//CLARA//

The door was unlocked.

I don’t know why that surprised me. It wasn’t as if he’d locked it to keep me out. He didn’t need to. He knew I was currently a well-trained dog who’d forgotten how to bark. I’d spent three nights standing in that hallway like a gothic tragedy.

But now the Master of the House was gone, and the door was just... an invitation to be pathetic.

I pushed it open.

His study still smelled like him. That infuriating blend of sandalwood, expensive tobacco, and the metallic tang of ink. I stood in the doorway for a long moment, letting the scent settle in my lungs like a poison I was slowly becoming immune to.

I closed my eyes, half-expecting him to pivot in his chair and give me that look that said I was an inconvenience he couldn’t quite figure out how to discard.

Then I walked inside.

His chair was pushed back at an angle. I ran my fingers along the edge of the mahogany. I remembered the way he’d lifted me onto this very surface while his hands had pinned my thighs like he was claiming territory.

I cut the memory off. Thinking about his hands while he was halfway to the frontier was a special kind of self-torture I didn’t have the energy for today.

I sat in his chair.

The leather was cold, stiff, and perfectly indifferent to my existence. I leaned back anyway, tilting my head until it rested where his used to. I inhaled deeply, trying to find a trace of him in the headrest, but all I found was dust and the realization that I was currently cuddling a piece of furniture.

God, I was a mess.

The next morning, Aunt Cornelia descended before I’d even finished my first cup of tea.

"Up," she commanded, snapping her fingers at me. I half-expected her to pull out a dog whistle. "The modiste is waiting. We have three fittings to get through before luncheon, and I won’t have you dawdling."

I looked at her, and for the first time, I didn’t feel the need to shrink.

"If I dawdle, Auntie, does the world simply stop spinning?"

She stiffened, her eyes turning into flint.

"Don’t be precocious, Eleanor. It doesn’t suit a future Princess."

Ugh, I hate being called a princess.

"Neither does being measured like a prize heifer," I muttered, but I stood up.

I was a spitfire with clipped wings, and we both knew it.

The modiste’s parlor was a battlefield of silk and pins. I stood on the pedestal while three women circled me, looking for flaws in the merchandise.

"The waist needs to be tighter," Aunt Cornelia snapped from her armchair. "She’s too soft there. And the neckline, lower it. The Prince is Spanish. They appreciate... warmth."

"Madam, the young lady is already quite exposed," the modiste ventured, glancing at me with something like pity.

"Lower," Aunt Cornelia repeated.

I stared at my reflection. My skin was pale, my collarbones sticking out like warnings. It was almost funny, while Casimir had seen every inch of me, Aunt Cornelia was busy trying to sell the warmth of my chest to a man I’d shared a few scones with in Newport.

"You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?"My voice dripped with a cynicism. "The Great Eleanor Auction. Going once, going twice, sold to the man with the crown. Do you get a commission, or is the satisfaction of getting me out of your house reward enough?"

"I’m securing the future of this house," she hissed, leaning forward until I could see the frantic desperation behind her pearls. "Your uncle has bled money for months keeping this house afloat, paying for your recovery, fighting off lawsuits from people who smell blood in the water. We are not what we were, Eleanor. You think this wealth is a mountain? It’s a glacier, and it’s melting."

The pins prickled against my ribs as the modiste yanked the corset strings. I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t realized the cracks in the foundation were this deep, but the memory of the last few days began to hemorrhage through my mind, staining everything I thought I knew.

I remembered the way he’d been bent over his desk until the candles gutted out, the endless stream of business partners with grim faces and hushed voices slipping through the foyer like shadows. I remembered the uncharacteristic hesitation, the way he’d stared at the proposal for Thomas Edison’s incandescent light.

Everything was falling apart.

I wasn’t a ward. I was a human check, signed by my uncle and endorsed by a King.

The thought hit me like a fist to the gut. Then lower—deeper—like someone had shoved a hand down my throat and started pulling. My intestines twisted. My stomach heaved. The nausea came out of nowhere, flooding my mouth with saliva, my skin with cold sweat.

I was going to be sick all over the silk and the pins. I swallowed the bile.

The room swayed.

"Eleanor?" Aunt Cornelia’s voice came from somewhere far away. "You’ve gone pale. Are you unwell?"

Unwell? No shit.

Beatrice came to call that afternoon, only then I could finally breathe. She looked so wholesome in her spring green gown that I felt like a soot-stained chimney sweep.

"Eleanor," she breathed, clutching my hands. "The Prince! It’s all anyone is talking about. You’re the envy of every girl from 5th Avenue to Gramercy Park. But..."

She trailed off, her smile faltering. "You look like you’re heading to a funeral, not a royal reception."

I looked at her, and for a second, the mask slipped. I squeezed her hands back, my knuckles white.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Is it the Prince? Is he... unkind?" Beatrice whispered.

"No," I said, a sharp laugh escaping me. "He’s a saint. That’s the problem. He’s writing me letters about the music of my laughter while I’m drowning in silk."

"Then what is it? Is it your aunt? Or is it..." She glanced toward the hallway. "It’s awfully quiet in this house with Mr. Guggenheim away. He didn’t even stay to receive the guest."

"He had business in the West," I said, the lie tasting like ash. "He’s a coward, Beatrice. That’s the truth of it. He’s too much of a coward to stay and see what he’s helped build, and I’m too much of a coward to tell him to stop. We’re a perfect pair of runaways. He just happens to be the one with a train ticket."

Beatrice looked at me with a confusion that hurt. She didn’t know about the way his hands felt. She just saw a girl whose guardian had left her in a den of wolves.

"I don’t understand. If you’re this unhappy, surely you could ask him—"

"I can’t ask him for anything," I snapped, then immediately softened. "I’m just tired, Bea. The modiste has been poking me for hours, and Aunt Cornelia is measuring my value by the inch. I’m fine. Truly."

Beatrice squeezed my fingers.

"Well, if it helps, Oliver is keeping his word. He’s at the warehouse every day, overseeing the new shipments himself. He told me to tell you that the ledgers are perfect and the staff is actually working now."

A pang of genuine loss hit me. That warehouse... that was the only place I’d ever felt real. And now Oliver was there, living my life, while I was stuck here playing dress-up.

"I’m glad to hear it." I smiled.

"He’s obsessed with it," she thrilled. "He even moved into that little office you liked."

"Tell him I’ll find a way to visit. Soon. Before the Prince arrives and I’m officially turned into a museum exhibit."

It was a lie. Aunt Cornelia wouldn’t let me breathe the air of a wharf if her life depended on it, but the thought of that dusty office was the only thing keeping me from screaming.

"He’ll be waiting," she whispered.

She didn’t believe I’d make it. But she was too polite to push, and I was too exhausted to admit she was right.

Seven days had passed since he left.

I checked the mail every morning. Higgins would hand me the small stack of letters, invitations, correspondence from Oliver. I’d flip through them, searching for his handwriting, for his seal, for any sign that he remembered I existed.

Nothing.

On the seventh day, I stopped checking.

Higgins held out the letters. I took it without looking. I carried it to my room and set it on the desk, unopened.

That night, I dreamed of him again.

He was standing in the study, his back to me, his hands braced on the desk. I could smell his tobacco, feel the heat of the fire, hear the crackle of the flames.

I reached for him.

He turned.

His eyes were black. Not stormy gray. Black. And he was smiling. Not the cold smile, not the sharp one, but something that looked like goodbye.

"You should have knocked," he said.

I woke up gasping.

The room was dark. The lamp had burned out.

I didn’t light another one.

If the dark wants me, I thought, maybe it’s better that it can have me.