(Landy POV)
The news came not with a shout, but with a whisper, carried on the lips of a breathless runner from a sympathetic network far beyond the swamp. The man collapsed by the fire, gulping air, and the words he choked out turned the warmth of the camp to ice.
“Fred… he has the Old Duke.”
The world tilted. I saw Ross, who had been mending a net, go perfectly still. Her hands froze, the bone needle poised in mid-air. Her face, usually a mask of controlled composure, went pale as parchment.
“He’s alive?” The question was torn from her, Ross’s gruff voice cracking under the weight of a daughter’s hope.
The runner nodded, his chest heaving. “For now. Fred’s calling it a ‘reconciliation.’ He’s throwing a Victory Ball at the old Beaumont outpost, two nights from now. He’s parading the Duke as his ‘honored guest.’” The man spat into the fire. “Everyone knows what it is. A trophy. A display.”
The Beaumont outpost. A fortified trading post on the river’s edge, all whitewashed walls and manicured gardens, a little pocket of brutal elegance carved into the wilderness. It was the perfect stage for Fred’s particular brand of theater.
I looked at Rose. I could see the calculations flying behind her eyes, swift and desperate as trapped birds. The Duke, her father. The man who, for all his flaws and his inability to protect her mother, was the last tether to her old life, to the man who had loved her despite the secret in her blood. Fred wasn’t just holding a man captive; he was holding the last piece of her heart that wasn’t here in the swamp with me.
Her eyes met mine across the fire. The silent acknowledgment we’d cultivated over the past days solidified into a grim, shared purpose. The game was over. The mission had begun.
“We’re going,” I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the murmurs of the camp.
Maman Brigitte’s gaze was heavy upon us. “It is a trap, Chevalier. As obvious as the sun in the sky. He dangles the bait, knowing the lioness will come for her cub.”
“He’s not a cub,” I said, my eyes still locked with Rose’s. “He’s her father. And he’s counting on her sentiment. He doesn’t understand that sentiment has been forged into something sharper.”
Rose stood up, letting the net fall. Ross was gone. In his place stood a general. “He’ll be expecting a rescue attempt. A frontal assault. He’ll have his Hounds everywhere. So we won’t give him one.”
A slow, dangerous smile touched my lips. I knew where this was going. Back to the lessons. Back to the ballroom.
“We’re going to walk right through the front door,” she said, her voice low and steady. “We’re going to his Victory Ball.”
(Rose POV)
The plan was insane. It was a symphony of audacity, composed in the key of certain death. And it was our only option.
For the next thirty-six hours, the Maroon camp transformed into a war room and a dressing room simultaneously. We pored over stolen maps and schematics provided by the runner. The outpost had a main hall, a courtyard, guest quarters on the second floor—likely where my father was being held—and a single, heavily guarded gate.
“We can’t fight our way in,” I stated, my finger tracing the perimeter on the faded parchment. “And we can’t fight our way out with a frail old man. So we don’t fight. We perform.”
CeeCee, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since the news, emerged from our hut with a determined glint in her eye. She had been our keeper of secrets, and now she would be our costumer. She laid out the plan for our disguises.
“Landy,” she said, turning to him. “You’re no longer the Chevalier. You are Jean-Luc, a minor French aristocrat from a backwater island, new to the territory and eager to curry favor with the powerful Monsieur Fred. You are arrogant, slightly stupid, and rich enough to be harmless.”
Landy’s brow furrowed. “I don’t speak French.”
“You don’t need to. You mangle it. It adds to the character. You’re a bumpkin with a title and a purse. Ross,” she said, turning to me, her gaze softening imperceptibly. “You’re his… what? Valet is too low. His cousin. A sickly, silent cousin. It explains why you don’t speak, why you’re pale, and why you can keep your face hidden.”
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It was brilliant. The sickly cousin. It allowed me to be there, to observe everything, without having to engage in the deadly dance of conversation. It allowed me to hide in plain sight.
The real work began. CeeCee, with the help of the camp’s best scavengers, produced a miracle. A gentleman’s suit, slightly outdated but impeccably tailored, stolen from a riverboat gambler weeks ago. It was a deep burgundy, and when Landy put it on, standing stiffly as CeeCee adjusted the shoulders, the transformation was staggering.
The lean, coiled fighter was gone. In his place stood a man who looked like he’d never done a day of hard labor in his life. The clothes lent him a borrowed authority, but his eyes… his eyes were still the Chevalier’s. They held a storm.
“Posture,” I reminded him quietly, slipping back into my role as instructor for a moment. “You command the room. You’re not apologizing for being there.”
He took a deep breath, straightened his spine, and rolled his shoulders back. The shift was instantaneous. The arrogance CeeCee had prescribed settled on him like a cloak. He looked every inch the foppish, entitled nobleman.
My own transformation was more intimate, and more terrifying. CeeCee had procured a gentleman’s traveling outfit for me—a high-collared coat of dark grey wool and breeches. But the true genius was in the details. She used a pale powder to drain the color from my face. A subtle, clever padding in the coat’s shoulders and chest broadened my silhouette, counteracting the narrowness of my hips. She darkened my eyebrows with charcoal, making them heavier, more masculine. And she wrapped a silk cravat high around my neck, obscuring its slender line and, crucially, hiding the absence of an Adam’s apple.
When I looked in the shard of polished metal that served as our mirror, Ross stared back. A paler, more refined, and deathly quiet version of Ross, but him nonetheless. The final touch was a wide-brimmed hat, pulled low to shadow my eyes.
I looked… passable. As long as no one looked too closely. As long as I didn’t speak.
The night of the ball, we stood at the edge of the swamp, looking across a moonlit field at the Beaumont outpost. It was ablaze with light. Carriages rolled up the drive, disgorging men in fine coats and women in silks. The air carried the faint, mocking sound of a string quartet.
My heart was a trapped bird. This was the world I had escaped. The gilded cage. And I was walking back into it voluntarily.
I felt a hand on my elbow. Landy’s hand. He was in character, his face a mask of vapid anticipation, but his touch through the fabric of my coat was firm, grounding.
“Ready, Cousin?” he asked, his voice pitched with a feigned, nasal quality.
I merely nodded, pulling the hat lower.
We did not arrive by carriage. We emerged from the tree line as if we had taken a wrong turn on a stroll, two foolish gentlemen who had wandered too far from the party. The guards at the gate, bored and expecting wealthy idiots, barely glanced at our forged invitation before waving us through.
And just like that, we were inside.
The heat hit me first. The oppressive, perfumed heat of too many bodies in a confined space. The scent of beeswax, wine, and expensive tobacco was a sensory trigger, hauling me back to the drawing-room at Le Château de Fer. I fought down a wave of nausea.
The main hall was a whirl of color and sound. Crystal chandeliers blazed overhead, their light glinting off jewels and sword hilts. The music was lively, but beneath it, I could feel the tension. Fred’s court was here, but so were rivals, opportunists, and men who knew this “Victory” was a sham.
And there, on a raised dais at the far end of the room, holding court in a throne-like chair, was Monsieur Fred.
He looked exactly as I remembered. Impeccable. A spider at the center of his web. He was smiling, chatting amiably, but his eyes, those cold, calculating eyes, were constantly scanning the crowd. Searching.
My gaze swept the room, looking for my father. He was nowhere to be seen.
Landy, playing his part to perfection, snagged two glasses of champagne from a passing servant. He handed one to me, his movements exaggeratedly gracious.
“For your health, Cousin,” he said loudly, then leaned in and whispered, so low only I could hear, “Breathe, Rose. Just breathe. I’m here.”
The sound of my name on his lips, here in this den of wolves, was a lifeline. I took a small, steadying breath and nodded.
We began to move, a slow, deliberate circuit of the room. Landy played the bumpkin aristocrat beautifully, introducing us to anyone who would listen with a mangled French accent and a complete lack of social awareness. He was so perfectly, obnoxiously believable that people were eager to move away from us, giving us the space we needed to observe.
I kept my head down, my eyes darting from beneath the brim of my hat. I saw the Hounds. They were stationed at every door, every window, dressed as footmen. Their eyes, unlike the glazed, merry eyes of the guests, were sharp and watchful.
Then, I saw him.
Not my father. Ollie.
He was across the room, dressed in a servant’s livery, carrying a tray of empty glasses. His face was a thundercloud of misery. Our eyes met for a fractured second. His widened in sheer, unadulterated panic. He gave a minute, frantic shake of his head—a warning—before melting back into the crowd of servants.
My blood ran cold. He was here. Had he been forced? Was this part of his punishment? Or had he chosen to crawl back to Fred?
Before I could process it, the music swelled and a path cleared through the center of the room. Fred stood, raising his hands for silence.
“My friends! My honored guests!” His voice, that smooth, cultured baritone, slithered through the hall, silencing the chatter. “Thank you for celebrating this… happy reunion with me. A reconciliation of a fractured family!”
The crowd applauded politely. My stomach churned.
“And now,” Fred continued, his smile widening into something predatory, “to show that all is forgiven, and that the past is truly behind us… I would like to present my dear, old friend. The Duke!”
A side door opened. Two Hounds flanked my father as he was led, not to the dais, but to the center of the dance floor.
The air left my lungs.
He was alive, but he was a ghost. He was thinner, his fine clothes hanging loose on his frame. His hands trembled slightly, and his eyes, once so full of quiet authority, were hollow. Defeated. He stood there, a broken old man, put on display like a prize stag.
Fred descended from the dais and walked a slow circle around him, like a trainer showcasing a docile animal.
“As you can see,” Fred said, his voice dripping with false benevolence, “he is well. He is cared for. He has come to understand the… error of his ways. And the ways of his traitorous, mixed-blood niece, who shamefully abandoned him.”
The crowd murmured. I felt Landy’s body go rigid beside me.
Fred stopped directly in front of my father. “Tell me, old friend,” he purred, his voice carrying to every corner of the hall. “Where is she? Where is my dear, departed Rose? Surely, a father knows the heart of his child.”
This was the true cruelty. This was the trap within the trap. He was torturing my father, publicly, for information he knew the old man didn’t have.
My father lifted his head. His voice was thin, but clear. “I do not know, Fred. And if I did, I would never tell you.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Fred’s face. He leaned in close, his words a venomous whisper that everyone heard. “Pity. I had hoped for a happier ending tonight.”
He straightened up, his gaze sweeping the crowd once more. It passed over us, over the foppish Jean-Luc and his sickly cousin, and moved on. We were invisible. For now.
But the clock was ticking. The display was over. The real hunt was about to begin. We were in the lion’s den, the bait was paraded before us, and the lion was hungry. We had to get to my father, and we had to do it before Fred decided this particular performance had reached its final act.