The Villainess Offered an Apology, the Duke Wanted the Truth novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Brooch in the Flowers
Maerielle wakes outside the ball with an apology bouquet that takes two bearers and a warning bell, and admits to Cyralise that her brooch accusation was a lie. Cyralise asks what happens if she doesn't accept the apology.
Maerielle's apology bouquet required two men and a warning bell.
The bell had been her companion's idea after the first collision.
The flowers had been Maerielle's.
She had asked for something impressive enough to settle every possible objection.
Now she could hear Cyralise Amereth objecting from the other side of the roses.
"I can't see the stairs," the woman said.
"There are more flowers in the carriage," a bearer warned her.
Maerielle looked at Thessa.
Her companion rang the bell once.
"That warning is for us," she explained.
One bearer turned left.
The other turned right.
The bouquet struck the drawing room doorway and shed three expensive lilies.
Maerielle closed her eyes.
She had died at thirty-three, alone in exile.
Now she was twenty-seven again, standing outside the ball where she'd ruined another woman's name.
Her former certainty about what everyone owed her had survived the journey badly.
Her instinct to arrange a perfect entrance remained intact.
"Put them down," she told the bearers.
They looked for a place large enough.
There wasn't one.
Thessa, her companion, moved a side table into the hall.
The vase immediately covered it.
A petal landed in the bell.
Maerielle took the bell out of Thessa's hand before anybody rang it again.
Cyralise stood beyond the flowers in an ordinary blue gown.
She had been told she couldn't attend the ball because she was suspected of theft.
Maerielle had made the accusation.
She had known it was false when she'd said it.
There was no lost servant to blame and no secret reason that made it kind.
She took the brooch from her own sleeve and put it on the table.
Cyralise looked at the silver leaves, then at her.
"What are you doing?"
"You didn't steal this," Maerielle said.
The bearers became very interested in the hall carpet.
Thessa remained beside the wall with both hands empty.
Maerielle had asked her to witness the correction.
She had not asked her to rescue it.
"I knew you hadn't taken it," Maerielle continued.
"I wanted you kept away from the ball."
Cyralise didn't step closer.
Her face was harder to bear than any of the speeches Maerielle had prepared.
"I know," she said.
Maerielle had imagined surprise.
She hadn't imagined being the last person to state the obvious.
She looked at the enormous flowers between them.
They were blocking the woman she wanted to address.
"I'm sorry," she said.
One of the bearers moved to lift the bouquet again.
Cyralise took an immediate step backward.
"Don't bring it nearer."
Maerielle stopped him.
"It isn't meant as an obligation."
"Then leave it where it can't reach me."
Thessa turned the table so the lilies no longer pointed into the doorway.
The stems struck a suit of decorative armor.
The empty helmet tilted toward Cyralise.
She looked at it, then at Maerielle.
"Even that looks prepared to complain."
Maerielle laughed before she could decide whether she was allowed.
Cyralise didn't smile.
That was fair.
She had made a remark, not offered forgiveness.
From the ballroom came music Maerielle remembered hearing before her cruel toast.
She could still choose not to make it.
She could correct the lie in front of the people she'd told.
The possibility frightened her more than the enormous flowers had frightened anybody else.
A man appeared at the far end of the hall.
Tavrian Ellorath, the duke she'd wanted as an ornament to her own ambition, stopped when he saw Cyralise.
Maerielle thought of the dance card he'd thrown into a fountain the year before.
The memory still hurt, even with her own guilt standing beside it.
She didn't offer him the speech she'd prepared for him either.
Cyralise picked up the brooch.
"You've put evidence beside flowers," she said.
"What am I supposed to understand?"
Maerielle held her hands still against her skirt.
"That I lied."
Cyralise set the brooch down again.
"And what happens if I don't accept your apology?"
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