Chapter 23 #3
Lady Eva was affectionate, she touched Lord Halverton freely: a hand on his sleeve when she asked a question, a brush of fingertips on his wrist when passing him a document, the lightest pressure of her shoulder against his arm when they stood together by a window.
Lord Halverton returned her attentions readily.
Lady Eva pleased him.
His hand was rarely far from her now. It settled at the small of her back when he guided her through a doorway, drew her closer at her waist when he wished her beside him, closed around her wrist or her fingers as though the contact belonged there.
And he kissed her.
He claimed her mouth in stolen moments when the corridors were empty or the servants distant, drawing her close with an impatience that bordered on triumph.
Sometimes his hand tightened at her waist, sometimes it slid higher, holding her firmly against him while his mouth moved over hers with the same confidence he carried into every room.
Lady Eva received it all as she was meant to.
She tilted her face toward him before he asked, let her hands rise to his shoulders, answered his hunger just enough to keep him pleased. She knew exactly when to soften, when to yield, when to look at him as though the attention delighted her.
Aoife watched from somewhere far behind her own eyes.
Halverton had told her they would wait for marriage. He spoke of it as a mark of his honour, as though the restraint proved his virtue.
For that, at least, she was grateful.
Each time his mouth closed over hers, each time his hand tightened at her waist, Aoife slipped further away, retreating to the quiet place she had built inside her own mind.
Lady Eva remained behind to smile.
She was reshaping herself to be exactly what he wanted, and in the end, it had taken him not much effort at all. She shuddered at the thought, all too acutely aware that a lie repeated often enough takes on the shape of truth.
Alone in her room at night, she would remind herself it was a role, a way to help her people.
She would reread Cormac’s letter over and over again.
‘You’ll find a way through. You always do.
’ That was what she was doing: finding a way through, surviving this.
But then she would come back to his earlier line, ‘If you stop being yourself, I’ll have lost you for good, and that I couldn’t survive.
’ She wasn’t lost for good, though. This was all dressing.
Her outside might change, but she was still the same person on the inside. Wasn’t she?
“It’s a role,” she whispered to the empty air. “Just a role.”
But roles had weight. How long could she play Lady Eva before she became her?
Three weeks into her performance, Halverton invited her to his study. The fire was low, throwing amber light across the floor. Aoife crossed the room with measured elegance, every step deliberate.
Halverton watched her as she approached.
“You have pinned flowers in your hair,” he said, voice mild.
She touched them reflexively. Clara had arranged a cluster for her hair to match the bell-shaped blooms embroidered on the dress.
“I thought you’d like them,” Aoife said. “They… suit the dress.”
His brow lifted slightly. “They were Florence’s favourites.”
Her throat tightened.
“I know,” she said.
Silence stretched between them, thin, clear, and sharp-edged.
“You chose them because of her?” Halverton asked.
She expected an accusation. Instead, it was almost curious.
Aoife steadied herself. “I thought… if I could match what you admired in her, I—”
She fell silent as he took a step closer.
His gaze was cool, assessing, though not unkind.
“Aoife,” he said slowly, “why would you think I want you to be Florence?”
Her breath snagged. It felt like a trap, but his tone told her it wasn’t.
“She was everything you wanted,” Aoife said.
He exhaled through his nose.
“You misunderstand.”
Her pulse fluttered. “Do I?”
“Yes.” His voice gentled, though the steel beneath it remained.
Aoife’s hands tightened around each other. “She left after… after the fire. After the demotion.”
“She did.”
Aoife swallowed. “Don’t you want me to replace her?”
“No.” He moved closer, close enough that she felt the warmth of him. “I do not want you to be Florence.”
He lifted a hand, not yet touching her, hovering, waiting.
“I want you,” he said softly, “to surpass her.”
The simplicity of the words struck her harder than anything he had said before.
Surpass.
Not replace.
Not mimic.
Not echo.
Surpass.
She didn’t know whether to feel relief or dread.
Halverton let his hand fall. “I do not need you to be Florence, Aoife.”
Her heart stumbled. “You… don’t?”
He smiled faintly, the smallest tilt of his mouth. “No. I need you to be perfect.”
A chill curled down her spine.
Perfect.
Never faltering, never stepping out of line as she had with her father.
She bowed her head slightly. “If that is what you want, my lord.”
Halverton studied her for a long moment. “Is it what you want?”
Her answer rose before she could think.
“It’s what I must become.”
He nodded once, satisfied. “Then we understand each other.”
Aoife lifted her gaze. She held his eyes.
“Yes,” she said, her voice calm and steady. “We do.”