The Scratch on Her Face
The scratch on Iris’s cheek had not happened by accident.
Earlier that afternoon, while the ballroom was still half-empty and the flowers were being arranged, Iris had walked into the bridal dressing room carrying a kettle and clean cups. Beatrice had been alone with her cousin Laurel, both of them speaking in sharp whispers.
Iris did not hear enough to understand. Only pieces.
Insurance. Signatures. After tonight. No mistakes.
Then Laurel saw her in the mirror.
The room went still.
Beatrice smiled too quickly and asked why the staff were always creeping around like mice. Iris apologized and turned to leave. Laurel caught her by the wrist and checked the tray, the cups, the kettle, as if a maid’s silence could be searched and removed.
When Iris pulled back, Laurel’s ring tore across her cheek.
Beatrice watched the blood appear and said, “Clean yourself up before guests arrive.”
Not sorry. Not surprised.
Just annoyed that evidence could bleed.
Now, in the ballroom, Sebastian’s eyes moved from the phone to Iris’s cheek.
“Who did that?” he asked.
Iris’s mouth opened, then closed. She looked at Beatrice. That was answer enough.
Beatrice shook her head.
“This is insane,” she said. “You are letting a servant turn our wedding into a circus.”
Sebastian looked at her for a long moment.
“Our wedding?” he said.
His voice carried an ache Iris did not expect. Not only suspicion. Disappointment.
Beatrice’s father stepped forward, smiling the way men smile when they expect money to calm violence.
“Let us take this somewhere private,” he said. “The girl can be dealt with after—”
“No,” Sebastian said.
The word landed cleanly.
He placed Iris’s phone on the head table and asked the hotel security manager to call for medical assistance and preserve the broken glass. He did not say poison. He did not need to. The room understood the shape of danger without being given a name.
Beatrice’s lips pressed thin.
“You would humiliate me over a blurred video?”
Sebastian turned to the spill on the floor.
May you like
“No,” he said. “Someone tried to make sure I never got the chance to be humiliated.”
Iris lowered her eyes, not from shame this time, but because the whole room was finally seeing what she had been carrying alone.
