“You owe me nothing,” the man said — and Arabella swallowed the last bite that killed her. The bun slipped down like a stone. For a stuttering second she tasted sesame and lavender and the last thing she had ever trusted: Camden Li's smile. Her palms went cold. Behind them, the garden—Mariner Heights' pride, a riot of spring plum—kept talking in wind, indifferent. “You're trembling,” Camden observed. His voice was pleasant as a ledger entry. “Eat. Show me you can enjoy life.” Arabella forced a smile that matched the practiced ones of the noblewomen at court: polite, measured, empty of appeal. Camden watched her the way a man inspects an investment. He had the kind of face that made people forget they were being observed until the ledger closed and it was too late. She had known this line before. In the other life—one year ago, the life that ended with fever and a sealed letter and an embroidered pouch tossed into her lap—she had tasted that same politeness and been grateful for it. That gratitude had been the rope that tied her to the precipice. Not now. Tess hovered under the wisteria, hands folded around a tea towel, eyes darting. The maid's expression was terror softened by something like loyalty: the loyalty a servant owes to house and habit. Arabella let the terror sit there and used it. “You owe me nothing,” Camden repeated, as if reciting a clause. “Not gratitude, not the