“When the Duke is happy, everyone gets to exhale,” Mother said before taking a sip of her wine. “Your husband is certainly providing some goodentertainment tonight.”
A servant rolled out another small barrel and pried the top off with an iron bar. The crowd shouted out more wagers on how quickly Riyan could drain thesecond barrel.
I took the goblet out of Mother’s hand and took a drink myself. “The last thing I want tonight is to be part of any entertainment. I am trying toblend in.”
Mother laughed and took her wine back from me. “Being a grump is not the way to blend in with this crowd. Also, be careful with that wine. You cannot handle as much as you think you can and you do not want the drunkenness to hit you all at once. Wine does make the lips loose,after all.”
Riyan gasped as he finished the second barrel and the crowd cheered. I rolled my eyes. A third barrel was on the way when Duke Hyton laughed and held uphis hands.
“Hold on!” Duke Hyton said to the crowd. “I think I need to actually start this damn ball before we thoroughly inebriatethe boy.”
Duke Hyton staggered to the back wall of the ballroom and bounded up on the small dais that held two thrones. Duchess Hyton sat on her throne in her regal splendor but scowling like her husband really was punishing her. Duke Hyton sat on his throne and barked at a servant to go fetchhis daughter.
As the servant ran off, I noticed an arc of dark red marks on Mother’s shoulder peeking out from underneath her hair. “Mother, whatis that?”
Mother did not look at me, but instead kept her eyes on the mingling crowd and smiled. “Oh, Andie likes to have fun. He is just punishing your father for his…outburst with a little humiliation. Thatis all.”
I looked away from her body as my stomach turned. The Duke’s plan to punish Father for high treason was to bite his Baroness? That could not be enough, but…she wassurely not…
“You are not…” I looked around to see if anyone would overhear and lowered my voice to a whisper. “…you are notsleeping withDuke Hytonare you?”
“Oh, yes,” Mother said nonchalantly. “I havefor years.”
I blinked, thinking I may have misheard, but Mother’s refusal to look me in the eye confirmedher affair.
My hand flew to my mouth in shock, but Mother’s soft, unbothered smile made me crunch my hand into a fist. Howcould she?
“Does Father know?”I hissed.
“Of course he does,” Mother answered. “He does not like it, but he agrees that I need to be the Duke’s mistress. Anders sends Ravenwood money to keep the markets stocked with food, among other favors. He likes to tell people he supports us because he is generous, but I can say from experience that he is anythingbutgenerous.”
I thought I was going to throw up. Mother had pushed me to marry Derrick since I was a toddler, but she was crawling into bed with his father? The same man who sent Erik and Endre to die? She betrayed Father over and over just forsome food?
“How could you?” I cried. “You…youare married!”
Mother pointed to the crowd. “So are allof them.”
I looked out into the ballroom. I did not know the other nobility very well, but I still noticed mismatched House colors flirting with one another. A man in a purple cape, who had to be Baron Elvar, grabbed the backside of a man in Amberfield yellow. A Meadowshyre woman in pink kissed a man in Thornebow grey. A Mydina man in light green snuck out of the ballroom with another man in Pebblebrooke sky blue. I even spotted Brietta’s parents in the arms ofother people.
Mother leaned close and kept her voice low. “When everyone has a magical enchantment in their blood that keeps you free from disease and ensures you only have children with your spouse, no one has consequences for sleeping around. Well, except for the lack of heirs since all the men are too busy sticking their peckers into everything but the person theybonded to.”
I watched a light green cape tangle with a yellow dress. “The Ashmore matrons all told us our hearts and souls were bound to our husbands. Do people not get hurt fromall this?”
Mother laughed. “The matrons lie, marriage in Lycaster is just for heir-making. Welcome to the adult world, Serafina. Nohappily-ever-afters here.”
She sounded just like Duchess Hyton. I was never a romantic person, but watching the throngs of the crowd twist up in each other opened up a pit in my chest. We stayed chaste for twenty-one years for the promise of a special entwining of souls once we were married…and that was alla lie?
I tried to swallow but my throat was too dry. Almost as if she could read my mind, Mother handed me her goblet and I tookanother sip.
“Do not worry about Freya either,” Mother said. “Eight babies in nine years destroyed her body to the point she can never be intimate with a man again, not that she would want to. She is quite grateful someone else can…handleher husbandfor her.”
My sip of wine crawled down my shaking throat as I pictured my mother “handling” Duke Hyton. I shoved the thought away, but a sickening realization took its place—if the Duke still had not decided on a punishment for Father’s treason, his threat to Derrick could still be in consideration.
The hair on my exposed arms stood up as I pictured myself in a skin-tight blue dress with Duke Hyton’s liquor-soaked breath on my ear. His hand pushed on the small of my back as he bent me over in the middle of the ballroom like hehad said…
I closed my mouth to keep my wine from coming back up when an announcement boomed throughoutthe ballroom.
“Announcing newlyweds Sir Grigory andAnnalisa Thornebow!”
