Chapter 9: Vanessa’s Warning

Vanessa Sterling found me at the fitting, which meant she’d been looking for exactly the wrong moment to make her entrance.

I stood on the small platform in Grace’s back room, arms out, a seamstress pinning the bodice of the gala gown while I stared at my own reflection and tried to recognize the woman looking back. She caught me off guard, the way people who’ve decided to hate you always do, appearing in the mirror’s edge like a stain spreading across clean fabric.

“Well.” Vanessa’s voice carried that particular sweetness that only exists to disguise a blade. “This is a surprise. I didn’t realize Grace Morgan took on charity cases.”

The seamstress at my feet went very still, pins hovering. I kept my chin level, refusing to let my face show the way my stomach had dropped at the sound of her voice.

“Vanessa.” I said her name flat, no warmth in it, none owed. “I didn’t realize appointments here were open to the public.”

“They’re not, usually.” She stepped closer, red coat swishing against the hardwood, the same coat she’d worn outside Adrian’s office the day my old life ended. “But Grace and I go back years. She used to dress me for every gala before you decided to reappear and steal her attention.”

“I’m not stealing anything.” The words came out sharper than I intended, and something in her eyes flickered, satisfaction maybe, at having drawn blood so easily.

“No, I suppose theft isn’t really your area, is it. That was always more Adrian’s talent.” She smiled, slow and cruel, watching the words land. “Speaking of which, he’s been asking about you. Constantly. It’s becoming rather exhausting, actually, listening to him wonder what you’re wearing to the gala, who you’ll be there with, whether the rumors about your new husband’s, shall we say, particular tastes are true.”

My chest tightened. “What rumors.”

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” Vanessa’s smile widened, delighted at my ignorance. “Damian Blackwood has quite the reputation for discretion, darling, which is a polite way of saying he keeps his real life very, very hidden. Marianne Cole isn’t the only woman who disappeared from his life without explanation, you know. There were others. Before her, after her. He has a habit of making women vanish when they become inconvenient.”

The name Marianne, spoken so casually by a stranger, felt like a violation, like something private had been stolen right out of my chest and paraded in front of me as a warning.

“You don’t know anything about my marriage.”

“I know your husband’s family has spent thirty years making problems disappear,” Vanessa said, quieter now, the performance dropping just slightly, replaced by something that almost sounded like genuine warning. “I know Richard Blackwood doesn’t tolerate embarrassment, and I know Damian learned everything he knows from that man. You’re a solution to a debt, Evelyn. Nothing more. The moment you stop being useful, they’ll make you disappear too, one way or another.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a mercy.” She stepped back, adjusting her gloves with unbothered precision, like we’d just discussed the weather instead of my entire future. “I know what it feels like to love a Blackwood man and discover, too late, that love was never actually on offer. I’d hate to see history repeat itself on someone so, well. New to all this.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, wanted to demand the full story behind that particular venom, but some instinct told me pressing would only feed whatever hunger drove her here in the first place.

“You should leave,” I said instead. “Grace’s clients don’t wait on your convenience.”

Something sharp crossed her face, gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by that same practiced sweetness she’d walked in wearing. “Of course. I only stopped by to offer some friendly advice, woman to woman.”

“We’re not friends.”

“No.” Vanessa’s eyes swept over the half-finished gown, something calculating behind them. “But we might be sisters in grief someday, if you’re not careful. Enjoy the gala, Evelyn. I hear it’s going to be memorable.”

She left before I could respond, her heels clicking a rhythm down the hallway that sounded almost triumphant, and I stood on the platform with pins still pressed against my ribs, trying to breathe through the tight, cold fear she’d left behind like perfume, something acrid clinging to the air long after she’d gone.

Grace appeared in the doorway moments later, her face grim. “I saw her leaving. What did she want?”

“To scare me.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “I think it worked.”

“Sit down before you fall down.” Grace guided me off the platform, into the velvet chair, pressing a cup of that too-strong tea into my hands like it could fix something as simple as fear. “Vanessa Sterling doesn’t do anything without a reason, Evelyn. If she came here to frighten you, it’s because something frightens her more.”

“What could possibly frighten Vanessa Sterling?”

“Losing,” Grace said simply. “She’s spent years building a life around being wanted, around being chosen over other women. If she’s worried about you, it’s because some part of her already suspects Damian Blackwood might actually choose you over whatever ghost of a life she thinks she deserves.”

I turned that over slowly, my hands wrapped around the warm cup, replaying Vanessa’s words about vanishing women, about Marianne, about a family that made problems disappear. Some of it had to be exaggeration, cruelty dressed up as concern. But some small, cold part of me couldn’t stop wondering how she’d known Marianne’s name at all, a woman erased from Blackwood history decades ago, a secret I’d only learned myself two nights earlier in a locked library at midnight.

“Grace.” My voice had gone quiet. “How would Vanessa know about Marianne Cole?”

Grace’s expression shifted, something careful and guarded settling over her features. “That’s a very good question, Evelyn. I’d start asking it soon, if I were you.”

That night, back in my studio, I stared at the half-finished gown hanging on its dress form, sharp lines and armored seams, and thought about a woman in a red coat who knew secrets she had no business knowing, secrets that belonged to a family who’d sworn no one entered without permission, secrets I’d only stumbled onto myself by pure, reckless accident.

Someone was talking. And I intended to find out who before the gala gave them the perfect stage to finish whatever they’d started.