She did, and the second the door swung open and Fate stalked inside, Death threw the shadows around them and transported them back to Thorn Grove.
NINETEEN
AS MUCH AS SHE’D READ ABOUT GARDEN PARTIES, SIGNA HAD NEVER had the pleasure of attending one, especially not one thrown by a queen.
Covington Palace was made up of five hundred and seventy-five rooms and looked every bit as astounding as that number from the moment Signa walked through its opulent doors. Columns of white marble lorded over the entry, adorned with gilded bronze capitals. One by one people were welcomed inside and herded onto an endless red rug so plush that Signa wondered what it might feel like beneath bare toes. Of course she wouldn’t dare try to see, given the company she was in. It seemed there wasn’t a single nose not tilted haughtily into the air, nor a lone man who did not walk as though his chest had been stung and swollen by a hive of wasps.
Guests were shepherded into a room with ivory walls, where a matching chandelier the size of Thorn Grove’s parlor dripped with crystals so thick that a single one was all it would take to make a poor man rich. Signa found her place beside Blythe and Byron. They didn’t dare speak, for the room felt too sumptuous to spoil with words.
At the head of the room sat a gold-and-crimson throne, and all heads bowed as the queen emerged. Signa had met her only once, when she was presented for the season, and had been so full of nerves that her ankles nearly gave out during her curtsy. Now, though, she managed to hold one as a beautiful woman with rich brown skin took her place on the throne. She was plump and middle-aged, dressed in a silk rose-colored gown with a collar of Honiton lace, and a small crown of diamonds on her head. The queen’s gaze softened only when Everett Wakefield entered the room and was brought before her.
He’d been fitted into a handsome ensemble made of black silk chenille and trimmed in fur. His waistcoat was heavily decorated with silver threads and metallic buttons, with his family’s crest—a gray wolf prowling around a silver-and-white shield—displayed proudly above his heart.
Everett wasn’t the only one who Signa’s roaming eyes wandered to. Among a crowd buzzing with excitement, she stilled when she spotted Fate’s eyes on her. It’d been several days since he’d nearly caught her and Death at Wisteria, and pity still made her throat thick.
More flowers had come from him that very morning—this time paired with chocolates, which Blythe had happily taken off her hands—and every day Signa tried her best to ignore the offerings and the giggling maids. As much sympathy as she felt for him, there was Death and his fears to consider, too. For that reason alone she despised Fate’s gifts; she didn’t want the pressure of his false hope, or for him to have any additional motive to take his frustrations out on Death or the Hawthornes.
Signa couldn’t say exactly when the feeling had started—perhaps it had always been there to some extent—but the pressure of so many expectations was rapidly mounting: Blythe expected Signa to be a good cousin, a normal cousin, while Byron wanted her to be a prim and proper lady aiding the restoration of the family name. Fate expected her to be another woman entirely, one with powers that Signa would have once given the world for.
As for herself… Well, Signa needed to solve a murder, protect everyone she loved, and get to the root of who she was and what she could do.
It was exhausting.
Everett knelt before the queen, and Signa fixed her attention on him as the title of duke was bestowed. The queen dipped a scepter onto Everett’s right shoulder, then his left. Signa joined in the clapping as he rose to his feet, putting on her most polite and demure behavior for the several glaring eyes and haughty faces cast toward her family. Everyone had begun to head outside for the party, and Byron nudged her leg with his walking stick, silently commanding that Signa do the same.
“He’s a fine boy, that one,” Byron murmured loud enough for the eavesdroppers around them to hear. “He’ll make a wonderful duke.”
Though Signa agreed on both counts, she made no comment. It felt too odd to look at Everett in his formal wear and see anything but the tears in his eyes as he’d held the hand of his father’s corpse only weeks before.
“Signa?” Blythe’s voice cut her thoughts. “You look as though you’re in a daze. Come, let’s get to the party.” She looped their arms together.
Blythe had been skittish since the incident in the study, and too often Signa saw her restless eyes scanning the corners of every room. She’d also noticed the glow of candlelight beneath Blythe’s door late the evening before while her cousin should have been sleeping. Signa had tried to get Blythe’s mind off it by bringing her newspaper clippings of recent crimes when they took tea in the afternoons, but Blythe’s interest in them was tight and forced.