Page 57 of The Thirteenth Count

Fern lowered the needle into the taut silk. The fabric resisted more than she expected, smooth and tight beneath her fingers, nothing like the cotton she had stitched at home. She pulled the thread through and made the first loop, already seeing the line tilt wrong.

Lady Blackwell examined it in silence. She only reached across the space between them, set one finger against the stitch, and traced its crooked line.

“Sloppy,” she murmured. “The tension is uneven. You’re pulling the thread as though you mean to strangle it.”

“I am not used to silk. This isn’t what we used in Ashford Cross,” Fern said, anger sparking before she could stop it.

“Ashford Cross is no longer your home.” Lady Blackwell looked up. “You would do well to remember that.”

Fern wished, stupidly, that she could take the words back.

“Do not make excuses, Miss Silverbell,” Lady Blackwell continued. “Excuses are the tools of the incompetent.”

She picked up the silver scissors and, without breaking Fern’s gaze, slid one blade beneath the stitch and snipped it free.

Fern watched as the thread gave way with a soft snap and curled loose against the white silk.

“Again,” she said calmly. “And this time, do try not to handle the silk like a plowline.”

Fern started over.

Then again. And again. The hours bled together into a dull cycle of silk, blood, and correction: Fern stitched, Lady Blackwell cut the thread away, and Fern began again.

By the third hour, her fingers were bleeding. The needle had pricked her thumb often enough to leave tiny crescent stings along the pad, and every time the silk took on the faintest smear of red, Lady Blackwell sighed as though Fern had offended her. Heat from the hearth baked the fabric against Fern’s aching thighs. Across from her, Lady Blackwell’s own stitching remained immaculate.

Fern hated her for it.

“Tea,” Lady Blackwell said at last, her voice as crisp as ever.

Fern hated her for that, too.

A maid hurried in, eyes downcast, and set a silver tray on the low table before retreating at once, as if Lady Blackwell might punish her for lingering. She probably would.

“Pour,” Lady Blackwell ordered. “Use the silver pot. The heavy one.”

Fern set down her hoop. Her hand had cramped so badly her fingers had nearly curled into a claw by the time she reached for the handle.

Before she could lift it, the door banged open hard enough to rattle the latch. A gust of colder air swept into the room along with the sour reek of Highblood spirits.

“Mother!” a voice bellowed. “Where is my—oh.”

Marcus Blackwell stopped in the doorway and blinked into the dim light. He was drunk, and he looked it. His shirt was half-unbuttoned, cravat gone, blonde hair disordered as though he’d been dragging restless hands through it all morning. His eyes were red-rimmed and mean.

He stumbled across the room without waiting to be acknowledged, dropped onto the chaise longue, and kicked muddy boots up onto the velvet.

“Who’s this?” he asked, squinting at Fern. “The little Root? The stray?”

“Get your feet off the furniture, Marcus,” Lady Blackwell said, not looking up. “You are drunk.”

“I am medicated,” Marcus corrected, rubbing at his temple. “My head is splitting. Can’t you hear them? Thump, thump, thump.”

“I hear only your whining,” Lady Blackwell replied.

Marcus laughed, a wet, ugly sound that made Fern want to flinch. Then he turned his full attention on her.

“Look at her,” he sneered. “She can barely hold still. Do you think she’ll cry?”

Fern’s hand hovered over the teapot.