For a week, a foul mood had clung to Carminus, the third son of Duke Valerius, like a shroud.
The sting of his recently broken engagement was sharp, but the true source of his festering anger was Count Devereux.
He'd tried to bleed off some of his frustration at the last banquet by antagonizing the Count, only to have it backfire into a spectacular public humiliation.
Of course, the entire affair had been Carminus’s fault.
If he hadn’t made
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