Declan said, "Your Vane family were nobility in the old days—you had old money. What about me? I came from nothing. Now I have a wife and children. I charge at the front—I have to leave them a way to survive. You cutting off people's income is like killing their parents. If I don't target you, who would I target? Do you really think you're some savior? Can you beat the foreigners? Can you defy fate?"
He took six bullets from Victor.
Returning the six shots Victor had taken from behind.
Along with Declan's three most trusted men, each executed on the spot by Oliver.
Looking back on the three times Victor had appeared in my home—at those moments, how lost and unwilling his heart must have been.
His hands were stained with blood, yet he was the most sincere person in the world. He didn't deserve such betrayal.
Commissioner Sterling's mother was celebrating her sixtieth birthday. The three ladies—Mrs. Garrett, Mrs. Lambert, and Mrs. Sterling—had gotten to know each other over card games, and then at the Institute's launch event had given their enthusiastic support.
It was Mrs. Sterling's mother-in-law's birthday celebration, so naturally we had to attend.
But Victor still hadn't come home.
Nearly a week had passed, and no one could say where he'd gone.
Grace said, "When he's busy, he doesn't care about anything. If you beg him to come, he definitely won't. But if you just go without saying a word, he'll probably panic."
No one knew her brother better than his sister.
On the day of Commissioner Sterling's mother's birthday celebration, the Vane family's gleaming Austin hadn't even reached the Sterling residence's entrance before it was cut off by a Buick coated in a fine layer of dust.
The driver was about to curse the rash driver, but a Baroque shoe emerged first, followed by a gunmetal-gray trouser leg.
Victor stepped out of the back seat and walked toward our car.
I was so pleasantly surprised that I scrambled out before the car had even stopped:
"Victor! When did you get back? Where have you been these past days?"
Victor gave me a sculpted, icy profile.
He probably had objections to the fact that I had come out to attend a gathering without waiting for him.
He stood with both hands in his pockets, planted his feet, and showed no intention of acknowledging me.
Grace and Oliver were already almost at the entrance.
Seeing us still locked in our standoff, she laughed out loud:
"Rose, ignore him. There are other male companions here."
Victor's eyes narrowed slightly. He never understood why his sister always took my side.
He pulled his arm free from my grasp, then raised it and hooked me against his side.
His body language was domineering and possessive, yet his mouth bestowed only a single, stingy sentence: "Saves trouble."
I wasn't as petty as he was. I slipped my arm around his waist.
I was happily clinging to him like an accessory as we stepped through the Sterling residence's gate together.
The moment we entered, Victor became the center of attention.
"The young General is here! Oh, and is this his girlfriend?"
Warm conversation always begins with gossip and scandal.
Commissioner Sterling was hosting a birthday banquet for his mother, and most of the guests were county government officials.
They were around the same age as the Elder General and therefore considered themselves the Young General's elders.
Their manner of speaking was somewhat casual as a result.
I clung to Victor's arm, smiling at the sea of strangers while sneaking glances at Victor's expression.
Victor wasn't annoyed. In the past, he had looked down on everyone.
He disdained those who fawned on him, and detested even more those who presumed upon seniority.
But since his last campaign in the north, where he'd been attacked from both front and rear, he had learned to put on a smiling face.
Victor lowered his head and gave a soft laugh, patted my hand looped around his arm, and announced clearly: "Rose Ouyang, my fiancée."
Fiancée?
My expression froze.
The people around us were stunned for a moment before the buzz of excitement resumed.
He and I were seated separately. Before parting, he lowered his head and buried the tip of his nose in my hair, murmuring:
"From now on, no one but me will dare ask you to dance."
Bolstered by the word "fiancée," I walked as though on cotton, unsteady and dizzy, drifting over to Grace's side.
Victor and Oliver, as unexpected honored guests, had made the Xu family beside themselves with joy.
They claimed the head seats, and the guests who had been scattered around all but carried their cups and crowded around them through the entire meal.
Sungate's current peace was thanks to these two, and everyone was vying for a chance to speak with them.
I was seated at the ladies' table with Grace—equally lively.
From a distance, I saw Luna following her father to the head table to offer a toast.
She said something beside Victor.
Grace patted the back of my hand. "What are you looking at, Rose?"
Several of the ladies noticed where my gaze had landed. One of them laughed:
"This Miss Chase is really something. The young General has rejected her so many times, and she still keeps trying."
"I heard she donated her entire dowry to the military, and the Young General personally went to return it!"
"Oh, I heard that too! The young General was going to publish a notice saying he hadn't known beforehand! It was only because President Chase pleaded with him that it didn't go public."
I really didn't understand how, in an era without phones or internet, gossip still traveled as fast as it would a hundred years later.
"Look around this hall—which girl doesn't want to marry the Young General?"
"Everyone knows the Young General has a special regard for women in white lace dresses, so they all copy the look."
Someone else turned to ask Grace: "By the way, Miss Vane, do you know why the Young General favors white dresses?"
Grace set down her chopsticks and smiled gently.
"Who knows? Victor has never had a proper girlfriend. Ever since he was old enough to understand, he said he'd marry a sister in a white dress."
She turned to look at me and teased, "But who could have guessed that in the end, it would be a rose-colored young lady who captured our Victor."
I choked on my tea. So Victor just had a rather simplistic taste in aesthetics.
The live band began to play.
Hot dishes were replaced by pastries and tea. Having enjoyed the festivities, the elderly Mrs. Sterling retired to rest.
The remaining younger generation amused themselves.
Victor had been abroad for a long time and had just returned; Oliver had a pile of matters waiting for his decisions. Before the luncheon was even half over, they rose to take their leave.
Their attendance alone had given Commissioner Sterling tremendous face.
Commissioner Sterling personally escorted them out.
The unmarried young people inside were keen on dancing as a way to get to know one another.
But wearing the title of Victor's fiancée, even with him gone, no one dared to invite me.
I could only play cards with the married ladies.
The usual group—Mrs. Garrett, Mrs. Lambert, Mrs. Sterling, and Grace—were playing.
But perhaps because Victor had publicly declared me his fiancée today.
Each of the three ladies wanted to yield her seat to me.
But I couldn't even understand the game, let alone play it.
I quickly declined with a smile. "I don't know how."
In the end, Mrs. Garrett claimed her belly was getting bigger and she needed frequent trips to the restroom, so she offered to teach me.
After I joined the table, the social circle grew even narrower.
The ladies were naturally fond of gossip and began talking about a widow who had recently remarried.
She was none other than the wife of the traitorous Regiment Commander Declan.
Within the high-walled, heavily guarded Sterling residence, there was a facade of music and celebration.
The ladies had no daily concerns to worry about, and their gossip flowed more smoothly than shelling sunflower seeds.
"I heard President Chase has taken a new concubine—a widow, with two children. It was done very quietly. Not many people know."
Mrs. Sterling raised her eyebrows slightly. "Oh? And how did you hear about it?"
"President Chase dotes on her. He bought a separate villa just for her, and this villa happens to be right next door to my house." The gossiping lady smiled. "This person—the eldest Miss Vane should recognize her too."
Grace responded casually, "Is that so?"
The lady took this as permission and announced in a hushed but excited tone: "Her former husband was that traitor Declan."
I was suddenly wide awake, my gaze involuntarily darting to Grace.
Grace had told me that Declan's family had been sent straight back to his hometown in the northeast.
A frail woman with two children, in these chaotic times—it was unlikely she could have made her way back from so far away.
Grace took a sip of tea, betraying nothing, and looked at the gossiping lady without responding.
Mrs. Lambert said in surprise, "The young General spared the lives of that widow and orphans out of old affection, and she actually has the nerve—by this reckoning, she remarried before his memorial period was even over."
Mrs. Garrett offered her own opinion: "If it were me, and my husband committed such a grave offense, I'd take my two children to the countryside, raise them, and then throw myself in the river."
Since the subject was a traitor's family, no one held back in their remarks.
Thinking carefully, the topic had come up rather suddenly, as if it had been deliberately spread after Victor and Oliver left.
If this young widow knew where the confiscated arms were hidden, then all the weapons Victor and Oliver had been collecting these past days would be for nothing.
But if she didn't know, and this was a spy's ploy to bait us into tipping them off, then calling to inform them would be walking right into a trap.
I didn't dare take the risk.
Grace hesitated for the same reason.
Because we were in the safe downtown area, we had only kept Dan with us.
Grace said she'd had too much tea and needed the restroom.
I yielded my seat to Mrs. Garrett, claiming I was sleepy.
Mrs. Sterling offered warmly, "There's a guest room upstairs. I'll have someone tidy it up—"