White Roses, Black Doves

A hunger through time-6

The morning sun bled through the lace curtains of our shared dressing room, casting long, sharp shadows across the floor. I sat at the vanity, brushing my hair, while Lucy paced behind me. She had been restless for days, her eyes constantly darting toward the window whenever a carriage rattled down the street.

"It’s strange, don’t you think?" Lucy said, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial register that set my teeth on edge. She stopped her pacing and leaned over my shoulder, staring at my reflection in the mirror. "A month ago, your parlor was a revolving door of dukes, lords, and promising sons. Now? It’s a desert. Mr. Ashworth, Lord Bentley, even the insufferable Captain Thorne—they’ve all simply vanished."

I paused the hairbrush mid-stroke, my gaze meeting hers in the glass. "Perhaps they have other matters of business, Lucy. London is a busy place."

"Don't be naive, Alice," she snapped, her nails digging into the velvet of the vanity chair. "They haven't left for business. They've been cleared. And it all began the moment Cornelius Thorne crossed our threshold."

I felt a faint prickle of unease, but I smoothed it away with a shrug. "He is a friend. He is a partner to Father, nothing more. He has been nothing but polite, helpful, and attentive to my interests."

Lucy let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. She grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her, her expression twisted with a mixture of irritation and genuine, frantic concern. "Polite? Helpful? Sister, look at him! Do you truly not see it? When he looks at you, he doesn't see a woman—he sees prey. There is a hunger in his eyes that is utterly unnatural. It’s predatory, cold, and entirely focused on you."

I pulled away, my heart hammering a nervous rhythm against my ribs. "You are imagining things, Lucy. He is a man of business, a bit intense perhaps, but he has never been anything but a gentleman."

"He is a wolf in silk!" she hissed, stepping into my personal space. "He is isolating you, pulling you away from everyone who could protect you. Why do you think no one calls anymore? He is systematically dismantling your life, and you are sitting there like a lamb, admiring his manners."

I stood up, my pulse quickening with a defensive anger. "You are jealous because he pays attention to me. You always have been. He is a kind, sweet man who listens to me, which is more than I can say for the vultures Father usually invites to the house."

Lucy recoiled as if I had struck her, her face hardening into a mask of bitter disappointment. She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes searching mine for a flicker of recognition that wasn't there.

"You’re blind," she whispered, her voice devoid of warmth. "You see a hero in a man who hasn't even bothered to hide his fangs. When he finally devours you, don't come to me asking why the lights in this house went out."

She turned on her heel and stormed out, leaving me alone in the sudden, oppressive silence of the room. I picked up my hairbrush, my hands trembling slightly. I stared into the mirror, trying to see the "wolf" Lucy had described. I saw only the reflection of a man who looked at me with such profound intensity that it made my breath hitch. He isn't a wolf, I told myself, clutching the edge of the vanity until my knuckles turned white. He is just… Cornelius.

But as I looked at the empty chair in the drawing room where my suitors used to sit, a small, cold seed of doubt began to take root in the back of my mind.