Chapter 5: A Breakfast of Thorns
The bruise on her wrist had deepened overnight into a violent constellation of purple and blue, a map of his fury.Jennie left it uncovered.Let him see it.Let them all see it.
She entered the breakfast room like a storm cloud entering a chapel. The morning light was obscenely cheerful, slicing through the tall windows and gleaming off the silver tea service, the polished wood, the frost-white chandelier. It smelled of yeast and wealth and Maria’s floral perfume, which sat over everything like a scented shroud.
Marco was at the head of the table, spectacles perched on his nose, scanning a ledger. Maria was delicately buttering a piece of toasted bread as if performing surgery.Leonid was already there, of course. He sat perfectly erect, his black curls still damp from washing, his eyes fixed on the political broadsheet beside his plate. He didn’t look up when she entered, but a muscle tightened in his jaw.
Rosé, standing nervous and willow-straight by the sideboard, gave Jennie a tiny, terrified smile.“You’re late,” Marco said, not looking up from his figures.
Jennie said nothing. She pulled the heavy oak chair out, the legs scraping loudly on the floorboards, and sat directly opposite Leonid.She felt his gaze lift then, a physical weight crossing the table. He took in her appearance: the hair she’d merely dunked in water from the pitcher, the old dress she’d chosen deliberately, the exposed bruise. His eyes lingered on the mark for a fraction of a second before flicking back to his paper.His expression didn’t change.
A footman stepped forward to serve her. She waved him off and reached for the platter of sausages herself, using her fingers to take three. Maria made a small, pained sound, like a teapot beginning to whistle.“Jennie, the utensils. For heaven’s sake,” Maria sighed, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “We are not in a tavern.”
“Faster this way,” Jennie mumbled around a mouthful, the grease shining on her lips.She kept her eyes on Leonid. He turned a page of his broadsheet, the sound crisp in the tense air.
“It’s about dignity,” Marco said, finally setting his ledger aside.His eyes, cold and assessing, swept over her. “Which you seem determined to shed alongside every other social grace.”
“I have the dignity of an empty stomach,” Jennie said, picking up a slice of bread and tearing it with her teeth. “It’s more honest than the dignity of polished silver.”
Leonid slowly folded his paper. The action was so deliberate it silenced even Maria’s clinking cutlery. He placed it neatly beside his plate, which was still nearly full. He looked at his father, then at Jennie, his beautiful voice calm and utterly flat.“Your conduct yesterday was unacceptable.”
There it was.The chill in the room deepened. Rosé shrank back against the wall.Jennie swallowed, setting the bread down. “Which part? The part where I spoke, or the part where I breathed?”
“The part where you inserted yourself into a private discussion with malicious intent,” Leonid continued, as if reciting a legal charge. “You deliberately sowed discord and made a spectacle of yourself, and of this family, in front of a valuable ally.”
“Valuable ally?” Jennie barked a laugh. “She was looking at you like you were a new piece of furniture she wanted to order. Was the political conversation about the shipping lanes in her eyes, or the ones her father owns?”
Marco’s fist came down on the table.The plates jumped. “Enough!”
Silence rang out, broken only by the distant call of a rook outside.
Marco’s face was mottled with anger.“You will remember your place. You are here by our charity, a charity that seems to have been tragically misplaced.You will not speak to Leonid in that manner. You will not sabotage his prospects, which are the prospects of this entire house. Do you understand, or must we find more concrete ways to remind you?”
The threat hung in the fragrant air. Jennie’s heart hammered, but she held Marco’s gaze, the animal in her refusing to look away. She saw not anger, but a cold, utilitarian disappointment. She was a flawed tool, a bad investment.It was Leonid who spoke next, his voice lower, meant only for her across the table. “You said things that cannot be unsaid. You created an impression that will require significant effort to correct.”
“Good,” she whispered back, leaning forward, her voice carrying in the quiet room. “Let her think you’re flawed.Let her think you’re real. Maybe then she’ll be too scared to want you. Maybe then you won’t have to marry someone who only cares about your shipping lanes and your bloodline.”
Maria gasped.Marco looked apoplectic. But Leonid just stared at her, his dark eyes unreadable pools. She saw something flicker there, just for an instant—not anger, but something more like exhaustion, a deep and weary recognition of the impossible creature before him.He pushed his chair back, the legs whispering on the rug. He stood, his height seeming to draw all the light in the room toward him.
“I have business in the city,” he stated, his words once more for the room at large. He gave a slight, formal nod to his parents. “Do not expect me for dinner.”
He walked out, his boots measured and firm on the marble floor of the hallway, the sound fading until there was only silence.
The breakfast room felt cavernous without him.The beautiful light felt hollow. Jennie looked down at her plate, at the greasy, half-eaten food that suddenly sickened her. Marco had returned to his ledger with a disgusted snort. Maria was fanning herself lightly, as if the conversation had raised her temperature.“Clear this away,” Maria said to Rosé, her voice thin. “And for God’s sake, Jennie, go and make yourself presentable. You look like something the cat dragged in.”
Jennie stood, her chair making no sound this time. She felt drained, hollowed out.She had thrown every piece of herself at him, and he had simply… left. She caught Rosé’s eye as she passed. The maid’s expression was full of a pity so profound it was worse than Marco’s disdain.
Alone in the corridor, the scent of beeswax and old stone replacing the breakfast smells, Jennie leaned against the cold wall. She looked at the bruise on her wrist, then pressed her thumb into the darkest part, savoring the bright burst of pain.It was the only real thing she had left. He was gone into his world of business and alliances, and she was here, in the too-quiet house, with nothing but the echo of his anger and the sharp, sweet memory of his breath against her skin in the rose garden.