Page 50 of The Beautiful Ones

Adrian’s quiet laughter warmed the space beside me.

At the far end of the table, my father did not share her delight. He had scarcely eaten. Sweat shone along his hairline despite the two servants pulling the dining-room fans. Judge Dewey and Reuben George watched him between courses, their earlier amusement dissolving whenever one of the Fairhavens spoke Nathaniel Vale’s name.

They were afraid.

I had seen that fear on the porch, but I had mistaken it for social unease. Now I recognized something more desperate beneath it. My father flinched whenever Adrian lifted his wineglass. Reuben rubbed at a dark stain on his cuff that no one else could see. The judge had taken so much brandy that his spoon rattled against the bowl.

I might have wondered longer if Adrian had not turned away from me.

My father asked him a question about Norfolk. Adrian inclined his head to answer.

At that moment, Augusta Dewey addressed me from across the table.

“And do you believe this improvement permanent, my dear?”

The room waited.

“I b-believe—”

The familiar catch snapped shut around the word.

Heat flooded my face. My mother’s fingers tightened around her napkin.

Adrian looked back at me.

The pressure vanished.

“I believe permanence is an overrated virtue,” I finished smoothly. “Some of the most unpleasant things in life are remarkably permanent.”

Nicholas raised his glass. “To impermanence.”

Laughter moved around the table, and my failure disappeared beneath it.

But I knew.

So did Elin.

She stood against the wall behind my mother’s chair, holding a silver pitcher of iced water. Her tired eyes moved from Adrian to me. She had seen the instant my voice failed and the instant he restored it.

I looked away first.

Warren Dewey noticed the exchange.

He had been sullen throughout the meal, his complexion gray beneath the effects of a sleepless night. A faint red mark crossed one side of his face, though I could not imagine how he had acquired it. When Elin stepped forward to refill his glass, he covered the rim with his hand.

“No, thank you,” he said. “I prefer my water without Swedish enchantments.”

Elin’s hand went rigid around the pitcher.

Dinah, stationed near the sideboard, lowered her eyes.

Warren leaned back and regarded me with a smile too thick to be pleasant. “It seems your maid has finally taught you how to use your tongue, Miss Lebon. Quite a miracle. One wonders what she has been practicing in the schoolroom.”

The insult was meant to stain us both.

Yesterday, it would have sent me shrinking into silence. That afternoon, I turned toward him with the calm pleasure of a duelist discovering her opponent had arrived unarmed.

“My speech was never missing, Warren. I merely had no desire to waste it upon men with nothing intelligent to say in return.”