Chapter 1
“Hazel. Where did she send her?”
Hazel looked at me.
Not Estelle.
Good.
Her fingers tightened around her injured wrist.
“The South Lodge.”
The ballroom went silent.
My mother hated the South Lodge.
Had for twenty years.
It sat beyond the lower gardens near the old lake road, a stone guesthouse my father once used for private family meetings.
No party tonight.
No reason for her to be there.
I looked at Estelle.
“You told my mother I was waiting at South Lodge?”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Hazel answered instead.
“Yes.”
Estelle turned on her.
“You don’t know what you heard.”
Hazel flinched.
Small.
Automatic.
I saw it.
That bothered me.
“How did your wrist get hurt?”
Hazel looked down.
Estelle said:
“She dropped a tray.”
Too quick.
Hazel’s eyes filled.
“No.”
I waited.
“The driver shut the car door when I tried to stop them.”
My jaw tightened.
“Stop who?”
“Mrs. Blackwood.”
Then:
“She realized you weren’t in the car.”
Everything inside me went still.
My mother had not simply entered willingly and changed her mind.
She had been lured.
Hazel continued.
“She asked to come back inside.”
Estelle’s hand closed around the table edge.
“The driver said the instructions had changed.”
I looked toward the ballroom doors.
“Which driver?”
“Collins.”
Sixteen years in my household.
My father had trusted him.
So had I.
I turned to Rafe, my senior bodyguard.
“Get the car.”
Estelle stood.
“Julian, don’t leave our dinner because a maid misunderstood—”
I looked at her.
She stopped.
Not because I raised my voice.
Because I didn’t.
Then Hazel whispered:
“There were two men waiting at South Lodge.”
I looked back.
“Who?”
“One was Mr. Pierce.”
Estelle’s father.
Marcus Pierce.
Of course.
“And the other?”
Hazel hesitated.
“I only saw him from the car.”
“Hazel.”
She met my eyes.
“Mr. Calder.”
My father’s former chief adviser.
Retired twelve years ago.
A man who had not entered Blackwood property since my father’s funeral.
May you like
Now he was waiting in a closed lodge with my mother—
on the night of my engagement.
