Chapter 354:
As Gregor’s hand made contact with the silk of her dress, Aurora didn’t pull away. She moved with him.
She rotated her wrist, catching his thumb joint. She stood up, using the momentum of his own push. With a pivot of her hips that looked like a dance step, she twisted his arm behind his back.
Gregor grunted, his center of gravity stolen.
Aurora kicked the back of his knee—a precise, calculated strike to the peroneal nerve.
Gregor’s leg buckled. He dropped to his knees with a heavy thud, his face contorted in pain, his arm pinned helplessly against his spine by a woman half his size.
Aurora stood over him, not a hair out of place. Her breathing hadn’t even changed.
She released him and smoothed the fabric of her gown. She looked at Cecelia, her eyes cool and detached.
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, My Lady,” Aurora said. Her accent shifted. It wasn’t the flat American accent she usually used. It was perfect, Received Pronunciation—the Queen’s English, crisp and aristocratic.
She continued, switching effortlessly to French. “La politesse est la fleur de l’humanité. Celui qui n’est pas assez poli n’est pas assez humain.” (Politeness is the flower of humanity. He who is not polite enough is not human enough.)
The guests gasped. The linguistic flex was more damaging than the physical one. It proved she wasn’t uneducated trash. She was elite.
Cecelia stared, her mouth slightly open. The narrative Tiffany had spun—of the uneducated, classless climber—crumbled instantly against the reality of Aurora’s poise.
Gregor scrambled back, cradling his arm, shame burning his face.
“I offer you a seat, Lady Ryan,” Aurora said, gesturing to the empty chair opposite her. “Not because you deserve it, but because I was raised better than to let an elder stand while distressed.”
𝘼𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙠: gⲁ𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝖊𝗅𝘀⸰𝙘𝙤𝙢
Cecelia looked at the chair. Then at Aurora. Confusion warred with pride in her eyes.
From the shadows of a hedge, Tiffany bit her lip so hard she tasted copper. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
Cecelia didn’t sit. Her pride was a rigid thing, calcified over decades. She felt the eyes of the crowd on her—pitying, amused. She needed to regain control. She needed to prove this girl was a fraud, even if she could speak French and break arms. Mimicry was one thing; heritage was another.
“Words and tricks,” Cecelia spat. “You think parroting phrases makes you worthy?”
She signaled to her assistant, a pale young man clutching a mahogany case. “Bring it here.”
The assistant placed the box on the central table. It was an antique, brass and wood, covered in a labyrinth of gears, dials, and sliding panels.
“The Pandora’s Box,” Cecelia announced, her voice regaining its strength. “It was a gift from the Sterling family to mine generations ago, created by the legendary 18th-century automaton maker Pierre Jaquet-Droz. My grandfather locked it before he died. He said only a true Sterling, with the family’s intuition for mechanics, could open it.”
She looked around the garden, challenging the men. “Is there a gentleman here with the wit to try? Or perhaps the ‘Lost Heir’ would like to prove her bloodline isn’t just ink on a paper?”
A CEO of a tech firm stepped up, confident. He fiddled with the levers. Nothing. He tried to force a gear. It was stuck fast. He retreated, shrugging.
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