By the time the last strains of the orchestra fell silent, Arista could not catch her breath. Her face hurt from smiling so much. The man had been a gentleman, and his hands fell away as soon as the music stopped.
“I won’t ask for your name, but would you care to stroll in the garden?” His low-timbred voice caused pleasant vibrations along her skin. Nothing like when she was with Grae, but she didn’t feel her usual distaste at having a man so close to her. Still, leaving the party with him might be one risk too many.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” she said with a smile, and left before he could protest. A breath of cool night air did sound nice, so she headed toward the door herself.
A figure stepped out of the shadows. Grae? Arista blinked. He wore no disguise tonight, so it was definitely him. He didn’t look happy to see her, and truth be told, she was not happy to see him. Not here, not when she was conducting business he had no right to know about.
“What are you doing here?’ she demanded.
“I came here so I could watch you conduct your business,” he said. “To try to understand why you were doing it.” She saw raw pain in his eyes as he pushed past her.
Arista stood in stunned silence. Grae was halfway to the doors before she could move her feet. By the time she reached him, he had stepped outside. She grabbed his arm and tugged. “It’s not what you think.”
“I know what I saw,” he ground out. “You asked me to trust you? I almost did.”
He jerked his arm free and stormed toward the street. This was not how it was supposed to be. “Grae, please wait.” Arista ran to catch up with him. Carriages were still bringing people to the party, so she took his hand and pulled until he followed her farther down the street, away from anyone who might overhear.
“So you can tell more lies?”
“No, so I can tell you the truth.” Frustration welled up inside her. She didn’t want to lie to him, so she had to tell him at least part of the truth. She hated the way he was looking at her now. “I despise my job.” The doubt in his eyes only made her want him to understand all that much more. “It’s never been my choice, what I do. I hate controlling people’s lives, but it’s not something I can simply refuse to do.”
“And dancing with strangers, that’s how you find new business?”
Embarrassment heated her cheeks. Why had she given in to the urge to let loose tonight? Of course it was the same night Grae decided to follow her. “That’s not it at all. I’m only the go-between. I make the deliveries and collect the information.” She kept her voice low in case anyone was near enough to hear. Her pulse thundered in her ears. This was more than anyone outside of her circle knew.
Grae now held Lady A’s fate in his hands.
“So, what was that, then? The dancing. The laughing with that man?” Grae demanded. He held her shoulders and looked right into her eyes. His gaze was hard, his lips thin with anger. “Because from where I was standing, you didn’t seem to despise your work at all.”
She set her jaw, and her lips thinned as well. “It’s complicated.”
“It didn’t look too complicated to me. In fact, it all seemed quite clear.”
Arista balled her fingers into fists at her side. How could he understand the small taste of freedom she’d gotten tonight? How it made her feel so alive inside that she’d had to dance? Grae had no right to be angry.
“Then you mistook what you saw. Someone like you would not understand.”
“Then explain it to me.” Grae dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. “Simple enough so that I don’t feel the need to tell my mother who you really are. That our houseguest is actually a blackmailing liar!”
“I’m not,” she gasped. His words stung. “I swear I’m only doing this because…” She almost spilled out Wild’s name. There was no explanation she could give that would satisfy Grae, not without revealing everything. And she could not do that. Even now, raging at her, he was so vulnerable. She didn’t want to hurt him more. It would be her burden to bear. Her secret.
She sighed, her body suddenly heavy. “I’m sorry—I wish I could make you understand, but there is so much I can’t tell you.” She took a step away from him and felt her body protesting. For a few glorious nights, she had felt something, had felt truly alive. Grae had given her that, and she didn’t regret a second of it. “I’m not like you. I didn’t have a family who loved me, who protected me, and I’ve only done what I had to do to survive. But I promise you that the person you met, the one who danced with you, that is me—the real me—behind all the pretense. I want you to see who I really am.”