Under the branches of her favorite tree in the Dark Forest, she sat and watched the light play through the leaves and over the stone walls.
Her head was tilted back and her eyes were closed when Mabel came quietly down the stairs and stood looking at her thoughtfully.
Moments later, the front door jangled as her assistant left the building.
Chapter Nineteen
De Vere’s
The Midnight Elixir cake on the bench was an appetizing color—difficult to achieve with this blend of ingredients—and had a perfect crumb texture. It was also delicious.
Dominic stood with his hands propped against the counter, his mind tightly directed on the task at hand. He’d managed to fix the oven in record time, and Liam was escorting the finished cakes to their banquet destination. He’d considered taking them himself, but he hadn’t wanted to leave Magnolia Lane because Sylvie was across the street and she was hurting.
She also wanted to be alone, and he was respecting her wishes, so the reasoning was illogical.
Regardless. His jaw set firmly, he pulled out a fresh bowl and started making another batch of the batter, slightly adjusting the ingredients.
Pet spoke from the kitchen door. “What’s wrong with that one?”
“Too much pomegranate.”
Her high heels tapped as she walked to the bench, picked up the knife there, and cut herself a small sliver of cake. She took a bite, chewing slowly. “Dominic,” she said after she’d swallowed. “Even for you, this is a ridiculous level of perfectionism. This cake is superlatively good. Why are you wasting more time and ingredients?”
He measured out the spices without a reply.
She sighed. “Oh, hell. What’s gone wrong with Sylvie?”
A bolt of emotion made it through. Frustration borne of uncertainty and helplessness, which resulted in a very cool “I don’t have a fucking clue.”
Pet leaned against the wall. “Did you have a fight?”
He glanced up at her. She was biting her upper lip.
“Pet, I don’t mean to be rude—”
“No, I’m sure you don’t usually mean to be rude,” she obviously couldn’t help inserting.
“—but I don’t want to talk about this.”
She looked at him very directly then. “Yeah. There’s always been a habit, in this family, of not talking about a lot of things. And maybe we should.”
He set down the egg in his hand and straightened, but before he could reply, his phone rang. The name on the screen wasn’t the one he was hoping for, and certainly not the one he was expecting.
Marigold. The code name Sylvie had entered into both of their phones.
He swiped to accept the call. “Dominic De Vere.”
As on a previous occasion, he’d expected to be dealing with the snotty condescension of Edward Lancier and instead got the woman herself.
“Mr. De Vere—” Rosie began.
“Dominic,” he said with just a hint of dryness. They’d worn this routine to death.
“Dominic,” Rosie amended after the briefest of pauses. There was an extremely odd note in her voice. “I apologize for the interruption while you’re no doubt working. But I’ve been unable to make contact with Sylvie. Her phone appears to be off.”
Yes. He’d discovered that piece of intel himself.
“May I ask,” Rosie went on, and the chill in the words made Lancier seem a comparative teddy bear, “if you’ve looked at a news site in the past hour?”
Again, not what he’d expected. He met Pet’s inquiring glance and nodded at the iPad on the bench. “News,” he said under his breath, and she immediately grabbed the tablet and started tapping.
Seconds later, he saw her shape the word Fuck.
She turned it around to show him the screen. Under a screaming bold headline—Who’s Been a Naughty Boy, Then?—was the photograph of Johnny and his curly blonde assailant, last seen on Sylvie’s phone. And on Pet’s phone.
It looked even more incriminating in close-up, splashed all over the worst of the tabloids.
He echoed Pet’s brevity. “Christ.”
“I assume you’re currently looking at a photo of Johnny having some ‘alone time’ in the garden.” Despite the sarcastic words, Rosie’s tone was very level. “We were tipped off this morning that the story was going live today but were unable to halt it in time. My team have been investigating the source of the photograph—and at the moment, I’m told all roads are leading back to Sugar Fair.” For the first time, her incredible control wobbled. The princess cleared her throat. “I don’t believe Sylvie would go to the tabloids about us.”
“She wouldn’t.” Dominic’s eyes lifted from the photo on the screen to Pet’s worried face. “But we do have the original of that photograph.”
There was a brief, taut silence at the other end of the line. “I see,” Rosie said, and then: “I can’t talk about this now.”
Tightly, matter-of-factly, she proposed a private meeting the following evening at St. Giles, after they’d delivered their final cake proposals, before the ball.
That she was going ahead with the ball at all, with speculation likely exploding all over the country . . .
In a way, it was a pity Rosie wasn’t higher in the line of succession, because he suspected she’d make one hell of a queen.
He ended the call, still looking at Pet.
“Oh, gosh,” she said, digging her teeth into her lip again as she read through the accompanying article. “Poor Rosie. Poor Johnny. The stuff they’ve written is vile. It’ll be everywhere by now. How the hell did they get the photo?”
She looked up—and stilled.
Pet was a source of perpetual motion and energy, the extent to which was only recognizable when she went absolutely motionless and quiet.
“God.” In its sudden absence of all expression, her voice was impersonal. Almost unrecognizable. “You think it was me.”
“Not deliberately. Certainly not maliciously. But did you show someone, or leave your phone somewhere where a friend might have seen it, a boyfriend . . .” He cut himself off at the look that came into her eyes.
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Silly, flighty, careless Pet, right? The queen of bad decisions. It’s not like I’ve consistently proven my discretion and loyalty for weeks on end now.” Pet folded her arms, almost hunching into herself. “You really don’t know me at all, do you?” The words were very quiet, and all the more powerful and damning for it. “Did you ever really want to? That time you tried to see me when I was younger, was it just a guilt reflex? Because you left without a second thought?”
Pet’s eyes went to the small mural on the opposite wall. The London skyline, out of step with the rest of the décor, painted on a whim by Sebastian during a surge of excitement over a big new contract. “I felt awful for years, for turning you away that day, when . . .” A wobble, rapidly steadied. “When I so desperately wanted to go with you, even then. It had been a slow transition with Gerald. He was so affable and affectionate in public. Behind closed doors, he criticized everything I did. It was never enough.” She blinked hard. “Whatever I did, I was never enough.”