felt herself stiffen. Before she could reply, there was a knock on the door and Sally poked her head inside. “Are you ready, Miss Lindcourt?”
Mavis somehow managed to nod, getting to her feet and letting Sally lead her back behind the dressing screen, carrying the ivory silk monstrosity of a dress with her.
As Sally helped her step into the gown and did up the row of pearl buttons that ran down the back, Mavis’s mind was such a blur she barely registered her reflection in the mirror.
Some of her turmoil must have shown on her face, though, because Sally offered her an apologetic smile over her shoulder.
“It is very . . . classic.” A pucker appeared between Sally’s brows as she tugged at the shoulders of the gown, trying to get the ruffled sleeves to behave, though that seemed as impossible a task as herding pigeons without getting shit on.
“Mr. Mayles sent very specific instructions with the gown, saying it was to be fitted to your measurements but not otherwise altered.”
Of course—he had neither the time nor money to spare for anything else, but she understood that Sally was offering the information to distance herself from the design choices made three decades prior.
“You did a wonderful job.” It wasn’t Sally’s fault Mavis looked like a seagull who’d flown face first into a white flag.
Despite Mavis’s assurances, Sally looked skeptical.
No doubt she worried about having her name associated with the gown when photos made their way into the society pages—it would certainly be bad for business.
“Shall we show your future sister?” Sally asked, injecting false brightness into her voice to match her smile.
“Yes, please—I’m on tenterhooks out here,” Oriana called out, any tension from their earlier conversation wiped away and replaced with Oriana’s usual polite cheer.
But if Oriana could pretend, so could Mavis. She pasted a smile on her face and stepped out from behind the screen, letting Sally carry the heavy train of silk behind her.
“Oh, Delphinia.” Oriana rose to her feet and clasped her hands together in front of her chest. “You are a vision of beauty.”
Had Mavis ever thought Oriana a poor liar? The very idea was laughable now—Mavis thought she just might have met her match. Before she could respond, Oriana gave a heavy sigh.
“It’s so dim in here, though—say, Delphinia, why don’t you use your gift to brighten the space up a bit?”
It was a perfectly innocent question, spoken with a perfectly innocent smile, but when Mavis met Delphinia’s gaze, there was a hard edge to her gray eyes. A challenge.
Mavis’s own smile was tight in response.
“I don’t see why not.” She tucked her hands behind her back, her fingers going to the bracelet on her left hand, brushing over the paste gem, second to the right of the clasp.
She pressed it as subtly as she could before bringing her hands back in front of her, and an instant later, bright, warm light flooded the room, so strong that Sally brought her hand up to shield her eyes as if Mavis were the sun itself.
Oriana, though, didn’t flinch, and she didn’t avert her gaze. Instead, she looked directly at Mavis, and her smile grew wider.
The dread lodged in Mavis’s belly deepened. There was no way for Oriana to know what she’d done, but in that moment, Mavis swore she knew everything.