Page 10 of Twisting Beauty

I stepped down too fast. My back registered its objection. Shame came with it, as if I’d been caught.

The door opened and Mervyn stepped in.

“Master Lorcan.” He gave me a slight incline of the head. “Your father is waiting downstairs.”

Waiting. Not asking.

I flexed my hands. “Thank you, Mervyn. I’ll be right down.”

He withdrew and the door clicked shut.

I glared once more at the vent, then straightened the chair. Then I buttoned up my shirt over the marks my father had left.

Before I left the safety of my room, I checked my reflection in the dark glass of the window, the Irish twilight purple against the trees beyond.

The face looking back at me had been arranged into something that passed for composure.

Downstairs, my father would be waiting at the head of the table with something dark in his glass and his mind already made up about the evening. Across from me, the girl who called herself Rua would sit and decide how much of herself to give away.

One of them I already knew how to survive.

The other one I intended to take apart before dessert.

The dining room was already lit when I arrived.

Candles down the length of the table, silver catching their light, the polished wood floors so dark it looked like the impenetrable surface of a black pool. The chandelier above it all cast everything in a glow that should have felt warm but didn’t.

I paused at the threshold, my back pulling tight across the shoulders as I straightened. Entering wrong would be noticed.

Alistair sat at the head of the table, one hand resting on the stem of his wineglass, shoulders relaxed. No trace of the afternoon in his face.

The sight of it turned my gut.

I crossed to my chair and sat. The movement sent pain flaring white across my back, and I hid it behind a reach for my napkin, smoothing it across my lap while I waited for my face to settle. I set my hands on my knees under the table and kept them still.

“You’re moving carefully this evening.” Alistair lifted his wineglass and took a slow sip. “I trust you’re not coming down with something.”

“I’m fine.” I reached for the water glass. “Thank you.”

He watched me for a moment. Then he set his empty glass down and waved at the decanter.

“Pour.”

It was not a question. I took the decanter and leaned across the table, the movement pulling the damaged skin taut across my ribs, and filled his glass with the steadiness I’d spent years practicing.

Then I filled my own glass before setting the decanter back down without a sound.

Dinner arrived. Mervyn and the kitchen girl moved around the table in practiced silence, setting plates, adjusting silverware. Alistair waited until they withdrew before he spoke again.

“I’ll be leaving for Moscow after dinner.” He gestured toward the lamb at the center of the table. “Carve.”

I picked up the carving knife and fork and leaned across the table. My back registered the reach with a sharp hot protest and I breathed through it, keeping my knife strokes steady and even while he talked.

“I expect the usual standard in my absence. Lessons, appointments, meals at the correct hours.”

“Of course.” I set a plate in front of him, portions arranged the way he preferred.

“I’ve given Mervyn his instructions.” He studied the plate briefly, then looked up. “I would prefer not to return to the kind of disruption this household tends to generate when left to its own devices.”