“…Leon?”
Anthony looked up.
Kasha turned around slowly.
Leon was standing there, raking sweat-damp platinum hair back from his face with one irritated hand. He had clearly come straight from a training session — clothes still dusty with the marks of a long afternoon in the training ground, his face drawn and weathered from the sun.
Seen in full daylight, he looked sharper-edged and more tired than usual.
And his expression, colder than it typically was, moved from Kasha to Anthony and back again with a quality that was difficult to read.
His gaze came to rest on the bloodstained handkerchief.
“What happened?”
“Leon.”
“I asked what’s going on.”
Sunlight scattered in his violet eyes as he looked between them with an intensity that was distinctly unsettling.
“‘Going on.’ What kind of thing is that to say, Leon?”
Anthony stepped forward, visibly nettled.
The two brothers faced each other for a moment. Anthony was tall, but standing before Leon — who had a striking height advantage and was built to match — he looked almost boyish by comparison.
Leon heard the rebuke and blinked slowly, as if steadying himself.
He was not typically like this in front of his siblings. He couldn’t say why the sight of Kasha and Anthony standing together had unsettled him so quickly — particularly given that he had immediately registered Kasha’s injury.
He looked at Anthony a moment longer, then turned his head away as if evading something.
“…Never mind. Go on inside.”
“Leon—”
“As for you—”
The cool weight of his gaze shifted to Kasha.
“Is this what you do? Always?”
“…Pardon?”
“I’m fairly certain I told you to wait until I sent word.”
His violet eyes — the same color as the lavender swaying in the breeze just ahead of them — leveled a quiet reproach at her. Kasha looked back steadily.
“Until when?”
“What?”
“The situation we’re both in is urgent. Careful consideration is one thing — but take too long, and you may lose everything you’re trying to protect.”
At her calm assessment, Leon said nothing for a moment. Something passed through his eyes — frustration, or displeasure, or something harder to name.
Then the wind shifted.
The loosely tied handkerchief slipped, tumbled from her hand, and settled in a patch of grass a step away.
The white cloth spread over the grass, the scattered red spots forming something almost like a pattern of flowers.
Anthony, who had been watching in silence, moved to retrieve it. Leon’s hand got there first.
“I’ll do it.”
“…….”
And then Leon lifted Kasha’s bloodied hand with a slow, deliberate movement.
She looked up at him through those clear pink eyes without resistance. The coolness of her skin bled through his gloves and settled into his fingertips.
The density of the air between them seemed to change.
Not meeting her eyes, Leon wrapped the handkerchief quickly. He didn’t understand why his hands felt unsteady, and tried to ignore the question.
When the knot was tied and he released her hand —
“That’s enough. Go inside now.”
His voice came out slightly rough. She offered him a very small smile.
“Thank you.”
It was such an unremarkable face — typically so still, so contained — and the smile appeared on it without warning. Leon found he couldn’t look away.
A moment of quiet stretched. The three of them might as well have not existed.
Leon looked uncertain about what expression to put on his face, and something had gone slightly pink at the tips of his ears.
Anthony watched the two of them, and something settled deep behind his eyes — something careful and shadowed. But they were too absorbed in each other to notice.
⁂
“So? A success, wouldn’t you say?”
Margaret leaned over and whispered with barely contained pride.
Kasha nodded emphatically.
She was right. The tea party was a resounding triumph.
Even the weather had cooperated perfectly.
Under an early summer sky, the inner courtyard of the Aranias residence looked as though it had been arranged by someone with an eye for beauty. The white fountain threw clear arcs of water into the air, cooling the space around it with a gentle mist.
The outdoor tables, positioned for the best view of the garden, were draped in pale sky-blue cloth and decorated with arrangements of blue flowers that made the whole setting feel like a breath of cool air.
Margaret’s carefully chosen menu had conquered every small guest in attendance.
Miniature sandwiches scaled precisely to children’s appetites. A full assortment of mini cupcakes — chocolate, cheese, blueberry. Tarts filled with green grape that looked refreshing just to look at.
Above all, the idea that had delighted the children most: the invitation to bring a beloved doll along and seat it in the empty chair beside them, as a party guest in its own right. Small cups and dishes had been set out for the dolls specifically, so that the tea party and imaginative play could be enjoyed at once.
“Eve, your doll is so pretty!”
“Thank you. Yours is lovely too, Juliana.”
“This party is literally perfect.”
“I know, Eve! You have to invite me again next time. Promise?”
Surrounded by her friends, Eve looked as though she were living inside a dream she hadn’t expected to have. The sight of her laughing with rosy cheeks — even the cut hand had been worth it for this.
Eve caught Kasha’s eye from across the courtyard and waved with both arms, beaming.
Kasha waved back and turned to Margaret.
“Margaret — you’re a genius.”
“Hardly.”
She said it dismissively, but her pleasure was obvious.
“No, truly. Look at those faces.”
In the direction Kasha indicated, the noblewomen who had accompanied their daughters to the party were seated at their own table, impeccably dressed and wearing expressions that were not entirely pleasant.
Particularly the Baroness Penileton — the one whose daughter had hosted the previous party — looked as if she had been served something sour.
“I imagine they were hoping a motherless Grand Duke’s daughter would be outshone by their daughters. How disappointing for them.”
Margaret murmured it with considerable satisfaction. Kasha nodded her agreement.
“Should we go over to that table?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Neither would I, frankly — but we’re essentially here as Eve’s chaperones today. For her sake.”
Margaret promptly took Kasha’s arm and steered her toward the adult table without further discussion.
Kasha’s injured hand had left her unusually fatigued, but she went along without argument. Socializing was tedious, but it was unavoidable.
As they approached, the noblewomen broke off whatever they had been discussing and composed themselves with careful poise. The expressions on their faces were oddly pointed.
The friendliest-looking woman among them addressed the two of them.
“I heard the two of you helped prepare today’s party. How very kind of you both.”
“I only helped Kasha. The flower arrangements were her work — lovely, aren’t they?”
Margaret deflected the credit gracefully.
For some reason, the group’s reaction to this was more guarded than it had been a moment earlier.
“My goodness. I hadn’t realized Miss Rüschino was on such close terms with the Grand Ducal household.”
“Indeed. It makes one wonder what dealings might have been going on between those two families in private. Ha-ha.”
Margaret’s expression cooled measurably at that.
“I’m not sure I follow the implication.”
“Oh, we didn’t mean anything by it, Miss Yonder. It’s only that at the last ball, we all noticed Miss Kasha and Lord Leon in rather close company — and now to hear she helped prepare Lady Eve’s party as well. And then there’s that—”
The woman’s eyes drifted to the handkerchief wrapped around Kasha’s hand.
There was no question what that handkerchief was. The embroidery was unmistakable.
Opinions in the group appeared to be divided.
Surely it meant nothing — Leon had simply shown a small kindness, and Kasha had been carrying it around ever since like a treasure. That was all it could be.
But others were more alert. A girl finding her way in and out of the Grand Ducal residence — which famously admitted almost no one — was noteworthy in its own right. That the girl in question was Kasha Rüschino, who had already generated unusual talk at the last ball in connection with Leon, made it considerably more so.
Among this group, the eyes and ears of Odette Tyrot were also present. Those particular gazes had gone rather sharply focused.
At that moment, a servant approached Kasha and bowed.
“Miss. Lord Leon requests the pleasure of your company.”
The eyes of the noblewomen sharpened with a mixture of astonishment and avid interest.
⁂
As before, Kasha was shown to the second-floor study.
The difference this time was that she was not made to wait alone. Leon was waiting for her.
He was leaning against the bookcase with a book open in his hand. His hair was damp at the edges — he must have washed again, as he had last time.
When she entered, he raised his eyes from the page slowly.
“You asked to see me.”
When he showed no sign of moving toward her, Kasha crossed the room to him herself.
The bookcase he was standing against faced the window.
Laughter drifted in from outside, and she looked down. The inner courtyard with the tea party was laid out below.
He hasn’t been watching us this whole time. Surely not.
“I heard you helped with Eve’s tea party.”
Leon spoke abruptly.
His manner of address had shifted since their last meeting — slightly more formal, more deliberate in the way it was offered.
Was it gratitude for what she had done for Eve? Or had he reached a decision of some kind regarding her proposal?
“Whether I should thank you or not.”
He said it in a tone that could have been genuine or sardonic, and Kasha shook her head lightly.
“Please don’t.”
Half of why I agreed to it was to find a way closer to you.
She thought this, watching Eve’s platinum hair catch the sun in the courtyard below.
The way it shone — it had done the same, standing at the greenhouse doorway, where the light had fallen through Leon’s.
His hair had grown longer lately, falling past his eyebrows and across his eyes. She had an impulse to push it back behind his ear.
She was still thinking about it when Leon spoke again.
“I’ve given your proposal some thought.”
“Yes.”
“And I find I still cannot trust you.”
Something in his tone suggested what was coming. Kasha tried to catch his eyes.
He avoided her gaze with a persistence that suggested he was actively trying — as though eye contact were something he was frightened of. She said his name quickly.
“Leon.”
“I’m declining your proposal.”
