The hall was so quiet that even breathing felt like an interruption. 10 women stood in a perfect line inside the grand receiving room of Ashvale Manor. Each one of them had been chosen. Each one had been dressed, powdered, and prepared by mothers who had not slept in three nights. Their gowns were pressed, their smiles were practiced.
Their futures, they believed, were already decided. Duke Calder Reinhardt walked in without announcement. He did not look at the line right away. He handed his gloves to the footman on his left, straightened the single silver button at his collar, and then turned slowly to face the women who had traveled from five different counties to stand before him. His eyes moved, not quickly or impatiently.
He took his time, the way a man does when he is searching for something specific and already knows it is not where everyone expects it to be. He passed the first woman, then the second. The third gave a small curtsy, and he did not even pause. By the seventh, the room had grown so tense that one of the chaperones near the back wall had pressed her handkerchief to her lips. He stopped, but not in front of any of the 10 women in the line.
He was looking past them, past the velvet drapes, past the flower arrangements that had cost a small fortune. He was looking at the far corner of the room where a young woman sat on a stool near the fireplace, her back slightly turned, her fingers holding a torn hem she had been quietly stitching before the Duke walked in and forgot to leave. She had not been introduced. She was not on any list. She was not wearing anything that marked her as a candidate.
Her dress was plain ivory, old at the cuffs, and slightly too short at the ankle. Her hair was pinned, but not styled. She had a small ink stain on her left thumb. She did not look up immediately. When she finally did, it was only because the silence had become too heavy to ignore.
She found the duke staring directly at her. She looked behind herself to confirm he was not staring at the wall. He was not. His voice, when it came, was calm. It was not loud.
It did not need to be. Give me the one they call useless. Nobody moved. His secretary blinked. The matchmaker dropped her pen.