Harriet’s gaze flicked between them, clearly attempting to decipher the precise nature of this development. Her voice, when she spoke again, was carefully neutral.
“I shall expect you home before luncheon, my dear.”
“Of course, Mama.”
Arthur inclined his head once more, then turned toward the door, Abigail on his arm, Eliza just behind. “I will deliver her back to you safely, Lady Harriet. I promise I won’t keep her for too long.”
They walked in silence through the hall, the footman opening the door ahead of them. Arthur felt the subtle shift in posture as Abigail squared her shoulders, and the brief inhale she took before stepping into the morning light.
He helped her into the carriage with the same ease as if he’d done so a hundred times before, though the feel of her gloved hand in his was still unfamiliar.
Once seated, the carriage began to roll forward.
Eliza, still smiling faintly, struck up a benign conversation about the trees beginning to bloom in Hyde Park, giving them cover as the vehicle pulled away from the Darlington residence.
Arthur let the rhythm of the wheels soothe his thoughts.
So far, their performance was flawless, but Eliza wasn’t the one who needed convincing.
Beneath the surface of every gesture, and every word, lay the awareness that this was only the beginning, and somehow, they had to keep it up.
Chapter Ten
The door to the Beaumont carriage closed with a soft click, muffling the outside world as though sealing them within a different reality altogether. Abigail settled onto the deep velvet seat, with the same careful precision she applied to every element of her public life—every gesture artfully composed, every breath measured with the weight of expectation.
She arranged her skirts with practiced ease, though her fingers lingered longer than necessary over the folds of fabric, betraying the faint tremor that danced beneath her gloves. This was not just another carriage ride. It was, for all intents and purposes, the prologue to a performance she and Arthur had both agreed to star in—an elaborate theatre of courtship, visible to all the ton and yet rooted in illusion.
The interior of the carriage was precisely what she might have expected from the manor of Beaumont. Elegant but not ostentatious, meticulous in its appointments, as though the very air had been instructed to behave with refinement.
Polished mahogany trim lined the windows, the rich navy velvet of the seats gleaming faintly in the diffused morning light, and the faint scent of polish and lavender suggested the interior had been recently cleaned—either for company or simply in keeping with the Beaumonts’ notorious attention to detail.
Opposite her, Arthur sat with the composed detachment of a man accustomed to controlling every outward emotion. He did not fidget, did not shift, did not even glance toward her. Yet something in the stillness of his frame suggested that his thoughts were far from settled.
His gloved hands rested lightly atop one another, and his gaze, fixed momentarily on the passing street beyond the window, seemed distant—though whether it was disinterest or deliberate avoidance, she could not tell. To his right, Eliza sat poised and bright-eyed, the very picture of unaffected good humor. Her dress, a soft green that mirrored the spring hedgerows outside, set off her auburn hair with effortless charm. She leaned forward slightly as the carriage gave a gentle jolt into motion, her eyes alight with barely restrained mirth. Outside, the muffled rhythm of hooves against cobblestone echoed like a heartbeat—steady, unhurried. The sort of pace that gave one time to think.
Unfortunately, thought was exactly what Abigail was trying to avoid.
This was their first public outing under the guise of courtship. It felt both absurd and oddly significant. Her mother had watched from the drawing room window with a furrowed brow and the tight-lipped smile of someone who had already begun re-calibrating her expectations.
No doubt Harriet would spend the afternoon interrogating the footman for details and composing imagined conversations that might have occurred between Abigail and Lord Beaumont in the three-minute journey to the carriage.
Abigail couldn’t understand why her mother seemed so ill at ease. She had wanted her to seek a good match of her own volition, but now that she had secured a promenade with a suitor of her choosing, Lady Harriet seemed almost disappointed. Was it because she had wanted to find a future husband for her? Or something else entirely?
Beside her, Eliza’s voice broke through Abigail’s spiraling thoughts.
“Oh, but I must confess, Miss Darlington,” she began with the easy candor of a younger sister too used to being overlooked, “I’ve been looking forward to this drive all morning. Arthur rarely takes me anywhere remotely diverting. It’s usually some dreadful obligation or another involving either parliamentary tedium or Mother’s insufferable garden parties.”
Abigail offered a smile, polite but sincere. “Then I am doubly honoured to be the cause of your reprieve, Miss Beaumont.”
“Oh, please,” Eliza said with a conspiratorial grin. “If you’re to be my brother’s paramour—even in the staged sense of the word—I insist you call me Eliza.”
There was no artifice in her tone, no affected sweetness. Just genuine warmth. Abigail blinked, slightly disarmed by the casual invitation to familiarity. She had not expected that. She had expected politeness, certainly. Polished manners, a sense of familial duty. But not this—this easy generosity, this willingness to welcome her into confidence so quickly and without reservation. It warmed something in her, something she had not realized was cold.
Very well,” she said, her voice softening. “Eliza.” Abigail leaned forward, lowering her voice to a hush. “I see your brother has filled you in on our little act of deception.”
“You needn’t concern yourself about Eliza’s ability to keep a secret, my lady,” Arthur reassured. “I imagine she’s rather enjoying herself in this role. She should have had a career on the stage.”
Eliza winked and drew her finger across her lips as though she were sealing them shut. “And I shall call you Abigail,” she said with a conspiratorial grin. “Unless you’d prefer something dreadfully formal—Miss Darlington? Lady Pretend Suitor?”
