The new cook was French.
Overnight, Beatrix’s life had changed.
That fateful night in Deverill’s hotel suite, she’d discovered he lived like a king. But what she couldn’t have known was that, after one shook hands with him, one lived like a princess.
Part of her longed to give in to the magic of it.
But a central problem lay with magic.
It only lasted so long.
Eventually, the spell broke—and one was flung back into stark reality.
No.
She wouldn’t—couldn’t—accept the magic as reality.
The return to earth would be too devastating.
“The style of dress quite suits you, Lady Beatrix.”
Lady Neale held a mean, little glint in her eye that had Beatrix bracing for the backside of the compliment.
“You don’t look a year over seven and twenty.”
Beatrix swallowed back a sudden chirrup of laughter.
She’d just been insulted directly to her face, all but called a spinster outright. Except the barb glanced away. Society’s arrows had long stopped finding their mark.
Though sorely tempted, she refrained from returning Lady Neale’s veiled insult. She wouldn’t make the observation that one had to squint very hard to see the faint sheen of green that yet lingered in her hair.
So, she nodded and began ambling through the room in the hope that movement would discourage questions about her modiste.
How very conspicuous she felt.
The feeling crawled across her skin and prickled the fine hairs to a stand. She didn’t care for the sensation.
Deverill, however, did.
She understood that.
He knew he drew eyes and didn’t shy away from them.
Which was how she knew he hadn’t yet arrived.
Though a vibrant affair, the mingling hour before the music began wasn’t yet enlivened with the specific energy Deverill produced in any room he entered.
Again, she found her mind running through his stated reasons for the arrangement they would set in motion tonight—business interests…position in society…future progeny.
All very good reasons.
All very solid reasons.
All very believable reasons for a man on the rise.
Yet there was something those reasons weren’t—the deeper reason.
His true reason.
