Page 32 of The Beautiful Ones

“Did he insult you, Miss Lebon?”

She shook her head.

“Did he frighten you?”

Another shake.

“Did you believe him mad?”

Monsieur Lebon stood so abruptly that his chair struck the wall behind him.

“That is enough.”

The candles guttered.

Every flame in the chandelier bent toward Adrian, although the terrace doors stood open behind Monsieur Lebon.

Adrian remained seated.

He did not appear angry. Anger would have made him seem human.

He looked at Monsieur Lebon with the tranquil attention of something that had waited a very long time and possessed no fear of waiting longer.

Cécile wrote upon the card.

No.

One small word.

Adrian turned the card so the others could read it.

Monsieur Lebon stared at his daughter's answer. Judge Dewey studied the stained tablecloth. Reuben George drained the remainder of his wine.

Then Nicholas laughed.

It was a beautiful sound—warm, bright, and perfectly timed.

“My brother has carried the commander's solemn habits into a room that deserves better,” he said. “Mr. Lucien, you were telling me that your gray stallion cleared the north hedge with a lame shoe.”

Conversation returned because Nicholas required it to return.

Lucien hesitated only a moment before taking up the story. Philip interrupted to dispute the height of the hedge. Warren demanded more wine. The wives resumed their private hostilities beneath Octavia's smiling supervision.

Yet the ease was false now. Everyone could feel the fracture beneath it.

Adrian slid the ivory card back toward Cécile.

“Keep it.”

Her fingertips brushed his as she accepted it.

She flinched at the cold, but she did not pull away immediately.

I wanted to reach between them. I wanted to take the card, seize Cécile by the wrist, and lead her out through the terrace doors. I did not know what Adrian Fairhaven was, only that his kindness was too exact. He had watched her for less than a day and already understood what others refused to learn in eighteen years.

He knew where she was most wounded.

He knew precisely how gently to place his hand there.