Chapter 14: The Portraits of a Rival
The morning came too soon, pale and grey, slinking through the curtains of the bridal chamber like an unwelcome guest. Jennie lay still beneath the white silk sheets, her body a museum of careful poses, her husband's arm draped across her waist with the heavy familiarity of ownership. She had not slept. She had lain awake through the long hours of darkness, counting the candle flames as they guttered and died, feeling the weight of the sapphire ring on her finger like a shackle.
Kai stirred beside her, his breath warm against her neck. "You are awake," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. "I had hoped to find you dreaming."
"I was dreaming," she said, and it was not entirely a lie. She had dreamed of a moonlit garden, of dark curls and darker eyes, of hands that hovered but never touched. "But the dream faded."
Kai propped himself on one elbow, looking down at her with that earnest affection that made her chest ache in ways she could not name. "You are my wife now. I shall endeavor to make your dreams reality."
She smiled, the practiced smile, and reached up to touch his cheek. "You are kind, Kai. Kinder than I deserve."
"Nonsense. You deserve everything." He kissed her forehead, then rose, stretching his athletic frame in the grey light. "I must attend to estate business this morning. My father wishes to discuss the boundary disputes with the Ashworth holdings. It seems old Sir Reginald has been allowing his sheep to wander into our pastures again."
"Barbarians," Jennie said, and Kai laughed, pulling on his dressing gown.
"I shall return by midday. Meanwhile, you must explore the house, make yourself at home. My mother has been planning a tour of the gardens for you, I believe." He paused at the door, his expression softening. "I am glad you are here, Jennie. I have waited so long for this."
He left, and the door clicked shut behind him, and the silence rushed in to fill the space he had occupied.
Jennie lay still for a long moment, her eyes fixed on the canopy above her. Then she reached beneath her pillow and withdrew the blue silk ribbon, its edges frayed now from the hours she had spent touching it, worrying it between her fingers. The word was still there, embroidered in careful stitches.
Remember.
Remember what? she thought bitterly. Remember the man who had not come to her wedding? Remember the brother who had chosen absence over witness? Remember the touch of his hands on her skin, the taste of brandy on his lips, the look in his eyes that had promised everything and delivered nothing but a scrap of silk?
She tucked the ribbon back beneath the pillow and rose to face the day.
The bath was drawn and scented with rosewater, and Hana, the maid who had attended her since her engagement, helped her into a morning gown of pale lavender silk. The fabric was light and cool against her skin, but her hands were steady as she fastened the pearl buttons at her wrists; she had become adept at performing calm.
"Will you be taking breakfast in the small dining room, my lady?" Hana asked, her eyes lowered.
"No, I find I have no appetite," Jennie said. "I shall take a turn about the house instead. I have not yet seen all of it."
"Very good, my lady." Hana curtsied and withdrew, and Jennie was alone once more with the weight of her new life pressing down upon her shoulders.
The Manoban mansion was a labyrinth of opulence. She had visited before, during her courtship, but always as a guest, always with Kai at her side to guide her through the maze of drawing rooms and galleries and corridors that seemed to stretch into infinity. Now she walked alone, her slippers silent on the gleaming floors, her gaze drifting over portraits of ancestors she did not know and vases she was meant to admire and tapestries whose stories she would never learn.
She passed the grand drawing room, with its sweep of gilded chairs and its pianoforte, upon which she was expected to perform for the entertainment of guests. She passed the library, with its towering shelves and its scent of leather and old paper, where Kai spent his evenings poring over ledgers with his father. She passed the morning room, where her mother-in-law presided each day at eleven, dispensing advice and gossip in equal measure.
And then she reached the grand foyer.
She stopped at the top of the staircase, her hand frozen on the balustrade.
The foyer had been transformed.
Where before the walls had been adorned with the Manoban family portraits—stern-faced ancestors in heavy gilded frames—now they were covered with paintings of a different kind. Young women, each more beautiful than the last, their faces rendered in oil and varnish, their gowns depicting the height of fashion, their poses carefully arranged to display their virtues. A blonde with a string of pearls, a brunette with a rose between her fingers, a redhead with a falcon on her wrist. There were a dozen of them, perhaps more, their painted eyes staring down upon the marble floor with an unnerving intensity.
Servants moved through the foyer with hushed efficiency, carrying crates and ladders, and a man in a painter's smock was adjusting the angle of a newly hung portrait. The air smelled of turpentine and fresh varnish.
Jennie descended the staircase slowly, her heart a dull thud in her chest. She stopped at the bottom, turning in a slow circle, taking in the gallery of beauties that surrounded her.
"What is all this?" she asked, her voice quiet, careful.
A passing servant paused, bowing low. "Forgive me, my lady. We were told to have them hung before the family rose."
"These portraits," Jennie said, gesturing vaguely at the walls. "What are they for?"
The servant hesitated, glancing around as if seeking permission to speak. "They are, ah, potential brides, my lady."
The words landed like stones in still water.
"Brides?" she echoed. "For whom?"
The servant looked pained. "Lord Leonid, my lady. His lordship's mother has decided it is time he wed. She has sent to every noble house in the region, requesting portraits of their eligible daughters. These are the results of her correspondence."
Jennie felt the world tilt beneath her feet. She gripped the edge of the newel post to steady herself, her knuckles whitening against the polished wood.
"I see," she said, and her voice was remarkably calm. "How many, exactly?"
"Nine, my lady. I believe there are nine." The servant hesitated. "Lord Leonid has been rather... resistant to the idea. Hence the gallery. His mother believes that seeing the options laid out before him will help him come to a decision."
"How thoughtful," Jennie heard herself say. "How very thoughtful of her."
The servant bowed again and hurried away, leaving her alone in the foyer among the painted faces of women who might one day call Leonid husband.
She turned slowly, studying each portrait in turn. The blonde with the pearls. The brunette with the rose. The redhead with the falcon. They were all beautiful, all accomplished, all suitable. They had names—she could read them on the plaques beneath each frame—but she did not need to know their names. They were simply the competition, lined up like horses before a race, waiting to be chosen.
Her blood had gone cold, the way it did in the moments before tears, but she refused to cry. She would not cry. She was Lady Manoban now, and Lady Manoban did not weep over portraits of her brother-in-law's potential brides.
"This is a fine mess, is it not?"
The voice came from behind her, low and dry, and she spun on her heel.
Leonid stood in the doorway of the study, one shoulder propped against the frame, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a dressing gown of deep burgundy silk, open at the collar to reveal the pale expanse of his throat and the first hint of dark chest hair. His dark curls were tousled, as if he had just risen, and his eyes were shadowed with fatigue.
But his gaze, when it met hers, was sharp and knowing.
"Leonid," she said, and his name was a betrayal on her lips. "I did not expect to see you."
"And yet here I am." He pushed off the doorframe and walked toward her, his bare feet silent on the marble floor. "I live here, after all. Though you might not have guessed it, given the effort I have put into avoiding you since the wedding."
Her breath caught. "You have been avoiding me?"
"Both of you," he said, stopping a few paces away. "Brides and grooms are exhausting company. Especially when one of them is my brother and the other is the woman I—" He stopped, his jaw tightening. "Well. It hardly matters now, does it?"
He gestured at the portraits, a sweeping motion that encompassed the entire gallery. "Do you approve, sister? I thought you might have an opinion on the matter."
The word sister struck her like a slap.
She lifted her chin, forcing her expression into a mask of cool composure. "I think your mother has excellent taste. Lady Ashworth's daughter is particularly lovely. Though I hear she has a tendency toward hysteria."
Leonid laughed, a short, bitter sound. "You have been taking lessons in polite cruelty, I see. Marriage suits you."
"Does it?" She met his gaze, holding it. "I was not aware you had been present to observe."
The words hung between them, sharp as blades. For a moment, he looked as if she had struck him. Then his expression shuttered, all emotion draining away until he was nothing but a beautiful mask.
"I was not present," he agreed, his voice flat. "I made a choice. I stand by it."
"A choice," she repeated, tasting the word. "You chose to abandon me at the altar."
"I chose not to make a scene that would have destroyed both our families," he corrected, taking a step closer. "I chose not to ride through the cathedral doors like some romantic fool in a novel and declare my love for my brother's betrothed. I chose to let you marry him, because it was what you wanted—what you told me you wanted, when you asked me to leave the sewing room and never speak of it again."
She flinched, the memory of that moment flooding back—the sunlight, his hands hovering at her waist, the question he had asked and the answer she had given.
"That is not how it happened," she said, but her voice had lost its steel. "I asked you to leave because I was afraid. Because I did not know what to do with what I felt."
"And now you know?" he asked, his voice low, barely more than a whisper. "Now that you are my brother's wife, now that you wear his ring and share his bed, now that you have made your vows before God and man—do you know what you want?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came.
He watched her, his dark eyes searching her face, and something in his expression shifted—softened, perhaps, or perhaps she was only imagining it.
"Nine portraits," he said at last, gesturing at the walls. "Nine eligible young ladies, all of them eager to become Lady Leonid Manoban. My mother has taken great pains to ensure I have my pick."
"You should choose one," Jennie heard herself say. "They are all lovely."
"Lovely," he repeated, the word dripping with disdain. "Yes. I suppose they are. Lovely and proper and perfectly suitable, every one of them." He paused, his gaze locking onto hers. "But they are not you."
The words hit her like a physical blow, stealing the breath from her lungs.
"Leonid—" she began, but he shook his head, cutting her off.
"No. Do not. I should not have said it, and you should not have heard it." He stepped back, pulling the dressing gown tighter around himself. "The portraits will remain, as my mother wishes. I shall do my duty eventually. I am a Manoban, after all. We are excellent at performing the roles assigned to us."
He turned away, walking back toward the study, and she watched him go, her heart a stone in her chest.
"Leonid," she called, and he stopped, his back to her. "The ribbon. The blue ribbon you left for me."
He did not turn. "You found it."
"I have kept it. Beneath my pillow. I have—" Her voice cracked, and she forced herself to breathe. "I have not stopped thinking about what it meant."
A long pause. The servants had withdrawn, leaving them alone in the foyer among the painted faces of the women who would never truly be his.
"It meant," he said slowly, his voice rough, "that I am a coward. That I could not bear to watch you marry him, but I could not bear to let you go entirely. It meant that I am a fool, and that I have always been a fool where you are concerned."
He turned, and in the dim light of the foyer, she could see the raw emotion written across his face—grief, longing, regret, and something else, something that burned like a flame she had thought extinguished.
"I left the ribbon because I could not leave you," he said.
Her hand flew to her mouth, and she felt the tears begin to gather in her eyes. "And now? What will you leave now?"
He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes tracing the line of her jaw, the curve of her mouth, the way her hands trembled at her sides.
"Nothing," he said at last. "I will leave nothing. Because I think, sister, that if I stay another moment longer, I will be tempted to do something we shall both regret."
He turned and disappeared into the study, closing the door behind him with a click that sounded like a lock.
Jennie stood alone in the foyer, surrounded by the painted faces of his potential brides, and felt the blue silk ribbon burning against her skin where she had tucked it into her sleeve.
She had married the sun.
But it was the moon she could not stop reaching for.