“Your dress looks exceptionally beautiful today,” Evelyne complimented.
Echo’s celadon dress was loose and elegant, gathered at the waist with a pale ribbon.
Her short black hair had been softly curled away from her face, and the simple pearls at her throat made the entire outfit look far more expensive than Aurelian remembered it being.
Echo glanced down at herself as though she had nearly forgotten what she was wearing before taking a leisurely sip of tea.
“Lord Bellafonte has excellent taste when purchasing clothes out of guilt.”
Aurelian stared into his cup, watching a loose tea leaf drift near the bottom as though it had suddenly become fascinating.
Across the table, Varian laughed.
Evelyne, who rarely ventured far from her books when she had the choice, looked equally entertained.
She rested one hand beneath her chin and studied Echo’s dress with renewed interest.
“Perhaps Lord Bellafonte should accompany me shopping next,” she said.
“There are so many choices in Evelina.”
Aurelian released a weary sigh and placed his cup back onto its saucer with deliberate care.
“I apologized.”
“Several times,” Echo agreed.
She reached for one of the small cakes arranged between them.
“The dresses were more convincing.”
They had gathered at a public tea salon several days after the royal ball.
The room was crowded with young nobles pretending to focus on tea, cakes, and their own conversations.
Sunlight spilled through the tall front windows, catching against polished cups and silver spoons.
Servers moved carefully between tightly arranged tables while the low hum of conversation filled the room.
Aurelian knew better now.
Half of them had been watching his table since he arrived.
Every so often, he would glance toward the room and immediately catch someone turning back toward their companion or abruptly becoming interested in whatever pastry sat before them.
Evelyne smiled over the rim of her cup.
“You did make quite the impression, Lord Aurel.”
Aurelian closed his eyes.
Beside her, Varian leaned comfortably back in his chair, one ankle resting over his knee.
“Lord Aurel has successfully captured the attention of society.”
“Please stop calling me that.”
Echo’s smile was merciless.
“This is not going to disappear simply because you are embarrassed.
People have already asked Duchess Vaelmont about the two of you.”
Aurelian’s eyes opened immediately.
He looked up.
“And?”
“She has not denied anything.”
Varian reached for the sugar bowl.
“Nor has she called it a misunderstanding.”
Aurelian stared at them.
A spoon clinked somewhere behind him.
He was almost certain the conversation at the neighboring table had suddenly become quieter.
“I am not courting her.”
“We know,” Evelyne said.
“That somehow makes it more interesting,” Varian added.
Aurelian looked to Echo for help.
She ignored his pleading expression and took another sip of tea.
“You called the Duchess of Vaelmont Lady Sera in the middle of a royal ballroom.
She called you Lord Aurel in return.
Whatever you intended, society has decided the exchange meant something.”
Aurelian reached for the croissant on his plate and began pulling it apart piece by piece.
“I did not even know who she was.”
Varian frowned, his amusement briefly replaced by genuine disbelief.
“You had never seen her portrait?”
“No.”
“I showed him the royal family,” Echo said.
She brushed a crumb from the edge of her plate.
“I assumed preventing him from accidentally insulting the king was the more urgent concern.”
“That was sensible,” Aurelian said.
Echo looked at him.
“No one asked you.”
He lowered his gaze and returned to his croissant.
A smile tugged at Evelyne’s mouth.
“Besides,” Echo continued, “the duchess does not sit for portraits often.
She spends more time with the royal knights than painters.”
Varian nodded.
“Which makes her attendance at the opening ball unusual by itself.”
Aurelian stopped destroying his pastry long enough to look at him.
“How unusual?”
“Very.”
Echo set down her cup.
The amusement in her expression softened into thoughtfulness.
“I cannot remember the last time she attended the opening of a social season.”
Aurelian leaned back slightly.
His thoughts returned to Seraphina on the veranda, standing beneath the moonlight with one hand resting comfortably near the hilt of her sword.
She had spoken of the ball as though it were an obligation she would gladly have escaped.
That part, at least, made sense.
“Perhaps she has decided to marry again,” Varian suggested.
Echo’s expression sharpened.
“I doubt it.”
Aurelian looked at her.
“Again?”
Echo hesitated.
She glanced briefly toward the nearby tables before lowering her voice.
The others instinctively leaned closer.
“She married once, when she was very young.
Her father was gravely ill, and because Queen Celeste was already promised to the king, he wanted his younger daughter settled before his death.”
Something in Echo’s face soured.
“The man was not worthy of the trust placed in him.”
Aurelian’s fingers stilled around the torn piece of croissant.
“What happened?”
“While Duchess Vaelmont was away dealing with trouble along the border, he gambled away a considerable amount of the family fortune.
He even tried to sell jewelry that had belonged to her mother.”
Aurelian frowned.
The half-torn pastry remained forgotten between his fingers.
The thought bothered him more than he expected.
Not because of the money itself.
Fortunes could be rebuilt.
But taking something entrusted to you—something belonging to a family that had accepted you—and treating it as though it had no meaning beyond its price felt unforgivable.
His fingers tightened slightly around the piece of bread.
“How could he do that?”
Echo gave a small shrug, though her expression remained cool.
“Power and greed make fools of people.”
Aurelian lowered his gaze.
He remembered Seraphina’s calm voice on the veranda.
The quiet way she listened when he spoke of Bellafonte.
Her slight teasing and relaxed persona.
He wondered how much of that calm had been learned.
How often had someone looked at her and seen only the duchess, the commander, the queen’s sister, rather than the woman standing beneath all those titles?
“The man did not know what he had,” he murmured.
Silence followed.
It took Aurelian several seconds to notice.
He slowly looked up.
Varian and Evelyne were exchanging looks.
Echo was smiling.
Aurelian frowned.
“What?”
“Have you already fallen for her, Lord Aurel?”
“Lady Echo, please.”