Sophia saw him, too, and scrubbed her eyes furiously. “Father, tell Lady Lavinia she can’t leave us.”
Tristan entered, and the tension in his frame was almost palpable. He paused at the edge of the rug, as if the distance between them were a moat he did not wish to cross.
“Lady Lavinia has duties elsewhere, Sophia,” he said.
“No, she doesn’t,” Sophia snapped, tears brimming again. “No one else could ever—” Her voice failed, and she clamped her mouth shut, ashamed of the outburst.
Lavinia set Sophia gently aside and stood, smoothing her dress and composing herself. “It is all right, Sophia. There is nothing more to say.”
Tristan nodded, but did not move or speak for a long moment.
At last, in a voice so careful it was almost gentle, he said, “Sophia, would you take Whisper to the kitchen? I believe Cook has some cream for him.”
Sophia bit her lip, then bent and gathered the kitten, holding him to her chest. She lingered for a second, then ran to Lavinia and wrapped her arms around her waist in a desperate squeeze.
“Adieu,” she whispered.
“Not adieu,” Lavinia replied. “Never adieu.”
Sophia nodded, then ran from the room, clutching Whisper like a lifeline.
The silence that fell was nearly intolerable. Lavinia tried to meet Tristan’s gaze, but the force of his attention made it impossible. She turned to gather her things. When she straightened, Tristan was still there with his hands folded behind his back.
He said nothing.
Lavinia took a step toward the door. “You must tell her that she is the best part of you.”
He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them, the blue of his gaze so intense that it nearly undid her.
“I am sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “It has nothing to do with you.”
He took a step closer to her. “I hope,” he said, and his voice was low and rough, “that I will see you again.”
Lavinia felt the words like a wound. She wanted to say,And I, you. She wanted to say,Please, do not let me go.But she knew what the cost would be, and she could not pay it.
So, she gathered herself, falling back on the words that had served her before. “You see me now, but you won’t tomorrow. And that’s how it has to be.”
CHAPTER 32
Tristan stood frozen as Lavinia’s words flooded his mind. He was not sure if he was capable of movement, not after what had just transpired.
You see me now, but you won't tomorrow.
For a long, howling moment, the world flattened, shuddered, and rebuilt itself in a way that he could not recognize. He could not breathe. The mystery woman from the Scarfield masque. The waltz that had burned through him. The secret he had kept, convinced he would never know who she was.
He staggered backward, gripping the edge of a table for support. It was Lavinia. It had been Lavinia all along.
He tried to recall every detail from that night: the feel of her in his arms, the perfume at her neck, the cool intelligence behind her every riposte. He had spent months thinking of the maskedstranger as a ghost, a phantasm conjured by too much brandy and too little sleep.
But no, she had been here, beneath his nose, every day since, and he had failed to see it. Worse, he had driven her into the arms of a man like Dawnford.
Tristan ran out to the hall, but she was already gone, and her hack had pulled away. How long had he been standing in shock for?
His chest tightened. The world was a narrowing tunnel, and all he could see was that last look she gave him. He marched to his study and crossed to his desk. His hands were shaking, and he nearly dropped the key twice before he managed to turn it in the drawer. The lock resisted, as if even the desk was loath to confront what lay within. When it finally gave, he yanked it open so hard the wood nearly splintered.
Inside was the amethyst pendant. He plucked it out and glimmered in the half-light, dull yet beautiful, the flaw through the center glinting like a wound.
