“Then, have you come to beg my forgiveness fornottaking me to the botanical gardens?” She frowned, fidgeting with the seam of her dress.
“Iamsorry that we have not been able to partake in our final outing,” he replied, and was about to continue, but she jumped in first.
“No matter. There shall be countless outings in the future, I am sure.” She smiled what he imagined to be her winning smile, though it would not grant her any triumph today. “Unless you are about to tell me that you are leaving the country?”
She laughed, but it echoed hollow, a nervous tension appearing around her eyes. Hugo could understand that the situation must have been rather foreign to her, when she was so accustomed to gentlemen throwing themselves at her, but it could not be helped. If he wished to win Evelyn’s heart, he had to begin by smoothing things over with her friend.
“I am not leaving the country, no, but there will be no final outing for us, Miss Parsons,” he explained carefully, feeling a slight chill in the room. “You see, it is no longer appropriate.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Well… the truth is, I am in love with Evelyn,” he said, the declaration igniting a little flurry of excitement within him.
Revealing the truth of his feelings to Octavia and revealing them to more of society were two very different things. In a way, it made it altogether more real.
“I am in love with her,” he repeated, “and though I know it is outrageous of me to ask, I should like your help in gaining her love in return.”
For what felt like an eternity, and a rather infernal one at that, Selina stared at him. Her eyes blazed with a simmering rage, her mouth set in a grim line, the nervous tension in her face now hardened to pure derision, her slender hands clenching into fists in her lap, while a patchy flush of red colored her cheeks.
If I make it out of here with my face unmarked by her palm, it shall be a miracle…And he would take her ire too, for he deserved it. He did not think he had made it seem like he had an affection for her, but he could understand if she believed there was the beginning of an agreement between them.
“You have wasted my valuable time because you loveEvelyn?” she spat at last. “You have spent all of those excursions with me, at my side, pretending it was for me, when, all the while, your attention was upon her? Well, Your Grace, you must be society’s rare exception, to have noticed the goose instead of the swan.”
There was venom in her voice and fury in her eyes, and thoughhemight have deserved her ire, Evelyn did not.
“I understand that you are angry,” he said coolly, “but you will not speak of Evelyn unkindly. Remember, she is your friend, and she does not know of my feelings. I have not told her, and I have no idea if she feels the same, but I am determined. If I can halt her marriage to that baron, I must do it.”
Selina blinked and some of the fire died in her eyes. She shook her head as if to dispel whatever nastiness had possessed her to speak like that about Evelyn, and leveled him with a cold but calm glare. In her lap, her hands relaxed, her tense posture easing.
“You are right,” she said stiffly. “It was beneath me to say such things about Evelyn. She is no goose at all, but every bit a swan… and I am pleased that someonedidnotice at last.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Pleased?”
“Yes, pleased.” She took a breath. “Make no mistake, I am not at all pleased withyou, but… the fault is not entirely yours. You see, I had an… understanding with a gentleman, and Evelyn warned me against it, but I did not listen. As it turned out, he was every bit the scoundrel that she said he was, and… I found myself clinging to the idea of you, out of desperation. Or revenge. I do not know which, to be honest.”
The revelation surprised Hugo, though he did not know why; she was universally admired and adored, so it would have been far stranger if someone had not piqued her interest. Perhaps it was the vulnerability with which she had told him that had surprised him.
“I panicked,” she said with a shrug. “And now I am disappointed that you have no interest in me, for it means I shall have to begin again, searching for someone, anyone, who is not a knave and a lying weasel. You would think it would be easy, when thereis all of society’s gentlemen to choose from, but you would be mistaken.”
A faint, tired smile graced her lips as she flopped back against the settee and stared up at the ceiling.
“Could you not have come to this conclusion about Evelyn sooner?” she asked, after a moment. “At the opera would have been more useful.”
“I did not know then,” Hugo replied, feeling a thaw in the air.
She pushed herself back up. “Well, at least you have realized it now instead of after she is already married to thatboringman. Goodness, I have never encountered anyone with less character. There are statues in the museum that have more interesting things to say than him.” Her face brightened. “Oh, but what a glorious thing, if my dearest friend should become a duchess.”
“Does this mean you will help me?” Hugo asked tentatively, notquitecertain he would emerge from the townhouse unscathed.
Selina’s face cracked into a grin. “This means that I will helpher, and if that means conspiring with you, then I shall just have to bear it.” She paused to pluck the flower from her hair. “We should begin the day after tomorrow.”
“Why is that?”
“Because that is the evening of Evelyn’s engagement dinner, and I am cordially inviting you as my guest,” Selina replied, the very last ember of her anger sputtering out, replaced with a little jitter of excitement. “And we are going to make sure that she does not become the Baroness of… wherever.”
Hugo nodded. “I shall be there.”
“I should hope so.” Selina’s face turned serious for a moment, her eyes hardening once more. “But, Your Grace, if you hurt my best friend, if you are not sincere, if you break her heart or make her cry, I promise you that you shall not like the consequences.”
