Chapter 2

The ballroom had gone quiet. Not the whole room — not yet — but the circle around the dessert table had contracted, and the soft clink of glasses beyond it had dimmed as guests turned, drawn by the strange tableau of a woman in champagne silk kneeling to receive a child's hug beside a man whose grin had curdled.

Gavin recovered first, because he always did, straightening his black lapels with a sharp tug. "This is absurd," he said, aiming the words at Delphine, who was staring at the little girl with the expression of a woman who had just smelled something rotting. "She can't have a daughter. We were together for years — I would have known."

"You weren't together," Seraphine said, rising to her full height while keeping one hand resting on the child's shoulder. "You left."

"Three years ago! You think I wouldn't have heard if you'd had a baby?"

Seraphine didn't answer. She didn't need to. The little girl — no more than five, in a puffy violet princess dress with silver tulle underneath — had turned her head to look up at Gavin with wide, curious eyes, and then she had done something that made his stomach drop: she had waved, not at him, but past him, her small hand fluttering in the direction of the far wall.

Gavin turned, already irritable, already ready to sneer at whoever had let a child wander loose in a room full of adults —

And the sneer died in his throat.