The long gallery of the Beaumont estate was lined with portraits of her ancestors. Stern-faced men and haughty women in stiff, formal attire stared down at her, their painted eyes cold and judgmental. They seemed to be assessing her, this outsider with their blood but not their breeding.
Aurelia walked slowly, Cora's hand a light, steadying pressure on her arm. She remembered this walk. In her first life, she had been terrified, her heart pounding with the desperate hope of being accepted, of being loved.
Now, her heart was a cold, steady stone in her chest. She passed a portrait of Lady Beatrice as a young woman—the same smile, the same cold eyes—and felt nothing. No longing. No fear. Just a quiet, hollow recognition.
She stopped before the heavy oak doors of the morning room and took a breath. Then, she pushed them open.
Inside, her birth mother, Lady Beatrice Beaumont, was laughing. She was seated on a plush velvet settee next to a younger girl, Aurelia's sister, Rosalind.
Rosalind was preening in a new dress of expensive lace, a glittering diamond hair clip sparkling in her blonde curls. Aurelia was wearing a simple, mended dress, one of the few she had brought with her from her merchant home.
The moment Beatrice saw Aurelia, the warmth vanished from her face. It was replaced by a polite, distant mask. Rosalind's gaze, however, was openly contemptuous as it swept over Aurelia from head to toe.
Aurelia moved forward and, as etiquette demanded, gathered her skirts and sank into a perfect curtsy. She lowered her eyes, softened her voice, made herself small. "Mother. I've come to pay my respects."
Beatrice gave a curt nod. "You're feeling better, then? A proper lady must maintain her composure. It is unbecoming to appear so fragile."
Rosalind giggled, a tinkling, malicious sound. "Oh, Mother, don't be cross. Sister is new from the country. It's only natural she doesn't understand our ways." The words dripped with condescension.
Beatrice's expression immediately softened as she turned to Rosalind, her eyes filled with adoration. "You are always so considerate, my little rose." She stroked Rosalind's hair, her fingers brushing against the diamond clip.
Aurelia's stomach clenched. A sharp sting pricked her chest, there and gone—quickly buried under ice. She remembered that hair clip. It had been a farewell gift from her adoptive parents, given to her when she left for the capital. The last thing her mother had pressed into her palm before the carriage pulled away. Beatrice had taken it the day Aurelia arrived, claiming it was too "gaudy" for a young lady, only to place it directly into her favored daughter's hair.
She lowered her gaze, hiding the icy glint in her eyes. Her voice was soft, submissive. "Yes, Mother. You are right to correct me."
Her obedience pleased Beatrice. This was the Aurelia she could manage—pliable and meek.
"Now that you are well," Beatrice said, her tone all business, "there is a matter you should be aware of. The Thorne family has expressed an interest in a match."
Thorne.
The name hit her like a blade between the ribs. Behind her eyes, images flashed—her adoptive father's body pulled from the sea, waterlogged and blue. Her mother's face, hollowed by grief, wasting away in a matter of months. Her brother, his bright eyes gone dull, his laughter silenced forever by a beating that had shattered his mind.
Her face remained a placid mask. She did not flinch. She did not blink.
"Alistair Thorne is a promising young man," Beatrice continued, her voice devoid of any maternal warmth. "This alliance would be most beneficial for our family."
Rosalind hid a smirk behind her lace fan. She knew of Alistair's reputation for arrogance and cruelty. Marrying Aurelia off to him was the perfect solution.
It was all happening again. Exactly as before. They were selling her like livestock.
Aurelia lifted her head, her expression one of carefully crafted innocence. "And what of Rosalind? Has a match been considered for my sister?"
Beatrice's voice turned sharp. "Rosalind's future is already being planned. You need not concern yourself with it. Your duty is to contribute to this family. You will remember that."
Something inside Aurelia went quiet. A door closed. A lock turned. The last, foolish ember of hope that this life could be different without her intervention flickered once—and died.
She stopped arguing. She simply nodded. "I understand, Mother."
Her quiet compliance made both Beatrice and Rosalind relax, confident that the little merchant girl was still firmly under their thumb.
Aurelia curtsied again and turned to leave. The moment her back was to them, her expression transformed. Her eyes were chips of frozen steel.
Relying on affection in this house was a fool's errand. She needed power. She needed allies.
A name surfaced from the depths of her memory. Eleanor Hayes. Her father's mistress. A woman who lived in the shadows of this house, as ostracized as Aurelia herself—but fiercely intelligent, quietly ambitious, and desperate to secure a future for her bastard son. In her past life, they had been bitter rivals, circling each other with knives drawn. But that Aurelia had been blind. She had seen an enemy where she should have seen a weapon. This time, she would not make the same mistake. This time, she would turn her enemy into her sharpest blade.
A faint, cold smile touched Aurelia's lips, so fleeting it was barely there.
As she stepped back into the gallery, she leaned toward her maid.
"Cora," she whispered, her voice low and firm. "Find out where Mrs. Hayes is right now. Before the engagement is set."
