Not one person at that table flinched. Not one of them found it strange that a woman who had been bound by arrangement to Don Giacomo Argento of the Silver District would sit in another man's home and openly profess her longing for him. The code of loyalty, the sanctity of alliances, the weight of blood oaths sworn before the Commission. None of it mattered when the orphan wife was the one being replaced.
"Of course, dear." Jane's smile was a blade sheathed in silk. "If things hadn't gone the way they did, you would already be my daughter-in-law."
She cast a glance in my direction. Quick. Surgical. Then she pulled Vanessa closer, tucking the younger woman against her side with theatrical affection. Xavier said nothing. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed on the wine in his glass. He was angry. Not at his mother. Not at Vanessa. At me. Because I had rejected his gift.
Jane turned to me, her expression shifting to one of wide-eyed, poisonous innocence.