The silence that followed had weight. Avalene watched her stepmother's face go the color of old parchment.
"I don't understand," Avalene finally said, and her voice sounded strange to her own ears—thin from disuse, unaccustomed to being addressed to anyone who might actually listen. "Why would you send an invitation to me at all?"
The Duke's gaze didn't waver from hers. "Because three weeks ago at the Hartwell recital, a young woman lent her shawl to a shivering child in the garden, and never once mentioned it to anyone, though I watched her do it. Because when Lord Pembrey insulted a serving girl in front of half the room, it was you who stepped between them before anyone else so much as looked up from their wine. I make it my business to know who deserves my attention, Lady Avalene. You have had it since that evening, whether you were aware of it or not."
Her stepmother made a small, wounded sound, as though the words themselves had struck her.
"I have a ball in four days," the Duke continued. "I would still like you to attend if you're willing. I'll have a new invitation sent in the morning—one I trust will find its way to you rather than the hearth." He said the last part with the faintest edge, aimed unmistakably at the woman still frozen mid-curtsy at the bottom of the stairs.
Avalene didn't answer right away. Four days ago, she'd have said her life was a small, quiet, survivable thing: endure the chores, endure her stepsisters' laughter, endure the long stretch of evenings spent mending clothes she'd never be invited to wear anywhere. She had made her peace with smallness. And now a duke stood in her front hall at nearly midnight, having driven across half the county because a piece of paper had gone missing, and he was looking at her as though her answer mattered more than anything else he might hear that night.
"I would like that," she said. "Very much."
Something eased in his expression—not quite a smile, but its foundation. "Then I'll see you in four days, my lady."
He inclined his head once more, turned, and was gone into the dark before her stepmother had even fully risen from her curtsy.
The door had barely shut behind him when her stepmother rounded on her, all pretense of grace gone. "You will not go!"
"He came to my door himself," Avalene said quietly. "At midnight. I think the decision has already been made without either of us."