The chandeliers dripped golden light over the ballroom like melted honey, glittering across the polished marble and the gold-threaded gowns of Sicily’s most storied families. Angelica Vitale stood still beneath them for a moment, her chin slightly tilted as though waiting to be painted.
Her dress was crimson silk, fastened just low enough at the collar to provoke interest, yet high enough to deny the satisfaction of it. Her thick, dark curls were pulled half-up, fastened with delicate ivory combs shaped like lilies, the rest cascading down her back like ink on satin. Every detail was deliberate. Every movement, every breath, was part of the theater.
She had been brought here—paraded here—by her father, Alfonso Vitale, who now lingered at the edge of the room with a wine glass and a wide smile, already boasting of his daughter’s rare refinement to any ear within reach.
A string quartet was playing a gentle waltz near the far end of the hall, but no one was truly dancing. Not tonight. Not when the name Garibaldi slipped like a whisper between the silk-clad bodies of nobles. It lingered in the corners of the ballroom, unspoken but potent, like a storm threatening to spill from the sky. The Prince of Sicilia, old and imposing even in the decline of his glory, sat watching from a great velvet chair like a lion clinging to his last scrap of territory. Angelica felt his eyes on her more than once.
Her fingers floated over the lace fan she held, her steps as graceful as a ballerina’s but calculated as a chess master’s. She walked with the rhythm of the waltz, weaving through nobility like a shadow in flame, stopping only when she caught the gaze of a uniformed lieutenant who looked just shy of twenty-five, his medals glinting too proudly for someone of such low rank.
*She smiled at him. He blinked, surprised—first at being noticed, then at being smiled at by her. He stepped forward.
She turned her face away before he could speak. Not him.*
She scanned again. So many men, and yet so little worth among them. Sons of exhausted dukes, bloated merchants clinging to old alliances, minor princes from the northern territories looking too pale and too dull. She needed someone useful. Someone who could rise with her. Or carry her higher.
She retreated to the shadow of a marble column and let her expression fall.
Her father would sell her to the highest bidder if he could. She was not blind. She had seen the way he looked at the richest men in Palermo as if they were doorways. But she was not a coin to be exchanged. She would be the one to choose. And she would not choose down.
A new presence entered the ballroom.
She felt it before she saw it—a change in the air, a ripple in the silk sea of noblemen. Voices lowered. Heads turned. Even the Prince lifted his hand off the lion-headed armrest of his chair.
Angelica looked.
He was tall, lean, and wore no uniform—only a black tailcoat tailored to perfection, a deep sapphire cravat, and a ring with the crest of Piedmont. His hair was dark, but his skin paler than most Sicilians. His eyes were unreadable, flicking over the room with cold efficiency. He was not Sicilian. That much was clear.
She watched how men nodded and made way, how women giggled behind fans but did not approach. He was not someone to be flirted with lightly.
Her fan dropped slightly. Now he might be worth the trouble.
She turned to another lady, a sharp-tongued creature with gossip in her blood.
“They say he’s a diplomatic attaché,” the girl answered. “Piedmontese. Friend of Cavour, maybe. Or Garibaldi. Or both, depending on who you ask.”
Angelica’s lips parted into a slow smile and moved again.
This time, she didn’t glide—she stalked. Like a lioness in silk. She cut through the crowd as the orchestra changed the tune, the violins rising in a slow crescendo of longing.
She paused only a few steps from him, pretending to examine a painted vase on a plinth beside them. Her back to him. Head turned just enough to show the curve of her neck. She waited.