I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Mirror

The Dowager's sitting room smelled of lavender and lamp oil.

She poured two cups of tea with a hand that did not shake, and gave Odalys one, and sat.

"The tale has a second half," she said. "I should have said it in the gallery. When a Drevoss man is wanted back, the curse goes out of him like a tide. The old women say he sleeps. Eleven hours, in daylight, like a child. He wakes laughing, and doesn't know why."

"Sleeps."

"My brother never did. In four years, he never closed his eyes past dawn." She turned her cup. "Neither has my nephew since he turned thirty. I watch the windows of the north wing every morning. He's up before the maids."

Odalys's heart did something odd and complicated.

"Then it hasn't ended," she said.

"No." The old woman looked at her over the rim. "I thought that you should know exactly what you were holding, and how long you have. Do you still want your price?"

"I want my family out of Halcourt's hands."

"Of course you do." She set down the cup. "The ball is on Saturday. I arranged the match with Calanthe for the house, not for the boy, and I am not proud of it. You have a red gown on a hanger in your room. Put it on."

"Your Grace?"

"If you are going to be stared at," said Isaura Drevoss, "you will do it in red."

The Midwinter Ball was held in the Great Hall, under four chandeliers and a ceiling of painted stars.

The Dowager had put Calanthe in white.

She stood at the top of the stairs with her hair in a crown of curls and her father at her elbow.

Two hundred eyes were on her, and she looked like a girl about to be handed a throne.

Moonset was at one in the morning.

Until then, the whole palace was light.

Odalys came down the stairs late, in the dark red silk, with her neck bare and the marks on it.

The room went silent from the stairs outward.

Calanthe saw her and her smile finally cracked.

Odalys walked down the length of the hall, through the stares, with her pearls on and her head up.

A woman whispered, "She wore her bruises."

Caelan stood at the foot of the steps, in black and silver, with a glass in his hand.

He had been about to cross to Calanthe, to lead her out for the betrothal dance that the whole room had come to see.

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