Page 49 of The Pureblood Daughter
Their names are at once foreign and comforting, like a warm bed in an unfamiliar room. Then something occurs to Adelina, and she’s almost afraid to ask.
“What was... my name?”
Again, the countess smiles. This time, she reaches both hands across the table, and her touch is soothing. Her eyes sparkle, filling with tears.
“You,draga, are Nadia. Nadia Magdalena. The last of your clan.”
The name—Nadia—sends a burst of warmth through Adelina’s chest. Like a key unlocking a secret room, the word opens a part of her mind so long buried she hadn’t even known it was there.
She remembers a woman—her mother—leaning over the bassinet, her long dark hair falling about Nadia’s tiny hands as she reached up to touch her pale smiling face.
“Nadia, my sweet girl.”
The voice is an echo from long past, and it sends Adelina to tears for the second time that morning. She grips Lady Rosetti’s hands, and the countess stands, pulling her into a tight embrace.
“You’re safe now,” Lady Rosetti whispers in her ear. “You’rehome, child. And I couldn’t be happier.” She steps back to look upon Adelina’s face and pushes a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I may no longer have Vera, but I have you, and for you to finally learn the truth brings me immeasurable joy. It is painful, but you now know who you are, and that truth ispowerful.”
“Nadia. Nadia.” Adelina tries the name on her lips, and though strange, it feels like home. She looks up into the countess’s eyes as a final tear slips down her cheek. “If my parents wished me to be Nadia, then I shall be Nadia. From this moment forth.”
Lady Rosetti is beaming, lustrous. “Very well, Miss Magdalena.”
Goose bumps skirt across her skin, and fire burns through her veins.
“And one more thing...” she says.
“Anything.”
Her heart pounding, she steels herself. “I’d like a drink now.”
The countess’s smile turns proud. “As you wish.”
Lady Rosetti calls for Benjamin and gives him succinct orders. A few minutes later, he returns to the dining room with a silver tray, one glass of crimson balanced delicately upon its lustrous surface.
“Miss Gray,” he says, offering her the tray.
She clears her throat as the blood glimmers in the morning light.
“It’s Magdalena,” she says, taking the wineglass despite the tremble in her fingertips.
“My apologies, Miss Magdalena.” His eyes shine excitedly, for she most certainly just gave him a golden nugget of gossip. “I shan’t make that mistake again.”
Nadia looks down into the viscous liquid, and though part of her brain tells her to be repulsed, the other part—the part that hungers for a taste—is victorious.
She lifts the glass to her lips, and the blood is on her tongue, the taste tantalizing. It’s nothing like drinking from Theodore, his pulse thrumming beneath her lips, but it’s satisfying in its own way, and she finishes the glass in a moment.
After dabbing the remnants from her lips, she looks up into Lady Rosetti’s smiling eyes and knows she’s begun a new journey—not as Adelina Gray, but as Nadia Magdalena.
Chapter Twenty
The next day, Nadia followsAmélie to the sitting room, where Mrs. Ann McDonald, Everborough’s most sought-after modiste, awaits her. She was in Mrs. McDonald’s shop mere weeks ago, and seeing her again, this time in the Rosetti manor, is somewhat unsettling. Nadia gives her a polite nod before turning to curtsy to Lady Rosetti, who sits comfortably in a high-backed chair, her emerald-green gown spilling in waves about her feet, matching the shade of her eyes.
“Miss Magdalena,” Mrs. McDonald says, standing from the settee to curtsy politely. As one would expect, she’s dressed in a most becoming gown, the plum fabric highlighted with gold accents and a delightful hat. “Last I saw you, I believe we were preparing a new gown for the Rosetti soiree, no?” Her smile is small and knowing.
“Indeed. Though much has changed since then,” Nadia says, looking to Lady Rosetti, unsure how much she can reveal in front of the dressmaker. “Thank you for making time for me on such short notice; the season must keep you busy, what with your designs being the talk of the ton.”
“It’s my pleasure. When Lady Rosetti wrote to me saying the Magdalena child had been found, well, I had to see it for my own eyes.” Mrs. McDonald shifts her gaze to Lady Rosetti. “The resemblancetrulyis uncanny. It’s astonishing I didn’t see it before.”
“As I said.” Lady Rosetti smirks and lifts a teacup to her lips.
