Page 8 of A Heart of Bluestone

And yet, I don’t ever escape.

Dray is around more than I would like (which is none at all) and I hope one day he blows himself up in a ritual gone wrong.

Fucker.

Dray is…

Well, he’s the core of my torment.

He is what it means to have once been in naïve, childhood love with someone who later became a nightmare.

Childish love. Childish notions.

Childish Olivia.

The ride smoothens into a gradual stop, right between the fountain and the limestone steps that lead to the lacquered double doors.

I loosen a weary sigh before I peel myself from the seat.

The door opens from the other side.

A servant holds it by the handle and steps aside.

I clammer out with the day’s fatigue turning my movements clumsy. I’ve hardly brushed out the creases from my dress before the servant, Mr Younge, dips his head—and speaks a curse at me.

“Your father is in the foyer,” he tells me, his voice as smooth as the car’s engine still softly purring behind me. “The Sinclairs have arrived—and the party leaves shortly for dinner.”

My mouth puckers and I blow a raspberry right at him.

Mr Younge’s round face is unchanging, entirely unfazed, since he’s worked with our family since before I was born. He is well used to my rolled eyes and scowls and grumbles by now, used to the unrefined, rougher edges I wear, those that never seemed to polish out, no matter my upbringing.

“If I crawl back into the car, will you stop me?” I grumble the complaint, but we both know the answer to that.

Yes.

Yes, he will stop me.

Drag me out by the ankles if he must, just as he has done many times over the years when I’ve tried to hide in bushes from the Sinclairs, or avoid my vegetables as I took refuge in closets.

Leaving my bags in the car, I know Mr Younge will attend to them, put them in my room, or order a lesser ranked servant toperform that duty for him. Probably the latter, honestly, since he’s a bit of a snob.

I make it just one step.

“Miss Olivia,” he halts me.

I frown over my shoulder at him.

“There is no time for a change of clothes,” he says and lingers his sharp eyes over my appearance.

Though his eyes are an ordinary brown, they are brown swords, chiselled from mahogany. Those swords linger over the limp bun nesting on my head, drooped aside from the sway of the car. Then he drops his gaze to the brown lace-up boots that I flex my toes in.

I drop a frown to the boots.

Some splashes of puddles stain the suede, sure, and a lace is undone, but they aren’t so unacceptable. The beige of my linen dress is creased from the car ride, and perhaps the hem is a tad shorter than my parents might approve, but there’s little I can do about that right now.

Not like I picked these items out of a bin on the side of the road, these are Saint Laurents.

I huff with a touch of exaggeration, and I aim it right at Mr Younge.

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