“Why — why on earth — why—!”
Odette could hardly believe what lay before her eyes.
Leon and Kasha. Those two — so utterly, absurdly mismatched — tangled together here, looking like that. How was it possible?
The flush on both their faces. The disheveled hair. The ragged breathing, the smeared lip color.
What it all implied was unmistakably clear — and all the more so to Odette, who had long since grown thoroughly acquainted with the particular disorder of bodies intertwined.
She fixed her gaze on Kasha, something predatory flickering behind her eyes.
That wretched creature. A bastard, of all things — stealing Leon from me?
And just days ago, Leon had coldly rejected Odette when she had gone to him, swallowing every last shred of her pride.
And now he stood here, holding that woman — breathless, flushed, alive in a way he had never been with her.
Odette’s hands trembled with the urge to seize Kasha by the hair and drag her away. Had Leon not been watching, she would have done it without a second thought.
You belong to me, Leon. You’re supposed to be mine.
She felt her own fingernails digging into her palm, pressing through the flesh of her tightly clenched fist.
Odette Tyrot, the precious only daughter of the Tyrot Ducal House — she had been given everything she wanted from the moment she drew her first breath.
Men were no exception. Those she reached for generally fell into her grasp with little effort. By twenty, she had perfected the art of handling them.
She had been careful with nobles, of course — the risks were too great to be careless. But she had long since arrived at a certain truth: the ones who caused trouble after a single night of reckless pleasure were always those with just enough power to be dangerous — and just little enough to be desperate.
There were men, naturally, who didn’t know their place and clung to her. When that happened, her father, the Duke of Tyrot, would arrange things — a sum of money pressed into the right hands, or a suitable match arranged for the man’s family. Most would bow their heads in gratitude and disappear.
One such man — the heir to a viscountcy she had disposed of not long ago — was at this very reception, clutching his wife’s hand with a contentedness that did nothing to conceal the greedy look he cast in Odette’s direction.
She enjoyed such looks. She always had.
But enjoyment aside, Odette had no interest in the men she had already discarded.
The man she wanted now was Leon Aranias.
And she had not yet given up. It would simply take a little more time. Eventually, she was certain, he would come to her.
That was what I believed. That’s what I was so sure of.
But the look Leon was giving her now — sheltering Kasha as he stared Odette down — was the look one gave a common street thug. A criminal. Something beneath contempt.
And the way he held Kasha, steadied her — with that composed, chivalric precision that was so perfectly him — only made Odette’s blood run hotter.
She bit her lip and turned away. If nothing else, she could summon her circle of admirers and make Kasha suffer the particular humiliation of public ridicule. That, at least, would be something.
But the moment she turned, she walked directly into someone’s shoulder and stumbled back.
“Who in the — “
She snapped the words upward as she looked, and found herself staring at a face she recognized.
Simon… Blanche?
The man who had stood beside her at the hunting tournament, raving alongside her that Kasha Rüschino’s victory should be nullified. She remembered him because, even then, he had seemed oddly more worked up about it than she was.
But what is that expression?
Odette frowned.
Simon Blanche was staring at Kasha and Leon — still intertwined on the balcony — with a face drained of all color. Like a man witnessing something so shocking it had stolen all coherent thought from him.
He seems a bit old to be scandalized by someone’s secret tryst.
That was the thought forming in her mind when Simon opened his mouth.
“Was it — was it real? Kasha — are you actually — the two of you —”
Odette registered, with some interest, that his gaze was fixed entirely on Kasha. Not on Leon. On Kasha.
Kasha, for her part, returned nothing but a look of cold, unambiguous contempt.
Then Leon guided Kasha to her feet. His brow was creased, his displeasure naked and unapologetic.
“Lady Tyrot. Young Master Blanche.” His voice was clipped. “When a balcony is clearly occupied, courtesy demands that one withdraw.”
Odette, who had never in her life learned to temper her own temper, rounded on him at once.
“Sir Leon! Courtesy, did you say? You, of all people — at the Crown Prince’s reception — carrying on like this? And with her, of all women?”
But Leon only looked at her with a thin, cold smile, as though something about this entire exchange faintly amused him.
“Vulgar, is it. How interesting to hear that word from you, my lady.”
“Sir Leon!”
“And Lady Tyrot.”
His voice dropped. The violet of his eyes darkened to something unsettling, something fierce.
“Her. If you refer to my beloved in that manner one more time — I will not overlook it.”
“Your beloved? Ha! And what exactly will you do if I — “
She threw the words back at him by reflex, pride refusing to yield. But when she met his eyes — truly met them — her legs went cold beneath her.
When did he have a face like that?
The Leon before her now was like a wild animal encountered without warning in deep forest — dangerous, unguarded, stripped of all pretense. The surface of his usual civility was entirely gone, and in its absence was something she had never encountered in him before.
I want him.
She bit her lip against the thought, against the heat it stirred in her, and wrenched herself around. Prolonging this particular standoff would gain her nothing — even Odette could see that.
She stepped forward. And then, behind her, Leon’s voice came once more.
“Young Master Blanche. I’d advise you to leave as well.”
“But — why. Why — “
Simon let out something close to a wail, and Odette stopped walking, startled by the raw anguish in it.
“Kasha — what are you thinking? We’re finished — all of us — we’re going to be utterly destroyed — “
“I’ve heard enough. Get out.”
Bang.
The door closed, and Simon’s desperate cry was cut off behind it — pointless, hollow, swallowed by wood and silence.
“How did it come to this…”
Odette watched as Simon bowed his head and muttered to himself, still pacing before the shut door, unable to go still.
“What do I do now? What can I possibly — “
What is he to Kasha Rüschino, to be in such a state? It was the same at the hunting tournament.
Odette’s mind moved quickly.
Since the incident at that tournament, she had been searching for a way to cut Kasha down. But Kasha spent most of her time shut away in the Rüschino estate and rarely showed her face in society except at major events, which made scheming difficult.
But if this man knows something that could be used against her…
Then it had to be obtained. Without hesitation.
Odette crossed the space between herself and Simon without allowing herself time to overthink it.
“Young Master Blanche?”
“Pardon — ah. Lady Tyrot.” He straightened at once, something automatic and slightly desperate in the way he composed himself. “Good evening, my lady.”
His voice was limp with distraction, but the moment she addressed him directly, he tugged his clothing into order and arranged his expression with trained speed.
Well, naturally. The illegitimate son of a minor baronial house — when would he ever otherwise find himself spoken to by the only daughter of the Tyrot Ducal House?
Odette found his entirely predictable response very satisfying.
And now that she was close, she could see that he was rather more presentable than she had expected. Not unpleasant at all.
“Nothing particular,” she said, tilting her head against the wall with a languid, practiced ease, eyes lifting to his at just the angle she knew worked best. “I’m simply parched. Would you fetch me a glass of champagne?”
“Of — of course. One moment, my lady.”
Simon tripped over his own eagerness to answer, then disappeared into the reception hall in search of the champagne.
The offer of a drink was nothing more than bait. He knew it. She knew he knew it. And he had taken it anyway, without a breath of hesitation.
So easy. Almost boring.
Odette watched him go with a faint, dismissive smile.
Too transparent to be any fun — but perhaps useful enough for the purpose of soothing the pride that Leon had so irritatingly bruised.
And if he truly does know something about Kasha Rüschino, all the better.
The smile that returned to her lips was the familiar one — the confident, unhurried smile of a woman who had never yet failed to get what she wanted.
