Page 16 of Love & Letter Charms
Thoughts of the Rowanwoods had his mind drifting to Miss—no, she wasLadynow—Aurelise, and an unexpected shiver raced down his spine. An echo of what he’d felt during her magical demonstration. That music … pure magic given voice, no orchestra required, just her graceful hands conducting power itself into heartbreakingly beautiful sound.
He hadn’t been paying attention when she’d first approached for her presentation, too busy maintaining his facade of bored indifference. And then she had been facing away when shebegan, just another nervous young lady in a sea of silk and expectations.
But from the very first note, she had commanded his attention absolutely.
The memory of it still raised the hairs on his arms. The way the sound had seemed to emerge from the very air surrounding them, how the harmonies had cascaded like water over stone, building and layering until the entire ballroom had become her instrument. He’d forgotten to breathe, forgotten to maintain his practiced slouch, forgotten everything except the music that had seemed to reach inside his chest and squeeze.
When she’d turned back to curtsy, he hadn’t recognized her at first. A beat later, recollection stirred—Evryn’s younger sister, the one who had performed at a musicale last Season, a little taller now, her features more defined where they had once been softly girlish. He recalled being unexpectedly captivated by her pianoforte performance then, remembered the whispers afterward predicting her magic would manifest as something musical.
But this? This had exceeded every prediction, every expectation.
“Better?” his mother asked quietly, her voice pulling him from his reverie.
Ryden straightened, realizing his surge had fully passed. The trembling in the air had stilled, his eyes presumably returned to their normal shade.
“Quite recovered,” he said, injecting his usual careless tone into the words. “If you’ll excuse me, Mother, I should circulate among our guests. Find some charming young lady to dance with before I’m condemned to interact solely with your handpicked selection for the remainder of the Season.”
He rose from the throne with intentional languor, as though sitting still for so long had been the gravest imposition.He needed movement, needed distraction, needed to escape thoughts of the elaborate charade that awaited him at Solstice Hall in the days ahead.
Finding Evryn would serve. He could congratulate his friend on Dreamland’s success, perhaps indulge in some harmless flirtation with whoever happened to cross his path. Anything to avoid genuine emotion. The familiar ache that accompanied that thought settled in his chest. Exhausting, this eternal performance of feeling nothing deeply, caring for nothing truly. But manufactured emotions didn’t trigger his magic the way real ones might. Better to play the shameless flirt than risk unleashing a command that stripped away another’s will—or worse, an entire gathering’s—in a way that might end in tragedy. The weight of past mistakes still haunted him; he would not add to their number.
He spotted Evryn near one of the impossible fountains of cascading butterflies, standing with his younger brother Kazrian just as Mariselle was pulled away by her grandmother to greet someone.
“Evryn!” Ryden called out, falling easily into his public persona as he approached. “The man of the hour! This—” he gestured broadly at their miraculous surroundings, “—is absolutely extraordinary.”
Evryn grinned, clasping Ryden’s offered hand with the easy familiarity of long friendship. “You know full well it’s Mariselle who deserves most of the credit. I merely provided the lumyrite infrastructure.”
“Modest as always,” Ryden said with a laugh, then turned to the younger man beside Evryn. “Young Master Kazrian, a pleasure,” he said, then tried not to feel foolish about the greeting, for though Kazrian was several years his junior—and though Ryden had always been considered tall—the youngman now stood at least half a head above him. The youngest Rowanwood brother, it seemed, was now the tallest.
Kazrian executed a perfectly proper bow. “Your Highness.”
“I must say,” Evryn continued, his eyes dancing with barely suppressed mirth, “last Season when you claimed you might be forced to choose a bride this year, I thought you were being unnecessarily dramatic. Yet here we are. A Crown Court, no less. Your flair for theater remains unmatched.”
“Indeed.” Ryden’s smirk was automatic, as was the teasing jab that followed. He knew exactly how to needle his friend: “Your little sister?—”
“No.” The word came from both brothers simultaneously, Evryn’s jovial expression hardening while Kazrian’s formal composure cracked just enough to show genuine alarm.
“Absolutely not,” Evryn added for emphasis.
Ryden laughed, the sound rich with implied wickedness he didn’t actually feel. “Such touching brotherly concern. I hadn’t even finished my sentence.”
“We know you well enough,” Evryn said dryly. “Or I do, at least.”
“If I may, Your Highness,” Kazrian interjected, his formal manner at odds with the protective steel in his voice, “while I hold my sister in the highest regard—she is genuinely one of the finest people I know—I feel obligated to point out that she would make a most unsuitable princess.”
“Unsuitable?” Ryden arched an eyebrow, genuinely curious now.
“She is …” Kazrian paused, clearly searching for words that were both honest and not unkind. “She possesses a retiring disposition, shy to the point of discomfort. Large gatherings distress her considerably. She seeks nothing more than a quiet existence. The thought of standing at the center of society’s attention would be her definition of torture.”
“What Kazrian is attempting to say diplomatically,” Evryn added, “is that Aurelise is decidedly not the sort of lady who typically catches your interest.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. While we adore her, I imagine you’d find her conversation rather … limited.”
Kazrian frowned at his brother “Limited?” he muttered.
Evryn shot Kazrian a frown, sharpened it with a glare, then embellished the performance with a series of pointed eyebrow arches. The effect was unmistakable: a silent lecture compressed into mere seconds, which Ryden interpreted as Evryn’s desperate attempt to downplay his sister’s intelligence in hopes of diverting Ryden’s interest.
