Tessa's POV:
The rumor didn’t work.
By morning, it was obvious. No mysterious footsteps at our door. No secret notes slipped under the carpet. No nervous maid tugging her apron and begging us to listen.
Nothing.
Grace said maybe the wrong people had overheard it. Lily thought maybe the maid was just too clever to fall for it. Amelia just muttered under her breath and threw herself into yet another round of wardrobe surveillance.
And me?
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the pale light pouring in through the curtains, feeling… stuck.
We’d played our cards. We’d whispered our bait into the wind. And the wind had carried it straight into oblivion.
I thought about how I heard in the movies the heroine always had a way to fix everything. Or it always worked out for them.
“Well,
