“Nonsense, my lady. You are most deserving,” he retorted, but something about his tone made her skin crawl yet again with a desperate unease. Every unwanted gift felt like a step closer to him issuing demands of his own that she did not wish to fulfill.
Harriet carried on effusively, chattering about Abigail’s skill at watercolor and her lovely singing voice. Edward absorbed it all with the smug satisfaction of a man convinced of his success.
But Abigail’s mind was elsewhere.
She felt as if she had been weighted down. She was so tired of the charade of it all. The careful masks. The expectations. The unspoken assumptions that her silence meant consent, her composure meant compliance.
She had spent years mastering the art of smiling while her soul screamed.
When Edward finally stood to leave, Abigail rose with him, offering the briefest curtsy. His bow was deep again, his lips brushing her knuckles.
“I hope to return again in the not too distant future, if I might trespass on your gracious hospitality once more,” he said softly, just for her. “I also hope to speak with your father when he returns home from his travels next week.”
Her heart froze for just a moment.
My mother has already told him when he will be back?
He meant it as a promise.
A threat.
And it was both. A declaration of intent. Suddenly, Abigail was no longer a fly banging against the window pane in confusion but one completely trapped under Edward’s glass. There was no escaping the reality of her situation, and she couldn’t bear to spend another second with that vile excuse for a man, let alone a lifetime.
He turned, bowing, before he offered a final parting word to Harriet, and left the room.
Silence fell like a curtain in his absence.
“Well,” Harriet said, clapping her hands together softly. “Wasn’t that promising?”
Abigail said nothing. She fell into the nearest chair and stared at the door in a horror-induced paralysis. Her hands, still clasped, slowly uncurled. She felt the ghost of Edward’s touch on her fingers and brushed it away against her skirts.
Across the room, Lady Harriet hummed to herself rearranging cushions as if the matter were already settled.
“I hope to speak with your father when he returns home…”
Lord Colton’s words rang in her ears. In less than a week, she could find herself in a much worse situation.
Abigail turned back to the window and caught a glimpse of Edward as he stepped into his waiting carriage. He turned to give her one last glance that seemed too possessive and certain before the door shut and the wheels turned.
The sparrows had gone. She watched the empty sky.
Trapped,she thought,and not even in a cage of iron. Silk and smiles; bouquets of lilies and lies.
Chapter Six
Arthur Beaumont sat with the restrained elegance of a man both accustomed to formality and thoroughly exhausted by it.
The drawing room of Beaumont Manor was a masterclass in restrained opulence—walls of ivory silk damask, wainscoted in dark oak, the air perfumed faintly with orange blossom from the cut flowers arranged in a vase on the mantel.
Afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows, striking gleams from the gilt-framed mirrors and turning the crystal finials of the chandelier into tiny prisms of fractured light. It was a room that invited neither comfort nor idleness. One sat in it to be examined, not to rest.
Arthur occupied one of the chairs nearest the hearth, his long legs crossed with deliberate ease. A porcelain teacup rested in his fingers, full but untouched. The steam had long since faded.
Across from him, his mother, Lady Gillian Beaumont, poured her own tea with the same precision she applied to all things. Her spine was a rod of authority beneath her silk brocade gown, and her hat—though far too elaborate for an indoor sitting—had been arranged to maximize both shade and scrutiny. She did not yet speak. She didn’t need to. Her silence was a drawn bowstring.
Arthur glanced idly at the clock ticking faintly. He did not expect to leave before she had said her piece.
Arthur had not yet been asked a single question.
