The next morning, the Thompson estate's main drawing room was filled with tension and the unspoken, terrible weight of death.
Beatrice sat in her main, high-backed chair, her face a pale, grim mask of exhaustion. She looked as though she had aged ten years in a single night. Marissa and Ashlyn stood on either side of her, two opposing forces in silks. Marissa was composed, her face pale but her expression unreadable, her hands clasped calmly in front of her. Ashlyn, by contrast, looked pale with a feigned, delicate worry, her hands nervously twisting a lace handkerchief.
In the center of the room, the maid Nora knelt on the expensive carpet, her head bowed, her body trembling under the watchful eye of two household guards who stood by the door.
A heavy silence filled the room, broken only by the sharp, measured thud of a guard's boots approaching in the marble hall. A moment later, one of the Duke's guards, the one Marissa had sent, entered.
