The small sitting room felt suffocatingly quiet.
Outside, beyond the closed doors, the house was overflowing with people dressed in black. Relatives moved through the grand halls whispering rehearsed condolences and trading careful looks over champagne glasses they pretended not to enjoy.
Performative grief. Polished sadness. The kind rich families wore beautifully. But inside this room, none of that existed. Here, the silence was real. Heavy with old wounds and older secrets.
A pot of tea sat untouched on the table between them, the liquid inside long gone cold. The faint bitter scent lingered in the air alongside the crushing weight of expectation. Madam Vale sat perfectly straight in her chair.
Even grief had not bent her posture.
