Erica emerged from a knot of people near the west wall, a flute of champagne in one hand and a smile polished to brightness.
“Letty, darling,” she sang, arriving with practiced delight. “You’re a vision. That brooch is amazing, the way it catches the light.”
Leticia met her gaze. “It was my mother’s.”
“Of course,” Erica said, voice light. “It’s just that it reminds me so much of a piece I nearly bid on at the Morton auction. But I’m sure I’m mistaken.”
Her eyes lingered a second too long. She turned to Gabriel, offering a nod. “And Lord Ashcombe. You do cut a fine figure beside her.”
“The effect is entirely hers,” he replied.
Erica laughed, too brightly. “What a charming answer.”
She drifted away, but Leticia felt the burn of her glance long after.
“She knows,” she whispered.
“She suspects,” Gabriel replied. “Or she’s testing how much you know.”
Leticia scanned the room. The footmen. The open doors to the garden. The shadows near the pianoforte.
Gabriel stiffened. “Denholm just slipped through the side corridor.”
Leticia’s heart kicked once. “Follow him?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. Whoever he’s meeting is still here.”
A moment later, Lord Westcott stood near the garden doors, his gaze sweeping the room with a soldier’s wariness. He moved to Denholm’s former post near the pianoforte, nodded once, and turned back the way he came.
“That’s her husband,” Gabriel murmured. “It may be nothing.”
But Leticia had already seen the glance Westcott cast toward his wife. Protective. Sharp.
“Not a thief, then,” Gabriel said quietly. “Likely placed to watch over her.”
Leticia let out a slow breath. “So he’s a guard.”
Gabriel nodded. “And not ours. Which means someone else is also worried.”
They drifted toward the east corner, away from the press of guests. Gabriel spotted Barrington near the refreshment table and nodded once. A signal. Barrington adjusted his stance and slipped through the opposite corridor.
Leticia reached for her champagne and brought the glass to her lips, lowered it again without drinking. Her hand was steady, but there was a thrum beneath her skin, the tension of being observed, hunted, displayed.
She and Gabriel moved to the edge of the room, standing for amoment near the arched window that opened to the garden. She didn’t look out. She only let the cooler air brush against her cheek. It gave her an excuse to breathe.
Behind them, the music faltered. A glass shattered. Someone laughed to cover it.
This was the eye of the storm. From here, she could see everything, the movement, the music, the tension dressed in silk and civility. But the reflection in the glass caught her breath. Not because it showed fear. Because it didn’t.
Calm. Poised. A woman who looked as if she belonged at the center of all this. But the truth pressed beneath her skin like a pulse. She was the lure. And she had agreed to it.
What would her mother say now? Not the memory, but the imagined voice. Real enough to whisper in her mind:You’re making yourself a target.
She could almost hear the answer rise beneath it, fierce and quiet.I shall aim true.
Gabriel was here. So were Barrington and Mrs. Bainbridge. But this moment, the risk, the decision, was hers. If they came for her, she wouldn’t run. She wouldn’t flinch. She would be the spark that lit their unraveling. Whatever came tonight, exposure, betrayal, danger, she would meet it on her terms.
Leticia turned. Gabriel was already watching. He shook his head slightly.Not yet.
