Abigail inhaled sharply. He could see her pulse fluttering at her throat. For some reason, it invoked in him a strange sense of longing and desire.
“I have come to admire you a great deal, Abigail,” he continued, his voice low and steady. “Not only for how well you navigate this world, but for how impressively you endure it. For the way you speak, the way you listen, the way you see and appreciate the world around you.”
She blinked, and in her eyes was something like wonder. His words were genuine, and good to hear, but he was still edging around the subject.
How do you feel about me, Arthur? Truly. Please tell me.
“I never imagined,” he said softly, “that the woman I chose to help me deceive the ton would come to mean so much to me, or that I would feel...”
He lifted a hand—hesitated—and then gently cupped her cheek, the warmth of her skin a revelation beneath his fingertips. She leaned into the touch instinctively, her lips parting slightly.
“I cannot promise anything,” he murmured, “but you must know that I would not lie to you. Not now.”
He leaned forward, closing the space between them with aching slowness, giving her time to pull away. She didn’t. Her eyes fluttered closed, and then their lips met in a kiss so tentative, so quietly reverent, it felt like a secret shared beneath the moonlight.
There was no performance in that kiss. No calculation. Only truth. She couldfeelit.
When they broke apart, neither spoke.
They simply stood there, breathing quietly, their gazes locked, the hum of the ballroom a distant murmur behind them, as if they had slipped into a world entirely their own. Arthur was still holding tightly to her hand.
Chapter Twenty
The following morning dawned bright and still, the spring sun gilding the tops of the London rooftops in pale amber light, and yet Abigail did not feel remotely rested. The dark shadows beneath her eyes, coupled with her pensive silence, told a story that all might not be as well as it currently appeared. Not that there was anyone here with her to realize or care.
A soft breeze stirred the curtains of Abigail’s bedchamber, and for a long while, she remained seated at the window, her eyes trained on the pale blue sky beyond the lace panes, though she saw very little of it.
Sleep had come in shallow snatches, fractured by memories of the previous evening—Edward’s sneering insinuations, the terrible hush that had fallen over the ballroom at Sophia Carter’s arrival, and then—more potently—her moment with Arthur on the terrace. That kiss. That quiet, disarming, entirely unexpected kiss that had splintered the last of her practiced detachment. Nothing had felt artificial in that moment. Nothing had felt impossible to overcome.
She closed her eyes now, recalling the way Arthur’s hand had cradled her cheek with such gentle certainty, the way his lips had met hers with reverence, rather than assumed possession. She had never imagined such a kiss—tender, sincere, and so heartbreakingly real.
And yet it was a kiss born from fiction.Wasn’t it?A fleeting moment where they had both momentarily lost control of their senses and what they were trying to convey. A chink in the carefully constructed armor they had both curated that had no rightful place in a courtship built upon strategic deception.
The more time that passed since that moment, the more she doubted what had seemed so certain the previous night. Her mind kept playing callous tricks on her, undoing any semblance of positivity she had felt the previous evening.
Such was her strength of feeling in all the wrong directions that she began to wish they had both been caught. Suddenly, a scandal seemed more bearable than this wretched and constant sense of chaos and unease.
Abigail rose from her seat and summoned Lydia to help her dress. She chose a walking gown in a muted mauve and a soft bonnet. She did not wish to draw attention, but rather to pass unnoticed among the morning crowds.
She needed clarity. She needed to speak to someone who would listen without judgment and would take away some of the heavy weight that hung around her shoulders. Someone who would understand her better than her mother ever had or ever could.
She needed Charles.
***
Hyde Park had never felt so quiet. It was only just beginning to stir with the rhythms of the day. Carriages rolled leisurely along the outer drives, and the more fashionably inclined early risers had begun their daily parade down Rotten Row. Abigail, however, had chosen a quieter path—a shaded route along the eastern boundary, where only a few devotees of the dawn and their dogs ventured.
Charles was waiting at their designated spot by the old iron gate, leaning on his walking stick with that easy elegance that masked his perceptiveness. As she approached, he tipped his hat and offered his arm.
“You’re early,” he observed with a smile. “I was rather hoping to impress you by arriving first.”
“You have,” Abigail replied softly. “I needed the air.”
The sun filtered through a canopy of pale green leaves, dappling the winding paths in soft patterns of gold. Morning strollers moved at a languid pace along the Serpentine, their laughter faint, their parasols bobbing gently like petals in bloom. The rhythmic clip of hooves on gravel and the rustle of newspapers were the only real reminders that London, with all its ceaseless commotion, still loomed just beyond the hedges.
They began their stroll in silence. Birds chattered above them in the canopy of trees, and the earthy scent of damp spring leaves rose with the breeze.
Abigail Darlington walked with her gloved hands clasped neatly before her, her bonnet casting a gentle shadow over her brow. Charles strolled at her side, relaxed and unhurried. His gait was casual, one hand tucked into his coat pocket, the other resting on the top of his walking stick, as if they truly were just two cousins enjoying the soft quiet of a spring morning without a care in the world.
