//CLARA//
The doorbell rang at precisely seven o’clock, and I felt the shift in the house’s bones.
Adelaide Chase stepped out of her carriage like she owned the street. Dove gray silk, not a wrinkle in sight. She moved toward the door like she had never once questioned whether she belonged.
I turned from the window and smoothed my midnight skirts.
Okay. Let’s make the night interesting.
The dining room was a stage. Adelaide sat to Casimir’s right. Aunt Cornelia took his left, close enough to whisper poison. I sat across from Adelaide, where both of them could watch and neither could escape.
The candles flickered between us, casting everything in warm gold.
"Miss Thorne." Adelaide’s voice was soft and polished, trained in a dozen finishing schools until every rough edge had been sanded away. "I have heard so much about you."
"All good things, I hope." I smiled with my teeth.
"Of course." She tilted her head, studying mildly like an interesting painting before moving on to sothing better. "Aunt Cornelia tells you have quite the independent spirit."
Independent spirit. The polite translation: unmanageable brat.
"I prefer to think of it as having opinions," I said, reaching for my wine. "I hear they are quite fashionable in Boston"
Adelaide’s smile flickered at the edges. Aunt Cornelia’s fork paused mid-air, suspended over her plate like a tiny silver dagger.
The first blood was mine.
"I was just telling Casimir about the sumr we spent in Newport," Adelaide said, turning to him with a familiarity that made my teeth ache. "Do you rember, Casimir? Your mother insisted on those dreadful riding lessons. I thought I would break my neck."
She spoke as if they shared a history I could never touch, as if those childhood mories gave her a claim on the man sitting beside her. It was a weapon only soone from his past could wield, and she wielded it like a scalpel.
"I rember," Casimir said flatly, and did not elaborate further.
Adelaide laughed lightly, undeterred by his indifference.
"You were always so serious, even then. I told your mother you would grow out of it." She glanced at , inviting into the conspiracy. "I see I was wrong."
"Oh, I do not know," I said, setting down my fork. "I find his seriousness rather charming. Like a portrait that forgot it was allowed to blink."
Adelaide’s eyes narrowed, just a fraction. She recovered quickly, but I had seen it. The crack in the porcelain.
"I had no idea the two of you had gotten quite so close."
Possessiveness roared in my chest. Please. I had heard him fall apart in a carriage. I had felt him lose his mind in a dark hallway. Her childhood mories did not scare .
I leaned back, resting my elbows on the table in a move that was undoubtedly vulgar by Gilded Age standards. I didn’t care.
"Oh, we are like two peas in a pod," I said, shifting my attention to Casimir. I offered him a grin that was half challenge, half invitation. "Isn’t that right, Uncle?"
Casimir finally lifted his head. He arched an eyebrow, his gray eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that promised a storm later tonight.
"Yes," he said, in a clipped, dangerous tone. "I believe we are."
"See?" I turned back to Adelaide, sweetness dripping from every syllable.
"Tell , Miss Chase. If you were to marry my uncle, that would make you my step-aunt, correct? I do so love family connections." I let the theatrical pause sit between us. "But I hope you will not be like the characters in those folk tales—locking in the attic because I am the inconvenient leftover of the previous regi."
Adelaide laughed, a small, demure sound. She looked at Casimir, waiting for him to join in on the joke, waiting for him to assure her that she would never be the wicked stepmother.
But Casimir wasn’t looking at her. He kept cutting his beef like she did not exist. It was as if he could divorce her through sheer ntal focus.
Adelaide’s smile faded. She cleared her throat and reached for her wine, her hand shaking just enough to make the liquid ripple.
I smirked internally as I took a deliberate, slow sip of my own wine.
Aunt Cornelia caught my eye. I did not glare. I did not smirk. I simply looked at her calmly, and waited. She let out a high-pitched, awkward giggle instead.
"Eleanor does so love her jests! Miss Chase, you simply must try this soup. Casimir insisted it be imported."
The conversation drifted, guided by Aunt Cornelia’s frantic matchmaking.
"Miss Chase," I said, catching her attention. "I have a question. Purely hypothetical."
Adelaide’s eyes flickered with caution, but she was too well-bred to refuse. "Of course."
"If you were to marry my uncle—" I let the words hang in the air, watching Aunt Cornelia’s knuckles go white around her napkin as she glared at , "—what would beco of my dear Aunt Cornelia?"
The table went still. Even the servants seed to hold their breath.
"I am not sure I understand," Adelaide said carefully.
"Surely you do." I tilted my head, all innocence. "There can only be one mistress of the Guggenheim estate. That title currently belongs to Aunt Cornelia."
I looked at the old dusty spider whose rent was long overdue in this estate, then back to Adelaide again. "I rely wondered if she would be expected to retire to the countryside. For her health, of course."
The silence was absolute. I could hear the candles burning.
Aunt Cornelia let out a laugh that sounded like it hurt her throat. "Eleanor is joking. She has such a lively sense of humor."
"Of course I am joking," I said, reaching for my wine. "Mostly."
Adelaide’s smile had frozen sowhere around her cheekbones. She recovered before anyone else could see it, but I had already catalogued it. She had not expected to be challenged. She looked at Casimir again, desperate for rescue.
He was still cutting his at.
The soup course ca and went. The fish followed. Adelaide tried twice more to draw Casimir into conversation, and twice more he answered with the kind of politeness that felt like a door closing in her face.
Aunt Cornelia watched it all with the expression of a woman watching her best-laid plans turn to ash, her fork moving chanically from plate to mouth and back again.
"You must co to Boston, Miss Thorne," Adelaide said as the servants cleared the plates.
Her voice had lost so of its polish, though she was clearly trying to recover. "I would so enjoy showing you the sights."
"How kind." I smiled. "Though I fear Boston might be a little...overwhelming."
"Nonsense." Adelaide’s voice was warm, but her eyes were cold as winter glass. "I am sure you would find it rather charming. I will make it my personal interest."
Personal interest?
The corner of my eye twitched, but I smiled wider, showing more teeth. "How lovely. I have always wanted to be soone’s charity case."
Across the table, Casimir’s gaze t mine for the briefest mont. No one else noticed. Not Aunt Cornelia, who was too busy seething. Not Adelaide, who was too busy recovering. But I felt it like a touch.
The dinner concluded as a masterclass in uncomfortable silences and forced pleasantries. As we gathered in the entry hall, Aunt Cornelia practically gushed over Adelaide, kissing her on the cheek with an adoration that made ntally cringe.
Aunt Cornelia turned to Casimir, her voice gaining the desperate pitch of a general who had just realized she was surrounded.
"Casimir! Surely you will accompany Miss Chase to her carriage? A gentleman always—"
"Higgins." Casimir did not move from his position by the door.
The butler appeared as if summoned by magic, materializing from the shadows where he had been waiting.
"Yes, sir?"
"Accompany Miss Chase to her carriage."
"At once, sir." Higgins bowed. "Miss Chase? If you please."
Adelaide did not argue. She only adjusted her stole and forced a smile.
"It was a lovely dinner."
For one breathless mont, uncertainty flickered across her face.
Then she was gone, and the door closed behind her.
Aunt Cornelia looked to the heavens as if begging for divine intervention before she rounded on . She threw a glare so sharp I half expected to be impaled. If looks could kill, my funeral would be the social event of the season.
Without a word, she retreated to her room, her skirts rustling like an angry storm.
"Goodnight, Aunt Cornelia." I laid the sweetness on thick enough to choke her.
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