Footsteps tapped outside the door and I straightened up. A maid entered and took a quick glance of the blood and feathers. Even though it looked like she had just caught me in the aftermath of slaughtering a chicken, the maid sweetly told me Lady Hyton requestedmy presence.
Good, a distraction—even if itwas Annalisa.
I weakly followed the maid until we reached what had to be the private chambers of the royal family. The maid opened an opulently carved and painted wooden door and I stepped intothe chamber.
Inside, I found auburn waves instead of blonde curls. Annalisa was no longer Lady Hyton—Brietta held the title instead. Brietta sat on a lounger near a massive wooden bed that could belong to no one else but Derrick. The icy fear lingering in my veins melted into thornsof envy.
Brietta gestured to a spot on the lounger next to her. “I thought we should talk,really talk.”
I joined her on the seat. Any words I wanted to say tasted sour, so I kept mymouth shut.
Brietta folded her hands in her lap. “I know about the plan. I agreed to annul mymarriage, Sera.”
The millstone I had carried around in my stomach since midnight lifted. “You did?”
Brietta nodded. “Annalisa was right, I do not belong here. I certainly do not wish to be the Duchess, not after everything we heard this morning! If that means I go back to Elvar and live with my brothers for the rest of my life, sobe it.”
I could not believe Brietta was willingly turning down the crown, but I was not going to argue her way out of it. The annulment was myonly salvation.
Brietta shook her head slightly as she stared at the floor. “I…I cannot do it. I cannot be drunk just to get through the day. Or married to someone who does not love me. I cannot end uplike Freya.”
The harsh words in the carriage screamed in the back of my mind. I swallowed. “Derrick will never turn into his father. He would never…treat a woman the way hisfather does.”
“He is not ugly like his father either,” Brietta said witha smirk.
Jealousy flared in my chest again, but Brietta laughed and held my hand. “It is just the magic of the blood bond, Sera! I felt nothing for him at the Suitors’ Ball, but now I feel, well,something.Fraleigh did say the spell would havean effect…”
I looked up at her and doubt laced my words. “Then why do I feel nothingfor Riyan?”
“Probably because you are terrified of him!” Brietta said with a hint of pity in her voice. “As any of us would be if we were inyour position.”
I almost told her that my fate was almost hers. Making Brietta feel even more guilty about the situation would have made nothing better for me, though, so Ikept quiet.
“Regardless of whatever I feel for Derrick,” Brietta said as she took my other hand in hers, “I am loyal to you. You rescued me so many times over the years. I will gladly annul my marriage to the Duke’s heir if it means you get to be withyour love.”
I bit my tongue. It was better for me, better foreveryone,for Brietta to believe that I was really in love with Derrick. The glass house of my fabricated romance was my only shelter amongst the warring Hyton bulls and Bloodstone bears. Brietta agreeing to sacrifice her marriage for the cause of true love could keep me from being a bloodstain on the palace floor or a pile of broken bones underneatha half-giant.
I leaned into Brietta’s shoulder as she wrapped her arms around me. I could not look her in the eye as I made the lie as wistful as possible. “Thank you for making my dreams come true, Brie. I finally get to be with the one mysoul loves.”
Brietta sighed. “Of course, Sera. And do not worry, he slept on this couch last night. He has not touchedme once.”
Brietta laughed but I kept my smile quiet. Brietta was far too kind for the House of Hyton. Derrick and I at least gave her the mercy of an escape on the next full moon so she would never have to see the bulls go head-to-head likeI did.
I just hoped that whatever Duke Hyton had planned after his fight with Derrick, he kept Brietta outof it.
Duke Hyton had decided to throw a ball celebrating his daughter’s defloweringafter all.
As disgusting as it was, at least he found a way to occupy himself without involving me or Derrick. Besides, a ball would provide a merry distraction from my father’s high treason charges. Hopefully the Duke’s wrath toward my father was quieting into embers that a good party wouldstomp out.
After we received the message that our attendance at Annalisa’s ball was not optional, Brietta went to meet with Duchess Hyton, leaving me to getready alone.
Since my Presentation dress was ruined and whisked away somewhere unknown, I had to find another dress fit for a ball. The days after Selection Night were full of parties since all the Barons were together, so Mother had sent multiple dresses to the palacefor me.
The maids laid out all my dresses across the couches in Duchess Hyton’s dressing room. I frowned as I realized my ambitious parents had sent multiple Hyton Blue dresses andfew others.
House colors were like a uniform in Hyton—noblemen wore their colors to show where they hailed from and noblewomen wore their colors to show who they belonged to. Showing up to Annalisa’s ball in the House of Hyton color might as well tip off the entire Dukedom about my plan to eventually marry Derrick—or worse brand me as the property of Duke Hyton. I tried not to gag at the thought and picked through the dresses, looking for anything that might evenresemble red.
No crimson dresses since no one knew someone from the House of Bloodstone was a suitor, but I did find a deep wine-colored dress that could work. I had spent last summer stitching yellow and white floral filigrees along the short sleeves and all over the bodice—elevating the day-dress into something elegant enough fora Duchess.
