"There was never an engagement. My mother acted without my consent. I spoke with Lady Clarissa last night. She asked me to refuse. She has someone else." He paused. "I was never going to marry her. I couldn't."
"Because of Estella." The duchess stated it as a fact, but there was a challenge there. Would he deny it?
"Because of Estella," he said.
Another silence. The duchess studied him the way she'd assessed him that first night in the blue sitting room, when she'd told him she needed his help and he'd been fool enough to think he could keep his distance.
"Well then," she said at last. A small, satisfied smile curved her lips. "It's about time."
He let out an exhale. "So you'll let me see her."
The duchess's smile acquired an edge. "I would. Very gladly. But she's not here."
He stared at her. "Not here? But?—"
"She did not come back last night, Sebastian. She sent word. It seems she went home, to the Hale townhouse."
Truly? She'd been there all night while he'd been pacing his study and rehearsing speeches and waiting for a civilized hour to call on the duchess like a damned gentleman. He was moving toward the door before the duchess had finished speaking.
"Sebastian," she called after.
He stopped, hand on the door, and turned back.
"When you've said what you need to say…" The duchess’s voice grew quieter, maybe even gentle. "Bring her back here. Both of you."
Something in her expression made him pause despite every instinct screaming at him to go.
"There's something I need to tell you," she said. "Something I should have told you months ago. About the fire."
"What about the fire?" he asked.
The duchess held his gaze. "Not now. It deserves more than a doorway conversation." She paused. "But I will say this much. The guilt you've been carrying, Sebastian—it's built on an incomplete truth. And you both deserve to know the whole of it."
A chill ran through him. He wanted to demand more, but Estella was sitting in a house four streets away, believing the worst of him.
"I'll bring her," he said.
The duchess nodded once. "Go."
He was out the door in an instant.
24
Estella woke with a crick in her neck and Charlotte's foot in her ribs.
They'd both fallen asleep in the armchair. Charlotte was wedged against Estella's side at an angle, her nightgown twisted around her knees and her hair a disaster of tangled curls.
Estella blinked up at the ceiling. Morning light filtered through the threadbare curtains, pale and gray. The drawing room was freezing. And for three blissful seconds, she didn't remember.
But then she did. And the weight of it settled over her like a boulder.
She extricated herself from her sister's limbs and Charlotte burrowed deeper into the chair cushion.
Estella stood. Her gown was hopelessly creased. The borrowed pearls had left an imprint on her collarbone. She caught a glimpse of herself in the tarnished mirror above the mantel and winced. Her hair had come half undone, her eyes were swollen, and there was a crease on her cheek from the chair's upholstery.
She looked, in short, like a woman who had cried herself to sleep in an armchair.
Right. She drew a breath and squared her shoulders. She was going to wash her face, change her dress, and begin the business of putting herself back together.
