A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 73: A Week in the Country

But that wasn't the truth.

The truth was simpler. Uglier.

She didn't want him to see her.

Not like this.

Not in the nightdresses Tom picked. All silk and lace, designed for aesthetic, not comfort. Not with her hair curled and pinned the way Tom preferred—parted at the side, smoothed flat at the crown. Not in a room that didn't belong to her, under light enchanted to mimic candlefire, even when the sconces were dark.

Not with that bed in the background.

She hadn't looked into the mirror because if she did—if she saw James' face in it, his earnestness, his worry, his need—she didn't know what she might do.

So she left it buried. Left him waiting on the other side of silence.

It was Wednesday now. The dinner was tonight. Regulus had accepted her invitation within the hour—of course he had—and Lucius had replied with characteristic brevity. Avec plaisir, ma chère. Narcissa has already begun rehearsing her tolerance. A flourish of ink. No signature. But the message was clear: they'd host, and they'd do it well.

Tom was leaving soon.

A meeting in Versailles, of all places. Some French associate unveiling a cursed Fabergé egg allegedly once owned by a Russian blood seer. Ostentatious. Pretentious. Pointless.

He would hate it.

But he'd be gone, regardless. Might even stay the night, if the evening ran long.

Anastasia stood by the mirror, adjusting the comb in her hair when she felt him enter. She didn't turn. Didn't need to. She caught his reflection over her shoulder instead—Tom, already dressed for travel in his dark three-quarter coat, the collar high, gloves already buttoned at the wrist. There was a faint shimmer around his outline. Warding spells, likely. The ones he always applied before high-level meetings. Protection, he claimed. But she knew better.

It was a warning.

He was stepping back into the public theatre of power—the rooms where one wrong word, one misplaced breath, could shift the axis of loyalty. He never left without armour.

Tom crossed the room in three unhurried steps and lifted a hand to her temple, adjusting the comb she hadn't quite managed to fix. The touch was deft. Precise. Not tender. Not even admiring. Just... correct.

Like a man straightening a tie on a uniform he already owned.

"Leaving so early?" she asked lightly.

Tom nodded. "The portkey activates on the hour. I'll be in Versailles by five."

His voice was smooth, as always, but there was a tightness around his eyes. A weariness that only surfaced when he was bracing himself to be surrounded by men he couldn't stand but still needed.

"The meeting begins at six," he continued. "I'll attend the viewing, then dinner, then the demonstration."

He didn't elaborate. He never needed to. There would be posturing. Empty praise. A dozen hands waiting to be kissed. A thousand words meant only to veil ambition. Anastasia imagined the Fabergé egg, ornate and venomous, being passed from one gloved hand to the next while wine glasses clinked and ancient grievances were dressed up as compliments.

"And then?" she asked, watching him in the mirror.

Tom's mouth tilted—not a smile, but the shadow of one. It passed over his face like a cloud.

"I imagine I'll spend the evening watching half a dozen grown men squabble over a cursed object they don't understand while pretending to be civilised."