Chapter Twenty-Eight
By the time the morning of Aunt Phi’s farewell ball arrived, her health had taken another turn, and Bertram Ruteledge gave strict orders that she not leave her bed—strict orders his aunt dismissed with a roll of her eyes and a scoff.
“I have a party to throw, Arden,” she told him when Bertram left, already rising from her bed on shaking legs. “There is much to do and not much time to do it—if death would like to stop me, he shall have to try harder.”
Arden knew better than to argue with her, so he went to her side and let her lean heavily against him as he helped her out of her room and down the stairs.
The household staff was hard at work, polishing the floors and dusting every surface, filling vases with fresh flowers the same bright red as the gown his aunt had ordered for tonight.
“Has the champagne arrived—are you certain it’s enough?” his aunt asked. “When is the string quartet arriving? Is it too late to hire a solo harpist instead?”
Arden answered each question, but when his aunt stumbled at the bottom of the stairs and he hurried to right her, he couldn’t help asking a question of his own. “How are you feeling?”
She laughed at that, and despite the hoarseness, she sounded like the brash woman Arden first met when he arrived in Garlin, who spoke her mind and didn’t abide nonsense. “Like I’m dying.”
He frowned. “If you’re in pain—”
“No, there’s no pain,” she assured him quickly. “And I’m not dead yet.”
Arden led her to the ballroom, where a servant brought a chaise in from the parlor so she could recline while she gave orders to him and the staff about everything from the menu to the final touches of decor.
By midafternoon, the ballroom was transformed.
No longer the airy, empty room he was used to, now the white walls were draped in swaths of black organza, and violet satin covered the dais, where the string quartet and a harpist would play, as well as the round table at the center of the ballroom, set with a tower of empty champagne glasses that would be filled when guests began to arrive.
Even the window drapes were replaced with gray silk, which tempered the bright Garlin sunshine into something darker and moodier.
“Are you sure this isn’t too morbid?” Arden asked his aunt, glancing around the room.
Aunt Phi smiled, glancing up from the pile of papers she was looking over—a list of songs for the musicians. “I think it’s perfect.”
To Arden, that was all that mattered.
“What song do you want?” She glanced back down at the papers in her lap.
“Song?” Arden repeated, frowning.
She gave an exasperated sigh. “For you and Oriana—once I announce your engagement, you’ll share a dance.”
The mention of Oriana was still a splinter between them, but after nearly a week, they were getting better at pretending it didn’t exist.
“I haven’t thought about it,” Arden admitted.
“Of course you haven’t,” she muttered. “Very well, I’ll ask Oriana myself—she’s due to arrive early to pick out a ring.”
Arden blinked. “A ring?”
His aunt sighed. “Yes, Arden, you can’t very well announce your engagement when you haven’t even gotten the poor girl a ring.”
Arden felt his face flush—it wasn’t that he’d forgotten the ring, but considering his finances, he’d planned to get her one after . . .
He tried to cut the thought short but failed. After his aunt was dead. Guilt swarmed him again, and this time he had a harder time than usual tamping it back down.
“Don’t give me that look,” she said with a sigh. “I offered her a piece from my collection, so it won’t cost you anything.”
“That wasn’t—” Arden cut himself off. His aunt had so little time left—he refused to spend any of it arguing. “Thank you, Aunt Phi, that’s very kind of you.”
They were interrupted when one of the butlers entered the room and cleared his throat. “A visitor is asking for Mr. Ryskamp.”
Aunt Phi’s eyebrows rose. “It is time already? Show Miss Mayles in, Hargrave.”
Hargrave hesitated. “Apologies, Mrs. Gellis, but it isn’t Miss Mayles. The name he gave was Mr. Dagwood Lindcourt.”
Arden could barely keep his ire in check as he stormed down the hallway that led from the ballroom to the parlor Hargrave had shown Rafe to.
When he entered, he found Rafe standing at the far edge of the room, facing the window, hands clasped behind his back, but after Arden slammed the door shut, Rafe glanced over his shoulder, his mouth stretched into its usual impassive line, and a single eyebrow raised.
“You have some nerve, showing up here,” Arden hissed. “Like a damned vulture circling the body of a dying woman. You’ll have your money, but—”
“I’m not here for your money, Ryskamp,” Rafe said mildly, turning toward him. “I’m here about Mavis.”
Mavis. No matter how Arden tried not to think about her over the last week, thoughts of her plagued him.
He couldn’t forget how cold and remote she’d been the last morning he saw her, like she’d been carved from ice.
She’d made it perfectly clear that there was nothing between them but lies, but still, hearing her name in Rafe’s gruff voice caused every muscle in his body to tense.
“Is she all right?” The words spilled past his lips before he could think them unwise.
Rafe didn’t answer right away, his mouth twisting into a grimace. “She says she has everything in hand, and I don’t doubt she would strangle me if she knew I were here now, telling you anything different, but no, I don’t think she’s all right at all.”
Despite how many times Mavis told him he couldn’t save her, despite all the times she’d shown him just how foolish it was to try, the urge to run out of his aunt’s house that very moment to find her and do just that, whether she wanted him to or not, reared up in him.
None of it’s real, Arden. I thought you would have learned that lesson by now.
Her words whispered through his mind, and he clenched his teeth. It was true it had taken him an embarrassingly long time, but he had, at long last, learned.
“Mavis can take care of herself,” he told Rafe quietly.
He turned to go, but Rafe’s voice stopped him just as he reached the door.
“She won’t tell me what’s wrong, but the way she’s talking . . . I think she’s planning to get herself arrested.”
Arden paused, closing his eyes. A month ago, he’d have wanted just that, but in spite of everything, the thought of Mavis locked away in some cell for the rest of her days felt like a punch to his gut.
“I’m sure she has a plan,” he said without turning around. “She always does.”
He began to turn the knob when Rafe spoke again.
“Gods damn it, Ryskamp,” he growled. “Here I thought you might actually care about her.”
Arden’s chest tightened. He didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. He glanced back over his shoulder, meeting Rafe’s eye.
“And she’s told me time and time again just how foolish I am for that,” he said, his voice level. “I think it’s time I listened to her for once.”
That time, when Arden started to leave the room, Rafe let him go.