Chapter 1: Water Falling Over Broken White Plates
The water struck my head hard enough to numb my scalp. It ran through my hair, down my cheeks, and into the collar of my slate-blue uniform while Cambria held the crystal pitcher above me with both hands. Around my knees, broken white plates gleamed across the marble like small pieces of ice. The room was full of music, silk, and watching faces, yet the scene had been arranged to make me look exactly as helpless as I was.
Cambria's accusation contradicted the evidence beneath her shoes. She said I had threatened her, but it was her pitcher, her grip, and her water pouring over my bowed head. The cold soaked through my clothes until the marble seemed warmer than my body. She kept the pitcher tilted, not empty, as if the remaining water gave her control.
My name is Lora Bennett, and I was the maid kneeling in the middle of that foyer.
The party had not stopped. It had only grown quieter around me. Someone's glass trembled against a saucer. Water dripped from the end of my hair onto the floor. I kept one hand flat beside a jagged plate fragment and the other pressed against my stomach, protecting it without knowing what, exactly, I was protecting.
At the far end of the corridor, Evander Cross pushed through the guests toward the locked white double doors. His black suit was sharply cut against the pale marble, his white collar open at the throat. His dark hair had been swept back, but urgency had loosened a strand near his temple. He moved as if the doors had been the first danger he saw and me the second.
Cambria turned her face toward him while keeping the pitcher over mine.
“She threatened me, Evander.”
The words landed cleanly, but her hands did not move. That was the first thing I doubted: not whether she was frightened, but why she needed to keep pouring after she had made her claim.
Evander reached the edge of the scattered plates.
“Put it down.”
Cambria's fingers tightened around the crystal. A clear thread of water slid over its rim and struck my shoulder. I lifted my face. Through the water blurring my vision, I saw Evander looking at me, then at Cambria, then down at the broken plates. His gray-green eyes held no answer.
A small body pushed through the gathered skirts.
Poppy rushed forward and wrapped both arms around my soaked neck. Her tangled brown hair brushed my cheek, the single red ribbon darkened at one end. Her stained white apron pressed against my uniform as she held me with all the strength in her narrow arms.
“I found him, mama.”
My breath caught. The word crossed the foyer more sharply than the falling water. Poppy buried her face against me. I folded around her, shielding her from the pitcher and from every stare that had turned toward us.
Evander's hand came down gently over her trembling shoulder. Poppy did not let go.
Cambria's pitcher lowered by an inch. For the first time, the water stopped falling.
I felt the envelope inside the damp fold of my uniform. Its paper had been yellowed before the water reached me, its edges soft from being handled too often. I pulled it free with shaking fingers. The seal had already split. The flap clung to the paper, and when I opened it, the writing showed through the wavering light.
Evander leaned closer.
I unfolded the page.
I am carrying your child.
His eyes moved across the sentence. The music continued somewhere beyond the foyer, thin and distant. Poppy's arms tightened around me. Cambria stood motionless with the pitcher hanging at her side.
May you like
Evander looked from the paper to my face.
The envelope had no visible name on the outside now. Before he could ask whose name had been there, before I could decide whether to turn the page over, one of the locked white doors shifted inward with a quiet click.
