He arrived like a bad thought come to life.
By the time the guest was announced, the house smelled of cut roses and starch, as if the staff tried to bleach away the truth with floral perfume. I smoothed my palms over my skirt until my fingers went numb. Every mirror on the corridor reflected a pale face I didn't recognize — the same eyes, the same mouth, only harder now.
He arrived in a town car that looked too shiny for the drizzle. They brought him straight into the east wing like a royal guest. I was told to appear in the drawing room, to show gratitude and grace, like a painted animal at a show. Father had that look again—flat, rehearsed—when he introduced me.
"Aria, meet Edward Sterling," he said. "A fine man. A pillar."
If pillars could leer, he was one.
Edward was the kind of man whose looks lived in the shadow of his money. He had a face that would have been handsome in another life; instead it looked worn, like a painting left too long in the sun.
A thick mouth, small expectant eyes that never quite met yours, a nose with a bump that gave his profile a permanent sneer.
His hair was thin where it mattered; his hands were large and insistently warm when he offered them.
He didn't smile so much as calculate.
When his gaze rested on me, something viscous slid across the room — appetite masquerading as polite interest.
He moved as if he'd been given permission to reach for what he wanted and expected the world to hand it over.
We sat.
He talked of yachts and properties in idle sentences.
He spoke of plans for paintings to hang in our home, of charities where he would "honor" my name.
I answered because that's what I'd been taught to do: a soft consonant, a measured laugh, no opinions. His voice licked at my ear, too close when he congratulated me on the dress they'd chosen for the fittings.
He reached a hand — intentionally slow, deliberately close — and rested it on the chair's arm. It hovered near my thigh as if mapping the line he wanted to cross.
I felt the room tighten like a fist around my throat. Damon sat, as he always did, a slow shadow at the edge of the light.
He watched the man with an expression I hadn't seen before: a cold, tight admiration that had nothing to do with Edward and everything to do with the way he kept his teeth from sinking in.
Edward's fingers grazed the very edge of my knee. It was casual enough for witnesses, purposeful enough for me.
My skin pulsed like a second heartbeat. I could see the way his lips parted when he imagined things that no gentleman should imagine.
I could see the faint tremor in his left hand; at first I thought it was nervousness. Later, I'd remember it differently.
"Aria," he murmured, leaning forward, "you're more beautiful than I'd been told."
The words were bile and silk. I forced a smile that tasted like rust.
Damon's jaw tightened so visibly my hands iced over.
He didn't move. His restraint seemed to stretch like a taut wire. I watched him like a woman watching a storm gather across a dark sea — knowing what was coming felt both inevitable and helpless.
When Edward's hand finally brushed the hem of my skirt with the pretense of adjustment, the skin along my spine lit with ice.
I had a reflex to jump, to scream, to show him that I was not a thing to be commanded. I did none of those things. Instead, I pretended not to notice, pretending like a practiced ghost.
Later, in the quiet of my rooms, all the small humiliations collected and burned like hot coal.
I fell onto the chaise and everything blurred until only one shape remained in sharp focus: Damon, outside the drawing room, watching, a man who could turn the world over for me.
That night Edward left our house to return to his own townhouse uptown. He laughed with Father over brandy and certain men's gossip, but I watched him go, the way a predator departs after marking territory.
Damon watched him go too, shoulders coiled, expression unreadable.
Somewhere past midnight, I slept fitfully and dreamed of hands. When morning came, the house moved slower, as though the servants had too many things on their minds.
I read the news with a tremor.
It was late afternoon when the first whisper reached me: Edward Harrington had been taken ill in his private home. Nothing too serious at first, they said — perhaps food poisoning, perhaps a bout of flu.
Father went still, his face folding into something private. Damon left the room as if pulled by a string.
Two hours later the gossip sharpened.
We waited, hoping for more.