“My lady?”

She looked up as an older gentleman stopped beside her. His face was so wrinkled that he reminded her of a suit someone had dug out of the back of their closet. His gray eyes were cold and he smelled like rotten camphor balls. “Yes, my lord?”

“I just had to meet the woman who could turn a gay man straight. I didn’t think it was possible, especially someone as licentious and effeminate as our governor. Believe me, I know how much he loves a good hard cock in his ass. Congratulations.”

His rudeness stunned her silent. She sat there, slack jawed, trying to think of an appropriate response that wasn’t crude or profane.

For once, nothing, absolutely nothing came to mind. She simply reeled from it.

“Hey, Nylan? We need you over here for a second.”

He left her side.

So that was…

Gaping like a fish, she looked at Maris for corroboration on the man’s identity.

“Yeah,” Maris said with a snarl, “he’s that bastard.”

Darling returned to her side immediately. “Are you all right?”

She started to tell him what had happened, but she didn’t want to upset him. Given the past, she wasn’t sure Darling wouldn’t kill him for saying that to her.

Forcing a smile to her lips, she nodded. “Where are you sitting?”

He indicated the chair between her and Maris. Thank the gods for that favor. She wanted out of here so badly that she could taste it. But what bothered her most was the knowledge that this would have been her life all along had her father’s titles not been stripped.

She would have been just like the other women who passed judging sneers at her and Maris. Those who wouldn’t even speak to them. Frigid. Callous.

Mean.

That thought made her blood run cold. For the first time in her life, she was grateful that she’d been raised outside this realm. She’d much rather have eaten bread sandwiches with her father for weeks on end than have been fed like this every day if putting up with them was the price for it.

It just wasn’t worth it.

Once Darling was seated and dinner began, it did get better. At least as long as she ignored the stares—most of which were hostile—that the gerents and their spouses directed at them.

And as she ate, she became acutely aware of how Darling and Maris interacted with each other. For some reason, she’d never noticed it before.

But tonight…

She saw them through the eyes of a stranger. While she had no doubt they’d never slept together and that Darling was completely straight, she finally understood why others didn’t believe it.

He and Maris were completely relaxed with each other, even in the midst of all the animosity around them. In fact, with his hand on Darling’s shoulder, Maris was leaning in to whisper intimately into Darling’s ear while Darling laughed at whatever it was Maris said to him. They were practically cheek to cheek. And the smile on Darling’s face whenever he looked at his best friend was tender and warm. Some might even say it was adoring.