According to the strict etiquette of the capital, a daughter should rise to greet the head of the house, but she remained perfectly seated, her hands resting elegantly in her lap. She simply tilted her head, her dark eyes locking onto the man who had supposedly sired this body.
"Father," she said, her voice calm, polite, and entirely devoid of warmth.
The Marquis stopped at the edge of the pavilion. For a long, agonizing moment, he simply stared at her. He looked at the curve of her jaw, the shape of her eyes, and the midnight-blue silk that mirrored the colors of his own youth. He looked like a man staring at a ghost that had suddenly manifested in the daylight.
He opened his mouth, his throat working visibly, but no words came out. This was a man who commanded armies on the western borders, who navigated the treacherous waters of imperial court politics without blinking, yet he looked entirely paralyzed in front of his own twenty-two-year-old daughter.
