“No, no.” The duke began to laugh, strangely high-pitched. “It’s not that, Irene. I thought I’d seen a ghost. Good God,” he said again. He turned away from us all, collapsing into a chair. “Armand!” he called. “Have you met her, boy? Have you?”

“I have.”

I don’t think any of us noticed that Armand had entered the chamber. He strode toward us, mannered and composed as his father was not.

“It’s the eyes,” Lord Armand said, looking square at me. “That’s all it is, Reginald.”

“Yes, yes. You’re right. Her eyes. Of course.”

It seemed everyone around us exhaled; the gentry felt it safe to begin to breathe again.

“You have something of the look of my mother,” Armand explained. “It’s quite subtle, really. Hardly noticeable.”

His father gave another laugh, but this one seemed despairing.

Mrs. Westcliffe came to the rescue.

“I hadn’t realized,” she said, beaming. “Well! How interesting! You’ve been given quite a compliment, Eleanore. Her Grace was said to be a true beauty.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed His Grace, sounding leaden. “Yes, she was.”

I hesitated, then curtsied again. “Thank you.”

Chloe drew breath to speak. “Mandy, I—”

“Shall we pick a table?” Armand offered me his arm.

Perfect student.

I took it and smiled. I hoped it wasn’t too insincere.

...

I did not sit with the duke for his tea, nor with any of his other guests. Armand and I had our own smallish table next to the larger one that hosted the rest of the group from Iverson. There was space at ours for His Grace, a vacant chair next to mine; I saw him look at it, look at me, and turn away.

He sat between Chloe and Mrs. Westcliffe. The whole time he neither ate nor drank, only shot me those odd, uneasy glances when I supposed he thought I couldn’t see. Only Chloe glared at me more.

My, yes. This was going so well.

Maids came; food appeared; refreshment was poured. I noticed that tea for the adults evidently meant wine, as well. The chatter in the room began to climb steadily. A few bold souls even told jokes, those indoors gentlemen chortling into their sleeves. Someone—one of the wives—eventually went to the piano. A ripple of ragtime filled the room.

Lord Armand and I sat without conversation; everything I’d practiced to say was for the duke. I picked at the jeweled bits of petits fours on my plate, wishing I was alone and had a thousand more. Armand merely pushed his around with his fork. Neither of us looked at the other.

I had to salvage this somehow. I had to at least make an effort.

I searched through the mental pages of my script. “You have a lovely home.”

His dark lashes lifted; his eyes held mine. “Do you think so?”

“Of course.”

“Then you haven’t seen enough of it.”

He went back to pushing around his food. Chocolate was getting smeared all over the tines of his fork.

“Where is your friend?” I tried. “That boy from the train station?”

“Laurence? Exeter, I imagine. He was only here for a night. Had a pass to go home before shipping out. So Exeter. Or maybe even France by now.” He stabbed viciously at a fresh petit four, impaling it all the way through.

“Oh? He signed up?”

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”

“Not really.”

Armand sighed, clearly put upon. “Yes, Eleanore. He signed up. He signed up and his father allowed it. There. All sorted now?”

“You seem different here,” I said.

He looked up once more, waiting.

I clarified, “Even less charming than usual.”

Oh, well. I’d tried enough.

Armand set aside the plate and fork. He reclined back and crossed his legs, perusing me up and down. “Nice frock. Did you steal it?”

“Not yet. Is your mother dead?”

“Yes. Is yours?”

“I’ve no idea. Is your father mad?”

“Possibly. Is it jolly fun to be an orphan?”

“Absolutely. The most jolly fun ever.”

“Poor little waif, desperate for a proper home.”

“Poor little lordling. It must be sad to act like such a bastard and have no one actually care.”

We regarded each other for a moment in crackling hostility. I was aware, dimly, of a figure suddenly next to us and the spare chair being pulled free.

“Dearest,” said Chloe, settling in with her back to me. In this place, before these people, it was a massive, deliberate slight. “I was just regaling your father with all the woes of Sybil’s wedding in Norfolk. I saw Leslie there, did I tell you? It’s no wonder he hasn’t joined up yet, Kitchener probably wouldn’t take him, anyway. He looks perfectly dreadful, utterly enormous since he inherited the title, and he said it was merely the cut of his coat! Can you believe it? It was Parisian if it was anything, a first-rate merino. He’s fortunate it wasn’t Italian or he’d have looked like a stuffed sausage—”

“Chloe,” said Armand. “Why don’t you have a go at the Steinway?”

“What?” I couldn’t see her face, but I could envision the pout. “But Mrs. Fredericks is already playing. She’s doing an acceptable job, for a squire’s wife.”

“I’d like to hear you sing.”

“Oh. Really?”

He sent her his cold, cold smile. “Really, truly.”

She wavered, but there was no overcoming that smile. “All right, then.”

She left far more reluctantly than she’d arrived.

“You’d better marry her before she reaches eighteen and the spell wears off,” I said.

“Spell?”

“Yes. The one that’s hiding her fangs and pincers from plain sight.”

“I don’t find them especially hidden,” he said mildly.

“Then perhaps you’re a pair.”

His brows lifted. “Now, that’s the cruelest thing you’ve said so far.”

Mrs. Fredericks cleared off, and Chloe took her place before the piano. A beam of sunlight was just beginning its slide into the chamber, capturing her in light. She was a glowing girl with a glowing face, and Joplin at her fingertips.

“Give me time,” I muttered, dropping my gaze to my plate. “I’ll come up with something worse.”

“No doubt.” Armand pulled a flask from his jacket and shook it in front of my nose. “Whisky. Conveniently the same color as tea. Are you game, waif?”

I glanced around, but no one was looking. I lifted my cup, drained it to the dregs, and set it before him.

He was right. It did look like tea. But it tasted like vile burning fire, all the way down my throat.

“Sip it,” he hissed, as I began to cough. His voice lifted over my sputtering. “Dear me, Miss Jones, I do beg your pardon. The tea’s rather hot; I should have mentioned it.”

“Quite all right,” I gasped, as the whisky swirled an evil amber in my teacup.

Chloe’s song grew bouncier, with lyrics about a girl with strawberries in a wagon. Several of the men had begun to cluster near, drawn to her soprano or perchance her bosom. Two were vying to turn the pages of her music. She had to crane her head to keep Armand in view.

He sent her another smile from his chair, lifting his cup in salute.

“I’m going to kiss you, Eleanore,” he said quietly, still looking at her. “Not now. Later.” His eyes cut back to mine. “I thought it fair to tell you first.”

I stilled. “If you think you can do so without me biting your lip, feel free to try.”

His gaze shone wicked blue. “I don’t mind if you bite.”

“Biting your lip off, I should have said.”

“Ah. Let’s see how it goes, shall we?”

I felt flushed. I felt scorching hot in Sophia’s cool floaty dress, and Jesse’s circlet of roses was a sudden heaviness against my collarbone I’d only just noticed. My stomach burned, my eyes itched. I wanted to leave but knew I couldn’t. I wanted to vomit and knew I couldn’t do that, either.

The duke was still sneaking glances at me and his son was downing his second cup of spirits without even blinking, and then Chloe’s song ended and I heard, with a sinking sense of resignation, Mrs. Westcliffe addressing the duke.

“… thought we might have Miss Jones jump to the fore. It happens that she’s a fairly gifted pianist, according to Vachon. A natural talent.”

“Indeed,” said His Grace.

Mrs. Westcliffe twisted to find me. “Miss Jones?”

I was on my feet. I was moving dutifully—because I was the perfect charity student, one who did not drink or swear or bite—to the grand piano, and the bench was a hard resistance against my thighs, and the keys shone in the sun like the rest of the room, dizzyingly bright and dark, the same pattern repeated over and over, and I knew that if I did not look away I would become lost in it, perhaps just as lost as the black-and-white duke.

The sunbeam shone directly along my arms. It highlighted the silk sleeves of the dress and the scars circling my wrists, paler rings of flesh usually concealed by cuffs.

My audience had gone obediently silent. Beyond the occasional rustle of cloth against the velvet chairs, the scrape of leather soles against marble, I heard nothing.

No stone song. No metal.

There had to be something. The wives wore wedding bands, earrings, bracelets. There was a mass of actual gold pinned to my bodice. There had to be some music I could steal. But for the first time in forever, I heard nothing. Even the fiend inside me had nothing to say.

“When you’re ready, Miss Jones,” Mrs. Westcliffe said.

I brought a hand to my forehead, feeling the whisky heat rolling off my skin. I searched up and around and at last connected with the eyes of Reginald, Duke of Idylling. He rose awkwardly to his feet, the untouched napkin on his lap sliding to the floor. He looked as terrible as I felt.