He Took the Bait

Lyft let out a thin sigh and asked, the edge gone from his voice.

"Are all women from the North as stubborn as you, my lady?"

"I wouldn't know. At the very least, they aren't as high-handed as you, Count."

I didn't even glance at him as I answered. Lyft huffed a short, dry laugh.

A smile flickered across his face in the carriage window — there for a heartbeat, then gone. It was a different temperature from his usual sneer. He caught my reflected gaze in the glass and spoke as if he were trying to soothe me.

"Tell me what you intend to do."

"Does what I think even matter?"

"I need to know your plan so the Constabulary can prepare as well."

He'd been barking at me as if I'd lost my mind, but apparently he couldn't quite bring himself to wash his hands of me — not when I made such a convenient piece of bait.

I scoffed inwardly at Lyft and the Constabulary alike, then turned my head and met his eyes. If I hadn't known what kind of man he was, I might have mistaken that look for genuine concern for my safety. His mouth had gone slack, and those eyes — the color of warm sunlight — looked almost kind. It startled me. It was a look wholly unsuited to a man who could kidnap and imprison someone without batting an eye. A man who could use a human life as bait.

I tossed the words at him and turned my gaze back to the window. His eyes, reflected in the glass, clung to me with stubborn persistence. I ignored them to the end. I had nothing more to say.

I had far too little information to call anything I was doing a plan. All I knew was that I had nothing — no resources, no knowledge — and that I was powerless. The one small mercy was that Viscount Cecilla didn't know that. Praying that the scheme I'd spent the night devising would work, I let my heavy eyelids fall.

Lyft's voice reached me, unreadable.

"Very well. Do as you wish. But the moment your life is in danger, I will intervene."

That patronizing air of his was still infuriating. I nearly snapped that I didn't need his permission to clear my sister's name — but I was tired of arguing, so I pretended I hadn't heard him. Lyft didn't speak again.

By the time the sun had begun to sink, the carriage arrived at the Marquis of Morius's estate. I ignored the hand Lyft offered and stepped down on my own.

At the entrance, I presented the invitation addressed to the Marchioness of Derian. The servant charged with receiving guests looked startled — then he caught sight of Lyft's face and smoothly composed himself. I followed him into the garden and took the seat that had been prepared for the Marchioness of Derian.

It was a place of honor at the front of the stage, a seat no daughter of a rural barony could ever have imagined occupying. Naturally, every eye in the garden found me. Lyft only made it worse, pulling out my chair with a look that said he'd bite anyone who dared speak to me.

Among the guests whispering guesses about who I was, Countess Heinrich stood with her mouth hanging open. Viscount Cecilla was there as well, seated beside a woman in a lavish red gown. He was looking this way with a faintly uncertain expression.

The fact that he couldn't even properly recognize his dead wife's sister wasn't only because we hadn't seen each other in four years. I crushed the urge to stride over and demand whether he even remembered Dorothy's face, and sat down.

Prodded forward by the noblewomen who'd been circling and whispering, Countess Heinrich approached with a strained smile.

"Theresa. My dear, I never dreamed I'd see you here. Dressed up like that, I hardly recognized you."

I didn't even lift my head. She sat down in the chair beside me anyway and kept talking.

"Did you get home all right that day? I felt so poorly all of a sudden, I couldn't even see you off. Theresa, dear — did the Marchioness of Derian send you in her place? How on earth did you and she—"

"My lady."

I couldn't stand it any longer and cut her off.

"My name is Teredoa."

"Oh. Yes. Teredoa. Goodness, I must have mixed it up."

"And you sat down at my table without permission."

Countess Heinrich's face flushed scarlet. She clutched her fan, sprang to her feet, and glared at me, seething. When I ignored even that, she flounced back to her circle, skirts snapping. The glances darting between my face and Lyft's grew even more blatant after that, but no one else approached.

Some time later, food was set at every table and the performance began. I had neither knowledge of nor interest in music, but I pretended to appreciate what drifted from the stage. The tedious first act finally ended, and intermission arrived.

Among the nobles who scattered or clustered to pass the time, one pair of eyes clung to me, thick and lingering. Michael Cecilla. When our eyes met, he grinned — a slow, oily curl of the mouth — and walked deeper into the garden.

I rose to follow the vanishing viscount, and Lyft suddenly caught my wrist.

"I'll stay close. If you're in danger, scream."

"If you don't let go of this hand, I'll scream right now."

I was too impatient to be polite. I shook off his hand and turned away.

Afraid I'd lose Viscount Cecilla, I hurried deeper into the garden. As the crowd thinned, he stepped out from behind a great tree.

"I almost didn't recognize you, sister-in-law."

That sleek, handsome face. That easy, ingratiating smile. Unchanged. How could I have failed to know him? Those eyes were that sly, that venomous. I'd steeled myself a dozen times, and still the urge to lunge at him and wring his neck surged up. Hearing him scrape at me with that unearned title, a heat rose in me — the heat of wanting to kill him then and there.

I thought of Dorothy. I cooled my heart. And with an apology to that child on my lips, I forced them into a smile.

"At last we meet, Viscount Cecilla."

Those snakelike eyes studied my face as he stepped in close. His gaze raked me from the crown of my head to the tips of my shoes, and I felt as though snakes were crawling over every inch of my skin. He took my hand with practiced ease, pressed his lips to the back of it, and smiled — oily, insincere.

"My butler told me you'd called. I've been so occupied of late — I'm afraid I made you come all that way for nothing."

"It's enough that we've met now. I've been wondering how to reach you. There's something I need to discuss."

"Something you need to discuss..."

Viscount Cecilla let the words trail off, still holding my hand. The impulse to shake off those fingers toying with mine was almost more than I could bear. I barely held it in. He was doing it on purpose, of course. He knew perfectly well that the only thing between us was that child. If I let this go on any longer I was going to snap the hand he was holding. I came to the point.

"It's about Dorothy."

"Is there? She's dead and gone. What more could there possibly be to say between myself and House Dvorden?"

The moment I spoke Dorothy's name, Viscount Cecilla's manner turned wary. He released my hand. Or rather — he tried to. It was I who caught the hand that was pulling away. I held Viscount Cecilla's hand, leaned in, and whispered close.

His well-shaped brows twitched. He'd reacted to the word letters — and yet those snakelike eyes were still thick with suspicion. I curled my mouth into a deeper smile and murmured, silk-soft.

"A certain gentleman has shown a great deal of interest in those letters. Aren't you curious, Viscount?"

I pressed him with a bluff: if he wouldn't hear me out, I'd hand those nonexistent letters over to Lyft. I had no idea whether it would land. My mouth had gone bone-dry. I could almost hear my own heart beating wrong in my ears. I held the smile and waited for his answer.

Still watching me with those doubtful eyes, the viscount tested me.

"If someone else has already seen the letters, what need would I have to be curious?"

"How could I casually show anyone the little letters sisters write to each other? I'm a cautious woman. The important things I keep somewhere only I know."

I kept forcing my lips — which felt as if they might go numb — into that smile.

Dorothy had written to me often. Every letter I'd received from her was still tucked away in the desk drawer of my room at the Dvorden Barony. None of them contained any secret the world wasn't meant to know. The entire bluff rested on one fact: Viscount Cecilla couldn't possibly know that.

The tense seconds crawled. Then, at last, the viscount took the bait.

"Would you do me the honor of visiting the viscount's manor tomorrow afternoon? I find myself curious what sort of letters my wife sent her sister."

Viscount Cecilla bowed his head and kissed the back of my hand once more. He left me with a smile that turned my stomach, and released my hand.

"Then I shall see you at the viscount's manor tomorrow."

I returned the courtesy with a smile that never left my face.