Chapter 3 - The Face New Orleans Invented
The first public event after the marriage was a masquerade fundraiser at the Beaumont Palace, a hotel so aggressively gilded that even the elevator buttons looked inherited.
Delphine did not want to go.
Casius knew because she said, “I don’t want to go.”
Most people in his life performed reluctance as a way of requesting persuasion.
Delphine did not.
“Then don’t.”
She looked at him across the breakfast table.
“That simple?”
“Yes.”
“The Bowmonts will say I’m hiding.”
“Do you care?”
“No.”
“Then stay home.”
She stared at him for a second and went back to buttering toast.
At four that afternoon, she appeared in the library wearing an ivory gown.
Casius looked up from a shipping report.
“You changed your mind.”
“No. I decided hiding because I want privacy and hiding because they expect shame are not the same thing.”
He studied her.
The dress was off the shoulder, soft rather than dramatic, and her hair was pinned up.
The scar on the right side of her face was completely visible.
No curtain.
No careful wave of hair.
No powder heavy enough to erase texture.
Just Delphine.
She held a silver mask in one hand.
Casius closed the report.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Her mouth curved.
The Beaumont ballroom quieted when they entered.
Not completely.
New Orleans wealth had too much training to become visibly silent.
But conversations stumbled.
Eyes moved.
People who had repeated stories about Delphine for eleven years finally had to reconcile rumor with a living woman.
A few looked disappointed that she had not arrived monstrous enough to justify their cruelty.
Others looked fascinated.
Casius hated them all equally.
He also hated the way people moved aside too eagerly for his wheelchair, creating a ceremonial path through the room.
Delphine noticed.
“Would you prefer I walk in front of you and block traffic?” she murmured.
“I would prefer a flamethrower.”
“Hospital policy discourages those.”
He looked up at her.
She was trying not to smile.
Then Camille appeared.
She wore red.
Of course she did.
Her mask was gold lace. Sterling and Marjo followed several steps behind, performing the concerned dignity of parents who had not traded one daughter into marriage nine days after insulting a crime boss.
“Delphine,” Camille said brightly. “How brave.”
Delphine’s face did not move.
“To attend your own family’s fundraiser,” Camille continued. “With everything.”
Her gaze touched the scar.
Casius felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
Delphine answered before he could.
“Thank you. I practiced being seen in a mirror.”
Camille blinked.
Several guests nearby heard.
One man coughed into his hand to hide a laugh.
Camille recovered.
“How is married life? Is it very… medical?”
Now her gaze dropped to Casius.
There it was.
The same contempt from the dinner table, wrapped in a softer ribbon.
Casius turned his chair toward her.
“Camille.”
She stiffened.
“Yes?”
“If you are asking whether my wife and I discuss medicine, the answer is sometimes.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“If you are asking whether my body prevents me from understanding when someone is being rude, the answer is no.”
Her cheeks colored.
“And if you are asking whether I regret marrying the sister who can complete a sentence without embarrassing her family, also no.”
The circle around them became very still.
Camille looked at Delphine.
“You let him speak to me like that?”
Delphine’s brows rose.
“Let?”
Casius almost enjoyed that word too much.
Before Camille could answer, an elderly donor approached Delphine.
“Mrs. Ferraro, I knew you when you were a child. I’m sorry for what happened to you.”
Delphine’s posture changed.
Not much.
Casius saw it.
The apology had not comforted her.
It had trapped her.
“What exactly are you sorry for?” she asked.
The woman faltered.
“The fire.”
“Were you there?”
“No.”
“Then you have nothing to apologize for.”
The donor looked confused.
Delphine softened slightly.
“You can say you’re glad I survived. That is enough.”
The woman nodded.
“I am.”
“So am I.”
Later, Casius found Delphine on the balcony.
Rain had stopped, leaving the city wet and luminous below.
“You handled Camille.”
“So did you.”
“I enjoyed it more.”
“I noticed.”
He rolled beside the stone railing.
“You never told me how the fire happened.”
“You never told me who put the bomb under your car.”
His eyes narrowed.
She looked at him.
“Fair trade.”
“Was it an accident?”
Her fingers tightened around the mask.
“No.”
The answer came quietly.
Casius waited.
Delphine stared at the city.
“When I was seventeen, there was a fire in a Bowmont-owned river warehouse. The public story said I wandered into a restricted area during a charity event.”
“And the real story?”
“I followed my father.”
“Why?”
“Because he had lied about where he was going.”
Casius felt the room behind them disappear.
“What did you see?”
“Records being moved. Men I didn’t recognize. Crates with hospital labels that did not belong in a shipping warehouse.”
His mind sharpened.
“Drugs?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“And the fire?”
“I remember smoke. Someone locking a door. I remember breaking a window with a metal chair.”
Casius’s hand closed around the wheel rim.
“Your father?”
“I never saw who locked it.”
“But you suspected.”
“I learned suspicion is expensive when your family owns the people you would report it to.”
“What happened to the records?”
“Burned.”
“All of them?”
Delphine looked at him.
“No.”
Casius’s pulse slowed.
That was how danger always felt when it became useful.
“What did you keep?”
She did not answer.
Inside the ballroom, applause began for the foundation chairman.
Delphine’s eyes remained on Casius.
“Now you know why I needed a door that locked from my side.”
He understood.
Marriage had not merely freed her from the Bowmont house.
It had moved her behind Ferraro walls, guards, cameras, and men Sterling Bowmont could not order around.
“You used me for protection.”
“Yes.”
Casius should have been offended.
Instead, he respected the honesty.
“And the evidence?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“If I tell you now, it becomes yours to defend.”
“It already is.”
“No.”
Her voice was firm.
“I am not one more thing you own because our families signed papers.”
Casius stared at her.
Then he nodded once.
“Good.”
That surprised her.
“You agree?”
“I married a woman who asked for a lock. I would be a fool to demand the key.”
For the first time that evening, Delphine’s expression became unguarded.
It was not gratitude.
It was something better.
Trust beginning to consider the possibility of existing.
Inside, Camille laughed loudly at something across the ballroom.
Casius looked toward the sound.
May you like
Delphine followed his gaze.
Neither of them yet knew that Camille’s cruelty was the least dangerous thing the Bowmont family had brought into their marriage.
