Vincent’s gaze shifted to his mother’s drawn face. Her eyes were feverish, her lips trembling. He could see her skull through her thin skin.
His mother was a slender woman. Very frail. She spent her days attending board meetings and chairing charity events, drinking tea with other highborn ladies, and attending garden parties. But even those, if they had too much tension, could affect her health.
She was from Europe, but most people had long forgotten that. In the whole of Ashrone, only her husband called her Genevieve. Everyone else thought her legal name was Ginnie.
“Even if the whole world were to come crashing down, Edward Kramer, could you not have used another?” she roared. “After everything I gave up for you! For YOU! You have the audacity! The impertinence! The gall!”
“Ginnie,
