She chuckled. “Oh, I think there might be.” And as they danced, Tiffany ran her eye over the ladies present. Only Farah had not returned to the ballroom yet. Tiffany turned her attention back to Rockwell. “I’ll work out who it is. I’m so happy. I want everyone to find what I have found with Wolf.”
*
Farah barely hadtime to catch her breath after leaving Rockwell’s side. She had to be quick if her plan was to be instigated tonight. She slipped through the crowd as usual, pretty much unnoticed, until just her damnable luck a familiar voice cut through the ballroom’s chatter like a blade.
“Sister.” He’d found her as he always did. When out in society, he watched her like a hawk in case she disgraced the Blackstone name. Her brother didn’t know her at all. She was usually scared of her shadow.
But not tonight. She giggled inside because for once, she would get one up on her brother. Sometimes confrontation produced worse results than stealth.
She turned, her stomach immediately tightening at the sight of her handsome, but overbearing brother approaching, his imposing figure drawing every eye in their vicinity. The Duke of Blackstone moved through the crowd like a force of nature—shoulders squared, chin raised, his very presence demanding deference from all around him. Ladies curtsied as he passed, gentlemen bowed, and conversations died mid-sentence before resuming in hushed, reverent tones.
But it wasn’t just Stone himself that commanded attention tonight. Two exquisite women flanked him, their hands delicately placed upon his arms as if he were some prized stallion they’d captured. Lady Pemberton, a stunning widow with auburn curls and knowing green eyes, simpered up at himfrom his left, while Miss Ashworth, this season’s diamond with her porcelain complexion and golden ringlets, gazed at him with barely concealed adoration from his right.
“Your Grace,” Farah managed, offering a curtsy that felt wooden under the weight of those penetrating dark eyes—eyes that missed nothing and forgave even less.
Stone’s gaze swept over her, assessing, cataloguing, no doubt, noting every detail from her slightly mussed hair to the faint flush still lingering on her cheeks from her brief conversation with Rockwell. Heat crept up her neck as she felt herself shrinking under that intense scrutiny, her confidence evaporating like morning mist. How at only eight and twenty had her brother learned to intimidate, when she could barely look people in the eye.
“You look flushed, Farah. I trust you haven’t been exerting yourself unduly?” His voice carried that particular tone she knew so well—the one that suggested he already knew the answer and was merely testing whether she would lie to him.
“Not at all, Stone. I was simply—”
“Stone, darling,” Lady Pemberton interrupted with a breathy laugh, her fingers tightening possessively on his arm. “You didn’t tell me your sister was such a lovely little thing. So delicate, so… fragile.” The way she said “fragile” made it sound like a flaw rather than a compliment.
Miss Ashworth tittered in agreement. “Indeed, Your Grace. She’s quite the opposite of you, isn’t she? So small and retiring. How sweetly innocent she appears.”
Farah felt her cheeks burn as the two women continued their assessment of her as if she were a piece of porcelain they were considering purchasing. Meanwhile, Stone basked in their attention, his chest puffing slightly with masculine pride at having secured the evening’s two most sought-after beauties.
This was how it always was. Stone commanded the room effortlessly, drew admirers like honey drew flies, while she faded into the background—the duke’s shy, unremarkable sister who could barely string two words together in company. Even now, as several other gentlemen hovered nearby hoping for an introduction to his companions, Stone remained the undisputed center of attention.
“Perhaps you should retire early this evening,” Stone continued, his dark eyes boring into hers. “You look rather overwhelmed by the festivities.”
Overwhelmed by you, more like, she thought rebelliously, though she would never dare voice such insolence aloud. Instead, she found herself nodding meekly, staying in character so she didn’t raise his suspicions.
“Oh, but surely the evening is still young!” Lady Pemberton protested, though her gaze never left Stone’s profile. “Besides, I was hoping Your Grace might honor me with another dance. You move with such…authority on the dance floor.”
As the two women continued to vie for Stone’s attention with increasingly bold compliments, Farah felt the familiar suffocating sensation that always accompanied these public displays of her brother’s magnetism. She was invisible next to him, insignificant, just another piece of furniture in his perfectly ordered life.
Soon nobody would be able to ignore her, and for once, her fear fled on the wings of exhilaration. She would make her life her own and her brother wouldn’t be able to stop her.
The image of herself in Blackstone’s study, speaking her mind about Lord Franklin, with her brother overpowering every concern she’d raised, flashed through her memory. For just a moment, she’d felt like a real person with real opinions—not just an extension of her brother’s will. But as usual, he didn’t listen.
“Actually,” she said quietly, surprised by the firmness in her voice, “I believe I’ll stay a bit longer. I promised Lady Tiffany I would help her until the last guest departs.”
Stone’s eyebrows rose a fraction—the only sign of his surprise at her gentle defiance. “Did you indeed?”
The two women looked between them with barely concealed curiosity, sensing undercurrents they couldn’t quite grasp. Lady Pemberton’s grip on Stone’s arm tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Well then,” Stone said after a moment that stretched like eternity, “I suppose duty must come first.” His tone suggested this was merely a temporary reprieve, not a true victory.
As he turned to escort his admirers toward the card room, Farah caught his parting words: “We shall speak tomorrow, sister. There are matters we must finalize.”
He was still pushing her at Lord Franklin. The promise—or was it a threat?—sent a chill down her spine. She would not marry that man. Her brother would have to drag her kicking and screaming down the aisle and even Blackstone would balk at that.
For the first time in her life, instead of merely dreading their inevitable conversation, she found herself thinking:Let him try to intimidate me. I’m beginning to remember what it feels like to have a spine.She had a plan and a good one.
Soon,whenher plan worked, she thought with sudden fierce determination, she’d be free of all this. Free to make her own choices, free to speak her own mind, free to love whom she chose. One day, she wouldn’t need his permission to simply exist.
The realization both terrified and exhilarated her. Change was coming—she could feel it in her bones like the approach of a storm. And for the first time in her life, she found herself looking forward to the tempest rather than cowering from it.
