//CLARA//
The train hissed to a stop at Newport, Casimir's hand a burning brand at the small of my back. The air smelled of salt and privilege, but all I could feel was the heavy, cooling slickness of him tucked beneath layers of Gilded Age propriety.
The Goulds hadn't just sent a carriage. They'd sent a fucking fleet.
Aunt Cornelia surveyed the waiting servants like livestock at a bargain market. She remained glacially silent as the Goulds approached—he in a morning coat losing a fight with his waistline, she in pearls that could've funded a coup.
Their smiles were too wide, possessed by that desperate brightness of people who had built an empire instead of just waking up inside one.
They were new money. In her world, if your great-grandfather hadn't owned half of Manhattan, you were a glorified squatter with a high budget.
But in my opinion? Money is money. Whether it's from a goddamn inheritance or your own blood and sweat, it all spends the same.
