Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Bea had never been in a private ballroom before. Not one that looked like it should come with its own pope and incense.
She’d been to a couple of wedding venues that tried. Her senior prom had been held in something vaguely similar.
But this…this was someone’s house.
And it was deliriously, audaciously immense.
Vaulted ceilings arched high above walls that rose with Greco-Roman arrogance, carved in pristine cream and crowned with columned alcoves.
Each niche was lit with twin sconces, casting soft light across silk drapes and brocade.
The windows were enormous, at once bringing the night in and keeping it at bay.
The marble floor in the center was inlaid with a compass rose, a circular starburst that gleamed beneath the chandelier, as if daring anyone to take the spotlight and live up to it.
Tables spiraled outward in perfect formation: thirteen in all, flanked by gold Chiavari chairs. They’d gone with candelabra for centerpieces, not flowers. Tall, gilded, tipped with narrow taper candles, each flame reflected in polished silverware and bone china.
The band was framed beneath a white-draped arch. A woman’s voice, sultry, like melted chocolate, pulled modern lyrics into something slow and molten.
Gage pulled her chair out and tucked her in before taking his place beside her. Nate sat on her left, already murmuring something to Isabel that made her smirk. Across the table, Georgina and Hunter, Naomi and Charles. Mason’s arm rested behind Isabel’s chair.
On the table to their right, she spotted Rafael and Laurent. On the table to the left—Catherine Vale. She didn’t bother looking at her.
The entrées arrived first. Every time a server set something down, it was met with a soft thank-you, as natural as breathing.
Bea’s dish was a medley of roasted heirloom carrots, poached figs, whipped chèvre, and a spiced red-wine glaze that tasted like someone had bottled the end of summer.
Around the table, there were oysters with lemon verbena ice, grilled quail with smoked grapes, tarts that looked too pretty to touch.
Everything smelled like earth and oak and things that had never seen a supermarket.
“Well,” Naomi said, cutting into her quail, “we’ve officially entered our ‘grapes and goat cheese’ era.”
Georgina laughed. “It’s not goat cheese. It’s chèvre. Which means it costs double and comes with emotional damage.”
“Did your starter come with narration?” Charles quipped.
“It did.” Isabel lifted her glass. “They were hand-fed alpine grass and sung to while milking.”
The mains followed. Seared duck with balsamic plums. Saffron risotto crowned by a lobster tail curled like sculpture. Wood-fired eggplant with pine nuts and pomegranate molasses—Naomi claimed first dibs on that one instantly, shielding it like treasure.
Bea leaned toward Nate, voice low. “Can I ask you something personal?”
“Go on.”
“How come you don’t date?”
He stopped chewing his duck. Just for a moment. Swallowed. Then said, “Doesn’t make sense to start something I won’t finish.”
“Why couldn’t you finish it?”
“Timing. Geography. Obligations.” He said each with punctuation.
“Specific.” Bea tilted her head. “And yet also…vague.”
“Intentionally so.” He didn’t elaborate. And even though they’d come a long way, she wasn’t quite close enough to him to press.
Bea turned back to the group just as Georgina was saying, “The chef here is divine. He’s been married to the estate for fifteen years.”
“And to his sourdough starter even longer,” came Naomi’s droll addition.
Gage’s glass caught the light as he swirled it once. “The mothers chose a strong red this year.”
“The white’s better,” Georgie announced, ever contrarian.
“White says you’re here to behave,” Hunter intoned. “Everyone here knows you’re not.”
She smiled over her glass. “If I were really misbehaving, you’d already be in trouble.”
The exchange reminded Bea of a question she’d been meaning to ask. “This is kind of a tangent, but—”
Naomi leaned in, delighted. “Those are the best.”
“So I’ve been at St. Ives for over a year now, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone drunk. Which, on a university campus, is…statistically impossible.”
A pause. Not judgmental, exactly, more an amused silence that made her feel like she’d asked something accidentally revealing.
“Impossible in Canada,” Georgina said smoothly, dabbing the corner of her mouth with a linen napkin. “America. Europe. Take your pick.”
“UR men don’t get drunk,” Charles said, cutting to the chase.
Bea blinked. Did he just say that with a straight face? “Ever?”
“We don’t lose control,” Hunter stated, like it was part of the national anthem.
Which meant her next question was possibly close to treason. “Why not?”
“Who’d trust you with anything important if you can’t even hold your own frame up?” Hunter asked.
“Someone might hand you a multimillion-dollar decision over dessert,” Charles continued, taking a sip of wine.
“Or a war might break out,” Mason added. “Hard to lead troops when you can’t walk straight.”
Bea looked around the table. No one flinched. No eye-rolls. Not a trace of irony. Just calm, inherited certainty.
Georgie had been listening, elbows on the table, chin in her hands. She grinned. “You’re all so romantic. I love the UR.”
Bea leaned back, spine still straight, like distance might help her see the full shape of what they were saying. “You’re really telling me none of you have ever—” She stopped, turned to Gage.
He lifted one dark brow.
Right. If anyone had, it wouldn’t be Gage.
“It’s not that they don’t drink,” Naomi clarified. “They just drink with discipline. Like everything else.”
“And no drugs,” Isabel added, crisp. “They’re not part of our world. Especially not in circles that matter.”
Staff in white gloves moved between them, clearing plates without a sound. Bea noticed that while they weren’t there for conversation, neither were they dismissed. They were acknowledged politely, routinely, small courtesies as constant as the candlelight.
She turned to Nate. “Even you?”
“Especially me.”
“What about you three?” Bea gestured toward Georgina, Naomi, and Isabel.
“Control isn’t gendered here,” Georgina said, lips twitching.
Isabel didn’t miss a beat. “No one gets to be messy, Bey. Not if they want to matter.”
A murmur of agreement. Not rehearsed. Just lived-in. The kind of thing they didn’t have to think about anymore.
“There are so many rules,” Bea said softly, almost to herself.
“Not really.” Nate’s voice was low. Oddly gentle. “The right amount.”
Enough to know what was expected. To show them how to flourish within the lines they all knew, down to the millimeter.
Every time she thought she understood this place, it unfolded in another layer. Beautiful in a way it almost felt it shouldn’t be.
A world where no one overindulged felt unnatural, even repressive. And maybe it was. But no one here appeared trapped. If anything, she was sitting among the most confident people she’d ever met.
Maybe…that was because of their codes, and not in spite of them.
“The UR is a walled garden,” Bea murmured.
Gage gave a single nod. “It wouldn’t be paradise without walls.”
A bell chimed: clear, ascendant, unmistakable.
Staff disappeared like magic. Alcoves lit up as though they’d been waiting for this moment, revealing pastries under glass, a tower of champagne, and a gilded espresso bar with silver liquor trays.
“What’s happening?” she asked Gage.
“The second half is for mingling,” he explained.
The energy had shifted from ceremony to revelry. Everyone rose, adjusting jackets, fixing cuffs, flipping hair.
At the center of the room, Gustave and Carine Aurelle stepped into the circle. He gave the faintest nod, and the band answered with something warm, pulsing, and meant for two. The singer followed, her voice an invitation. The floor was open.
One by one, other couples followed.
Bea felt the ache of it. She loved to dance. Not to perform or impress, just to move. Her fingers curled slightly around the back of her chair.
Gage never danced. Not at events or in public. Not even with her.
She tried not to feel disappointed.
“Want dessert?” he asked, already standing.
If she couldn’t have the music, she could at least have something sweet. She stood.
“Bea.”
She turned, pulse quickening like a wire sparking in the cold. Victor King stood regally beside their table. Impeccable in black-tie. The embodiment of legacy.
“Mr. King—Victor,” she said, her throat suddenly dry.
“My son doesn’t dance,” he said. “I do.”
Oh.
Oh no.
That was an invitation. Or as close as a man like him ever got to extending one.
Was there a protocol for this? For dancing with the patriarch of an empire? A man who might one day become her father-in-law, if she didn’t fumble the next few minutes and get excommunicated from the bloodline?
Gage glanced, but didn’t interrupt. Nate remained still. Georgina didn’t say anything, but she was pushing back a smile that said this moment was better than dessert.
Victor extended his hand.
Bea placed hers in his. Her shoulders squared on instinct. And then—because there was nothing else to do—she let herself be led.
His palm found her back. They swayed.
“This weekend has gone better than expected,” Victor began.
That was a relief, but also begged the obvious: What had he expected?
“I’m glad, sir,” she said, careful not to overplay it.
“There was an interesting moment with Rafael yesterday.”
Bea’s pulse flatlined. Then spiked. She didn’t even know how to begin to explain.
“I’m not chastising you,” he told her. His eyes, blue like Gage’s, saw too much. “This is the UR. Interest like that makes sense.”
His assessment was clinical, but she knew he wasn’t a dispassionate observer.
“If anything,” he continued, “it confirms you’re not merely ornamental.”
“I don’t believe I am,” Bea said, trying to sound competent and assured, instead of what she actually was at the moment.
Freaking out.