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I’m still leaning against the gilded frame outside my bedroom, my heart racing from the encounter with Ben, when my name filters down the hallway.
My eyes fly open. The security guard is gone now, and in his place stands Kit. He’s in a gray sweater with fitted jeans, and his hair is tied back in a half ponytail that he pulls off with astounding ease. But even as I take in the sight of him—which is usually more than enough to make me go all warm and fuzzy inside—Ican’t shake the coldness that’s settled over me in Ben’s wake.
“I’m fine,” I say, seeing the worried crease in his brow as he makes his way toward me. “Just ran into Ben.”
“Did he say anything?” says Kit, taking my arm, and I shake my head.
“Nothing menacing enough to hold up in a court of law,” I mutter. “I love your hair like that.”
“You do?” he says, mercifully letting the topic of Ben drop as he self-consciously touches his ends. “It’s not quite long enough for a full ponytail, I’m afraid. And Aunt Helene will hate it.”
Sure enough, as we enter the dining room a few minutes later, Helene’s fork falls to her plate in a clatter.
“Kit, I am begging you—allow my assistant just a few minutes with that unruly mop of yours before church tomorrow. You can’t be photographed like this.”
“I think he looks exceptionally handsome,” says Venetia, who sits across from Helene with her green eyes now fixed on Kit. “It’s rather roguish, isn’t it? If I were ten years younger…”
“You’d still be a decade too old,” says Helene, now delicately spearing a strawberry.
Someone clears their throat behind me, and Kit and I both turn. My mother stands with a mug of coffee in one hand and a tote bag of painting supplies slung over her shoulder, and she smiles. “Longer hair suits you, Kit,” she says, though unlike Ben’s mother, there’s nothing creepy about the way she says this.
“Thank you, Ms. Bright,” says Kit politely, but there’s a hint of amusement in his voice, too. “May I take your bag?”
Surprisingly, my mother hands it over, and while Kit sets it down in an unoccupied corner of the room, she drops a kiss on my forehead. “Good morning, Evie.”
“Hi, Mom,” I say quietly, and as I hug her, I have the sudden urge to lead her as far away from the dining room as we can get. “What are you—”
“Evangeline!” cuts in Venetia cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to our private conversation. “Now that you and your mum are both here, I’ve been meaning to ask—what time were you born, love?”
I blink. “What? Why?” We’ve barely said a word to each other, and this isn’t exactly the kind of question you ask without a motive.
Helene must sense it, too, because she gives Venetia a look that could melt steel, but the duchess merely waves her off. “Oh, not like that, darling. I simply want to do her natal chart. It’ll be similar to Maisie’s, of course, considering they were born on the same day, but there must be all sorts of stories in the differences. Maisie’s a Leo rising,” she adds cheerfully. “You’re so alike, the pair of you—I bet your ascendant is a fire sign, too.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I say. “And I don’t know when I was born. I was a little busy at the time.”
Venetia laughs as if I’ve told the funniest joke in the world. “You certainly don’t get your sense of humor from His Majesty, do you? Laura, surely you know her birth time.”
I peer at my mother, whose expression has gone strangely fixed. She’s still smiling, but it seems glued on now, and like it’s taking a considerable amount of effort to keep it there.
“I’m afraid I have no idea, either,” she says. “It was a difficult birth, and the doctors gave me the good stuff. I didn’t know what day it was, let alone what time.”
“You’ve never looked at her birth certificate?” says Venetia dubiously. And for a split second, I swear Helene and my mother exchange an unreadable look.
“Evan’s early life was somewhat…turbulent for me,” says my mom. “Alexander has all the official documentation now. You’ll have to ask him about any specifics.”
Venetia opens her mouth, then swiftly closes it, her overdone lips puckered like she’s swallowed a lemon. And when Helene and my mother glance at each other again, I’m sure I’m not imagining things.
Despite this awkward interaction, Venetia shows no signs of being subdued throughout breakfast. Helene and my mother make sure most of the chatter is mercifully directed toward Kit, who seems happy to talk in bland generalities about his term at Oxford, but whenever the conversation drifts toward me, Venetia’s questions go from polite to probing in seconds. Again and again, Kit intercepts, turning the conversation back on himself with masterful skill, until Venetia finally seems to grow bored and excuses herself, citing an urgent need to make a phone call.
As soon as she’s gone, the four of us seem to exhale at once, and I shift to face my mom in the chair beside me. “Are you going somewhere to paint? Maybe Kit and I could come along and keep you company.”
“I thought I’d stay here for a little while,” she says, sipping the last of her coffee. “Helene and I have plenty to catch up on, and I’m not sure we’ll have another chance before the boys return.”
“What?” I say, so startled that for a moment, I forget we’re all being polite. “But—”
“It has been a long time,” agrees Helene. “And we do have quite a lot to discuss.”
I look back and forth between them, baffled. Never in my life have I pictured the pair of them sitting at the same table, having a civil—let alone friendly—conversation, and the thought of all the cruel things Helene could say to my mother fills my ears with incessant buzzing and the pit of my stomach with dread. Helene was the trigger for my mother’s psychotic break, and even though it’s been fourteen years, those scars must still exist somewhere inside her. And I have no idea how delicate they might be.
