She stepped forward from where she had been standing — fluid, unhurried, her green dress catching the candlelight — and her voice came out warm and entirely unrattled.
"Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding in how the arrangement was communicated," she said, addressing the Count with a smile that managed to acknowledge the reality of the situation while simultaneously offering everyone in the room a way to pretend it hadn't happened. "The Viscount has always valued transparency with the Redwood household above all else. If there is any confusion in the documentation, I'm certain it can be reviewed and clarified at a more appropriate time."
Redwood looked at her.
Something in his expression shifted — a minimal acknowledgment of what she had just done, the political grace of it, the way she had handed him an exit route without insulting his intelligence.
He shook his head once. Not rudely. Definitively.
