Once the last of the guests had filtered in, he knew it was time. Stepping away from the window, he positioned himself at the room’s center, swept his gaze over the gathered faces, and drew a steadying breath.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming.”
A pleased murmur rippled through the crowd. Against his better judgment, his eyes found Kitty’s—her emerald gaze glinting in the candlelight. A shiver raced up his spine, and he quickly looked away. Staring at her in moments like this was nothing short of disastrous.
“I would like to announce,” he continued, fingers tapping an absent rhythm against his thigh, “that we will be staging a performance.The Merchant of Venice.”
The room erupted into delighted chatter, guests exchanging eager whispers.
Cynthia was already chattering about which roles she might best embody, laughing behind her gloved hand. “But of course, Portia must be clever and beautiful and charming.”
“A rare combination,” Kitty murmured under her breath. Her tone was dry, not unkind, but he did not smile. He could not. Not yet.
“I think Cynthia should be Portia,” Lady Mulberry said loudly. “She’s the natural choice.”
Norman looked over at her. He had started to regret inviting his grandmother to his engagement party. She was a madwoman.
“Portia has a great deal of dialogue. It would require someone with—” Norman began to say, but she cut him off sharply.
“Talent? She’s plenty talented,” Lady Mulberry cut in, placing a possessive hand on Cynthia’s arm. “Besides, everyone wants to see her in the lead.”
He could feel the nerves prickling the back of his neck.
“It’s not a matter of popularity,” Norman said quietly. “It’s about coherence. Balance of the cast.”
“Then it’s settled,” Lady Mulberry said, smiling at the room as though he had won a prize.
The implication hung in the air, sticky and uncomfortable. Norman felt every pair of eyes turn his way.
He wanted to protest. He wanted to say no, that the role would be better served by someone more expressive, someone less... evil. But more than that, he wanted to stand against Lady Mulberry for reasons he could not, or would not, articulate.
He looked at Kitty, once. Her expression was unreadable. Then she looked away.
“Nothing is settled” Norman said at last, his voice as stoic as he could muster. “Kitty will play Portia.”
There was a pause. Even Lady Mulberry offered no objection. Cynthia, finally aware of the silence that followed Norman’s declaration, gave a sheepish laugh and slinked to the side.
Norman’s eyes sought Kitty’s.
“Kitty?”Norman’s voice carried across the murmuring crowd, uncharacteristically uncertain as her stillness stretched between them. The polished floorboards creaked under his shifting weight.“Would you do me the honor of joining me?”
His outstretched hand hovered in the air, the invitation hanging as delicately as the chandelier’s crystals above them.
Kitty finally walked up to him and took the page from his hand with quiet composure. Her fingers brushed his briefly—an accident, he told himself.
She stood opposite him, spine straight, eyes calm. Something settled in the room. A hush. As though the very air shifted to accommodate the weight of something more honest.
She inhaled. And began.
“I could teach you how to choose right,” she said, her voice low and trembling with control, “but then I am forsworn… so will I never be… so may you miss me…”
Norman didn’t breathe. She was magnificent.
Kitty continued, her gaze flickering to his face. “But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin, that I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes…”
Norman stepped forward.
“They have o’erlook’d me and divided me,” she went on, quieter now. “One half of me is yours, the other half yours—mine own, I would say—but if mine, then yours, and so all yours.”
