The Duke Lost His Heart The Instant His Bride Stepped Down The Aisle

The Duke Lost His Heart The Instant His Bride Stepped Down The Aisle The color of invisibility, I had decided, was a muted shade of dove grey. It was the color of the dress my stepmother, Beatrice, had insisted was ‘most suitable’ for me. It was the color of the dusty alcove behind a wilting potted palm where I had been stationed, and it was the color of the world as I saw it, leached of vibrancy and hope. From my hiding place, the ballroom was a kaleidoscope of jewel tones and shimmering laughter, a world to which I was a mere spectator, a ghost at the feast of the living.“Do try to blend in, Elara,” Beatrice had said earlier, her voice a confection of sweetness laced with arsenic. Her fingers, cold and heavy with rings, had adjusted the drab collar of my gown. “We cannot have you distracting from Livia’s night. It is her season, after all.”Her season. My younger stepsister, Livia, was indeed the season’s diamond. She stood near the grand entrance now, a vision in sapphire silk, her golden hair catching the light of a thousand candles. She was laughing, a bright, effortless sound that drew a circle of handsome suitors around her like moths to a perfect flame. She was not cruel, my sister. She was simply… oblivious. A flower raised in a sun-drenched garden has no concept of the weeds that grow in the shade. To her, my existence was a simple fact, like a piece of furniture that was always there but never truly noticed.