He swallowed. His hand dropped.
“I made that vow toyou.”
His gaze moved slowly across each painted face. His brother. His father. His mother.
And then, more quietly now, barely louder than the fire’s hiss, he continued, “But if I am ever to deserve this title… if I am ever to be what you believed I could be…”
A pause. His jaw tightened.
“Then I must break it.”
Chapter Three
Evelyn was smiling. No, she wassmirkingwith the quiet confidence of a woman who had just won a private war. She wasn’t going to marry. Not Lord Wimberly, not anyone. And she had never felt freer.
She was enjoying herself. The silk of her gown whispered against the polished floor as she shifted her weight, the music rising in a swirl of violins and laughter. Candlelight glittered off the chandelier overhead, casting warm reflections into the champagne flutes and onto the sequins stitched into her sleeves.
She stood near the punch table, fanning herself with more flair than heat, surrounded by the familiar hum of her friends, but before she could even reach for her glass, a gentleman approached her. Mr. Bartlesworth or maybe Barneswell, she could never remember which.
“Miss Ellory,” the aforementioned gentleman said in a hushed tone of voice, “would you honor me with this next dance?”
Evelyn’s smile faltered. Not again.
Her mind flicked through possible excuses: twisted ankle, faint headache, sudden desire to study scripture.
Truly any of them would do, but she was too slow because that was the moment the music wavered. It did not stop completely, however. It merely faltered, as if the violinist’s bow had trembled mid-note.
A hush swept the ballroom like a cold breeze sneaking through the drapes.
Fans slowed.
Conversations died on painted lips.
The soft rustle of skirts and the clink of glasses stilled.
“What is going on?”
Evelyn turned, confused, following the line of every widened eye and whispered gasp.
A man stood in the entryway. But evidently, not just any man.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in the kind of stark black that no gentleman dared wear to a ball. His coat was sleek, severe even. There was something ancient in his bearing,something that pulled the air around him taut. The very gold on the chandeliers seemed to dim beside the sheer, wintry gravity of his presence.
Evelyn’s fan stilled at the sight of him. She had never seen him before. Surely, she would have remembered. Every instinct in her body, the ones buried deep, passed down through generations of women who had survived, screamed at her to flee. To hide. To vanish.
And then he looked at her. His eyes were the color of a storm-torn sea and were now locked on hers. Everything in her went very still.
The gentleman beside her cleared his throat awkwardly. “I—Miss Ellory, you haven’t yet answered?—”
The stranger’s eyes, still locked on hers, narrowed before he moved.
He crossed the room without hurry but with a purpose that parted crowds like a knife through silk. No announcement had been made, but everyone seemed to know precisely who he was. Nobility rolled off him like smoke, thick, dark, and impossible to ignore.
Shockingly, he stopped directly before her. Evelyn’s heart thudded against her ribs.
“Leave,” the man said to Mr. Bartlesworth—or Barneswell—in a tone that did not rise but brooked no argument.
The poor young man stammered a confused, “Y-yes, of course,” and vanished into the crowd.
