“Evelyn Liroux?” Grace breathed with a hint of awe and surprise in her voice.
Evelyn rose sharply in a fluid motion already defensive in her subtle stance. “How do you know me?” she asked firmly, already bracing herself as if for a confrontation, the children momentarily forgotten.
Grace held up her hands in a gesture of calm, a nervous chuckle escaping her. “We met at a banquet years ago. You might remember me by the name Blackwood…the fallen nobles?”
Recognition and bitterness flashed across Evelyn’s face. “Ah… Blackwood. Your father… he was my old man’s friend,” she said, the words carrying the weight of distant memories and old alliances.
Grace hummed softly while the memory of her own painful histories tugged at her as she considered the woman before her.
“You got married?” Evely
