14. CHAPTER 12
Léonie
I’d gone up to the third floor to steal something simple from my mother’s room. One of the many cashmere scarves she saved up for the cold season but never uses.
I told myself this morning that I was going to spend some time outside my room, maybe a walk in the garden or sketching at the terrace. Anything to remind me I still had a pulse.
The plan was to wrap myself in cashmere and breathe through it all.
My days of agonizing had stripped me of so much, I could barely recognize myself until two days ago when Céleste and Isolde came by.
It was the same day I received a huge package with things I’d normally treat myself to.
At first I thought it came from Céleste.
Her need to care for Isolde and I, always rears it head when we’re in distress.
But she said she didn’t send them. So I concluded it must have been Debo or Blaise.
They know me better than anyone else in this house.
My brothers were always so mysterious. It wasn’t the first time they’d done something for me and acted like it was nothing.
I could ask them, just to say thank you.
If I was being honest, that package made me feel better. Chocolates, pastries, books… all my comfort things. They were soothing.
But it didn’t matter. They’d know I was grateful…regardless of which one sent them.
I was about to enter mother’s room when I saw Madame Devareaux in her apron, her grey hair twisted into its usual tight bun, walking out with a tray of unfinished breakfast in her hand.
Madame Devareaux is the older housekeeper and she’d been with us since I was eight—long enough to see every version of me my own parents refused to notice.
“Ma petite fille, you’re out of bed,” she said, her eyes scanning my face as though she was about to make a diagnosis. “That’s good.”
“You're looking at me like I'm about to collapse,” I tried sounding calm. My throat still hurt from… everything. The sedative, the screaming. I tried to smile anyway, leaning on the railing of the staircase. “Just a little tired… but I promise I’m fine.
Her mouth twitched. “You scared us,” she said, her eyes filled with warm concern. “You look thinner.”
I smiled at her assessing gaze. She had no idea how much I appreciated her concern. My mother hadn’t asked me how I was feeling since I was dragged back home. She’d rather spend her time throwing orders around than show actual emotions.
Madame Devareaux stepped closer, lowering her voice. “You’ve hardly eaten since you got back. I told your mother it wasn’t right to push. She said the doctor insisted—”
“No surprises there,” I interjected, wanting the conversation to stay light, and not veer toward the way everyone now talked around me like I was glass with a crack in it. “I can’t traumatise the family and then also refuse food. That would be selfish.”
She gave me the look she always had when she thought I was being particularly ridiculous.
“You were not selfish,” she said. “You were scared.”
I swallowed and held on tighter to the polished wood of the banister. Yes I was scared. Still am. And there were too many reasons why.
Things I had no solution for and couldn’t run away from. On the top of the list being Yves still missing and marrying a stranger to prove my loyalty to my family.
“We’re not talking about that,” I said, in an attempt to squash the feeling eating me up inside. “Tell me something else. Tell me gossip. The one about the chef and his affair with the florist.”
She chuckled. “The chef is having an affair with the florist’s husband, mademoiselle. Try to keep up.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, totally unexpected, pulling at my sore throat. I winced and laughed again, because it hurt and because it felt good to feel anything that wasn’t dread.
If there was one thing I enjoyed most in this house, it was staff gossip, and I kept up with every one of them, thanks to Annette and Madame Devareaux.
Apparently the head chef, who’s friends with the house florist is allegedly having an affair with her husband, and from what Annette had told me, the florist doesn’t know about it.
I wanted to know more, but I refrained from asking. Annette will fill me in later. She always does.
A smile broke through.
Madame Devareaux tilted her head. “There,” she said. “That’s better. For a moment you almost looked like yourself again.”
I opened my mouth to answer, and then I felt something.
That strange, prickling awareness I’d always dismissed as melodramatic in romance novels crawled up the back of my neck. It didn’t feel like a chill or heat. It felt…more focused. Like the air in the corridor had narrowed around me, and pulled tight.
I turned toward the rail.
From the third-floor landing, you could see down over the sweeping staircase, through the second-floor gallery, and into the stretch of polished floor leading toward the hallway and the front entrance.
Blaise walked down the hallway with two men and a woman.
The woman in the black suit, long brown hair spilling over her shoulders, was a few steps ahead with her phone pressed to her ear.
Beside her walked an older man in a matching suit, elegant grey strands threaded through his hair.
The man closest to Blaise wore a navy suit, his warm tan skin contrasted by short pitch-black waves tapered neatly into a fade.
Blaise always walked like he owned a room, but he was barely noticeable walking next to this man, who walked as if the world tilted in his favor.
He didn’t look up but somehow he felt familiar.
“That’s him,” I whispered, before I’d even decided to think the thought. “Isn’t it?”
Madame Devareaux followed my gaze, frowning slightly. “Who?”
But my heart had already found its answer before picking up speed, kicking at my ribs.
Orion Kade.
Although I’d only seen glossy press images of him, none of them did justice to the physical authority he commanded just by existing. I couldn’t see his face, but his presence made everyone else standing close to him look small.
I watched closer as they walked further down the hallway. There was something cold and distant about watching him. It sent chills down my spine.
I gripped the banister tighter. At this rate I'd end up with blisters.
“What’s he doing here?” I mumbled to no one exactly.
Madame Devareaux glanced at me again. I could hear the worry in her voice. “Your father said there was a meeting. I assumed—”
I forced my hands to relax.
A meeting.
I stayed there until the front door opened, and the men stepped out and disappeared from sight. I told myself I was just making sure he was actually gone.
It didn’t feel like that. It felt like something had been pulled taut inside my chest and then cut loose. Maybe reality dawning that I’ll soon be trading one cage for another.
“You should sit,” Madame Devareaux said gently. “You’re still pale.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “I just need water.”
She hesitated, wanting to say more, but let it go.
“I’ll have Annette bring up some water,” she said. “If you need anything, call me. Okay?”
I nodded, because my throat had closed up again, for reasons that had nothing to do with sedatives, or screaming.
I walked down to the second floor as fast as I could. Halfway down to the first, Blaise appeared, coming up the stairs.
We stopped on the middle landing, facing each other.
“Blaise,” I breathed. “Was he…was that him?”
He held my gaze briefly before nodding.
“Yes. It was Orion.”
The name hit harder now that it had a physical body attached to it. Even though I saw just his back.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me he was coming?”
He sighed. “Because you’ve not been feeling well. You didn’t need that stress.”
Guilt sat in Blaise’s eyes. Annoyance and tiredness too. All of it layered over that bone-deep protectiveness I knew too well.
“The last thing you need is anything disturbing your recovery.”
“Well, too late.”
He huffed a wrecked laugh. The week had carved all the humor out of him, leaving nearly nothing behind. It had drained us all.
“I should have been informed,” I said. “I’m the one marrying him.”
Blaise’s expression softened a little. “Would you have wanted to see him?”
I froze, not expecting that question. “Yes.” Then immediately: “No.” Heat creeping up my neck. “I just…I don’t know.”
Blaise watched me, his eyes searching my face curiously. Either he was working through a theory in his head, or keeping it to himself.
“You’re about to say something,” I prodded. “Just say it.”
He gave a crooked half-smile and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Blaise.”
He held my gaze, contemplating.
“I was going to say—you have nothing to fear with Orion Kade.”
That made me take a step back. “Meaning?”
“Meaning—” he pulled a strand of hair from my face. “I’m assured you’ll be protected if you leave these walls.”
Protected as in terms of gaining a new owner?
We both knew what this was. I was being sold to Orion Kade. Offered on a silver platter like something meant to be consumed and forgotten. I hated it.
I looked past him, toward the closed study door at the end of the hall.
“Did something happen today? With the truce… I mean.”
He hesitated. “They signed something, yes.”
“Something?” I repeated. “What does that mean…?”
A crash cut through the air. The abrupt shattering of glass, followed by my father’s voice bellowing from inside the study. Debo’s voice rose to meet it. Both of them, furious.
Blaise swore under his breath. “Stay here,” he said.
I didn’t. I needed to know what was happening so I followed his every step.
We reached the study at the same time. The door was half-closed, so I stopped in the gap, placed my fingers on the frame, listening to Debo and our father go back and forth.
I’ve seen them in heated arguments before but this was something else.
“You handed him everything,” Debo was shouting. “You didn’t even fight it.”
My father’s desk bore the brunt of his rage—papers scattered, a tumbler on its side, whiskey bleeding into the documents on his table.