Page 56 of The Beautiful Ones

Footsteps approached the curtain.

Cold gathered around my hand.

White frost crept over the brass latch, slipping beneath the old paint. The metal contracted with a quiet crack.

At the same moment, something struck the outside of the window.

Then another.

Blue butterflies battered the glass in a sudden furious cloud. Their wings covered the panes, turning daylight cobalt. Reuben shouted. Judge Dewey stumbled backward into the desk.

I lifted the latch.

The casement opened without a sound.

I pushed the ledger back beneath the curtain, climbed through the window and dropped into the dead gardenias below. Twigs tore at my sleeves. The letter crackled against my skin, but I kept one hand pressed over it as I crawled beneath the sill.

Inside, Monsieur Lebon dragged open the curtain.

“The window!” he shouted.

I ran bent double through the shrubbery, expecting pursuit.

None came.

At the edge of the rose garden, I looked back.

The butterflies had vanished from the study window.

Adrian stood inside the abandoned glasshouse, visible through its broken panes. The distance between us was too great for me to see his expression clearly, yet I knew he was looking directly at me.

He lifted one pale finger to his lips.

Then he bowed.

I had entered the study believing I was opening a locked door the Fairhavens wished to keep closed.

As I fled toward the kitchen with Nathaniel Vale’s letter against my heart, I understood the truth.

Adrian had handed me the key long before Dinah placed it in my palm.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CÉCILE

The second song ended beneath my hands, but the last chord continued trembling through the pianoforte long after the room applauded.

I lifted my fingers from the keys.

Adrian stood beside the instrument, watching me with the same grave attention he had offered when I could scarcely force a greeting past my lips. While his eyes remained upon me, my throat felt open and bright. Every word waited obediently behind my teeth.

“Another,” my mother urged from the sofa.

The request pleased me more than it should have. All my life she had displayed my music as proof that one imperfect faculty might be compensated by another. Now she wanted the song and the conversation afterward. She wanted all of me because, at last, all of me could be shown without apology.

“Perhaps later,” I said.

The sentence came beautifully.