"You think I’ll punish her?" Victoria snapped, pressing the embroidered silk into Ava's hands as if the cloth itself could shield what she meant to do.
Marta Quinn froze in the doorway, the sudden silence of the west parlor cutting through the servants' chatter. A dozen hands hovered over pins and ribbons. A candle guttered and someone cursed under their breath.
Marta's cheeks flared. "My lady—" she began, voice a hard edge. Then she saw Victoria's face. The look stopped the rest of her sentence like a whip across yards of linen.
Ava stood like a statue in the lamplight. Her fingers trembled, but she didn't flinch. The gown—Victoria's gala gown, the one embroidered with Ferraris and the sea—hung from her arms, ridiculous in its finery against the maid's plain wool. It smelled faintly of starch and perfume and the night before. It made Ava taller, as though it had swallowed years of quiet.
"You let them take it," Marta said, the accusation more apology than indictment. She stepped forward; two younger maids tightened, ready to mimic the public shaming they'd all practiced for years—accuse, kneel, humiliate—so nobility could laugh and the household could be seen as obeying the rules. That pattern kept gossip fed and families safe.
"You would shame her in the garden," Victoria said. Her voice had gone low, casual, but iron beneath. "You'd drag her out with half the staff watching so the
