The White Rose Beneath Moonlight

My brother dropped his champagne glass before my father finished offering me the ring. The crystal struck the marble floor and shattered between our shoes. The sound carried across the ballroom, silencing the string quartet and the murmurs around the Mercer family's winter gala. Beyond the tall windows, the harbor lights shivered over the black water of Bellwether Bay. Julian looked at the broken glass, then at Adrian Vale. "I'm not marrying him," he said. My father's expression barely moved. "This isn't the time." "It's exactly the time. We're standing in front of everyone who expects me to pretend this arrangement is normal." I had read this scene before. Not here. Not as Theodore Mercer, wearing a borrowed black tuxedo and standing beneath a crystal chandelier in a room full of strangers who had been told I was the long-lost heir. I had read it on a screen, in a romance novel I'd finished three weeks before the car accident that should have killed me. In the novel, the real Mercer son returned, Julian rejected his arranged fiancé, and the family pushed the substitute heir into the engagement instead. The substitute heir was me. Theodore Mercer had lasted eleven chapters. By the time Adrian Vale became the story's villain, Theo was already dead. My father held out the ring. "Theodore can decide for himself." That was the line. I remembered it exactly. I also remembered what happened when the original Theo accepted: a year of humiliations, a wedding nobody wanted, and a final confrontation in which Adrian's hands rested calmly on the arms of his chair while Theo begged him not to ruin the Mercer family. I had never reached the chapter explaining why Theo died. The book's author had taken it down before I could finish. The ring gleamed in my father's palm. "I don't know Adrian," I said. My father's mouth tightened. "Then you can get to know him." "That's not an answer." "It's a reasonable arrangement between two families." Across the ballroom, Adrian sat beside the marble fireplace. He wore a charcoal suit with no tie, his dark hair brushed back from his forehead. A narrow cane rested against the chair beside him, though he didn't need it to get around. He used a wheelchair, and the room pretended not to notice the way people stared. I noticed because the novel had described him as a monster in a perfectly cut suit. The man in front of me looked tired, not monstrous. His gaze met mine. It didn't plead. It didn't challenge me. It held steady, as if he were waiting to see what I would do with the trap. Julian gave a short laugh. "Theo's barely been home for a month. You want to trade me for him like a place card?" "I'm right here," I said. Julian turned toward me, and for the first time I noticed how much we looked alike. The same pale eyes. The same sharp chin. On him, the family resemblance appeared natural. On me, it felt borrowed. "We can talk about it privately," my father said. "You've had years to talk about it privately," I replied. "You're asking in front of your guests because you want a yes they can witness." Several people looked away. My father's hand lowered a fraction. Julian stared at me. "You're supposed to be the one who wants to belong." There it was: the distinction between us. Julian had been raised as a Mercer. I'd spent twenty-six years under another name, in another state, with a mother who had told me nothing about the family whose blood I shared. Belonging was supposed to be the reason I said yes. I looked at Adrian. "Do you want this?" I asked. A hush passed through the nearest cluster of guests. It was apparently rude to ask the other half of an arranged engagement what he wanted. Adrian's fingers rested on the arm of his chair. "I want your father to stop using you as an answer to a problem he created." My father's face hardened. "That doesn't sound like a yes," I said. "It isn't." The answer should have made the choice simple. Instead, it disturbed the scene I remembered. In the book, Adrian had smiled. A cold, beautiful smile. Then he had accepted Theo with the air of a man acquiring an object. Perhaps I'd remembered wrong. I gave the ring back to my father. "I won't take Julian's place tonight," I said. "If Adrian and I are going to have a conversation, it'll be without an audience and without anyone calling it an engagement." My father's expression warned me that I had made an enemy. Julian looked relieved, but he wouldn't meet my eyes. Adrian inclined his head. "That sounds fair." The quartet resumed. The guests began talking again. My father closed his fingers around the ring as though he could crush the decision in his hand. A server carried a tray past us. One white rose lay on it, placed beside a row of glasses. The flower looked almost blue in the moonlight coming through the windows. I watched Adrian wheel himself toward the doors. Before he left the ballroom, he turned back. "If you want the truth about why your family needs me," he said, "ask your father what happened to the Mercer ferry." Then he disappeared into the corridor. ***** My father kept me beside him for the next hour, introducing me to people who spoke of my return as though I were a useful new acquisition. Julian vanished before the cake was cut. When I finally slipped onto the terrace, the harbor wind stung my face. My phone showed one message from an unknown number. Adrian: If you want the truth, come to Vale House tomorrow. Alone. I looked through the glass at my father, smiling for the cameras beneath the chandelier. I texted back. Me: Ten in the morning. The reply arrived before I put the phone away. Adrian: I'll have coffee.