The oak doors of Marquis Lorenzo's Manor opened.
Tristan stepped inside.
The heavy doors shut out the cold wind and wet snow.
The old butler waiting in the entrance hall bowed, ready to take the second young master's coat.
But his hands stopped in midair.
The old butler raised his head, his eyes widening slightly.
He looked at the second young master.
The young master Tristan he remembered had always appeared unruffled, yet kept his head lowered, pretending not to care about anyone or anything in the Marquis's Manor.
Today, however, his back was perfectly straight.
His gray-blue eyes gazed straight ahead, past the entrance hall, toward the lights deep within the mansion.
The old butler quickly lowered his head, taking the coat with greater deference than ever before and passing it to the young servant beside him.
He felt his heartbeat quicken.
The second young master had changed.
Harp music and murmured conversation drifted from a side parlor on the ground floor.
His mother was hosting a winter salon.
Normally, Tristan would have taken the servants' staircase at the side and returned to his room without a sound.
This time, he did not.
The young man strode toward that brightly lit world where he did not belong.
When Tristan appeared in the parlor's arched doorway, the nobles murmuring to one another amid the lilting harp music all turned their eyes toward him.
Dozens of gazes settled on him.
"Is that... the Lorenzo family's second son?" a count asked in a low voice.
"Who else could it be but that 'Bloodless'?" His companion snorted. "How strange. He actually dared to come here."
"Keep your voice down. The Marquis is looking this way."
Quiet though the remarks were, they sounded especially grating in the hushed room.
Tristan's elder brother, Alistair, was