Not to see Hugo. He was at his club, or his solicitor’s office, or wherever it was that men went when they were arranging the departure of wives they would not ask to stay. She went to the smaller stable behind the main block, the one that held only one occupant.
Dorado lifted his head when she opened the door. His dark eyes found her in the lamplight, and his ears pricked forward, and he made the low, rumbling sound she had come to recognize as a greeting.
“Hello, my friend.” She crossed to his stall and extended her hand.
Dorado pressed his muzzle against her palm, warm and soft, and his breath dampened her fingers.
She stroked his neck. The copper coat was smooth beneath her touch, and the muscles twitched and settled, and the three-legged horse leaned into her the way he leaned into Hugo, with the quiet trust of an animal who had learned that some hands were safe.
“I am leaving you,” she told him. “I do not know when I will be back.”
Dorado nudged her shoulder. She pressed her forehead against his neck and breathed in the warm, hay-scented smell of him, and the tears she had been holding back all day slipped free.
“Take care of him,” she whispered. “He will not ask anyone else to.”
She stayed with the horse for a long time. When she finally left, the stable was dark, and the city was quiet, and she walked backthrough the garden entrance and up the stairs to her chambers without seeing anyone.
Hugo’s study door was closed. A line of light showed beneath it.
She pressed her palm flat against the wood for one breath. Then she withdrew her hand and went to bed.
The morning of her departure, Lily rose before dawn.
She dressed in silence. Nell waited by the door with her own traveling case, her expression steady and professional, though her eyes held the quiet concern of a woman who had spent enough months in this household to understand that something between the Duke and Duchess had fractured.
Lily paused at the top of the staircase. Hugo’s study door was closed. No light beneath it. He was either asleep or gone, and she could not decide which possibility hurt more.
She would not knock. She would not stand in another doorway and wait for a man who would not meet her halfway. She had done enough waiting.
Mrs. Aldridge met her in the entrance hall, her hands clasped, her expression carefully neutral.
“Your Grace. His Grace asked me to inform you that the carriage is ready. He has arranged lodgings in Calais and letters of introduction for Paris, Lyon, and Rome. All the documents are in the leather case on the seat.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Aldridge.”
“He also asked me to give you this.” The housekeeper held out an envelope. “For expenses. He said you were not to worry about anything.”
Lily took the envelope. It was thick, heavy with banknotes, and sealed with the Beaumont crest. He had thought of everything. Every practical detail, every logistical concern, every comfort she might need on a journey across Europe. He had arranged it all with the meticulous care of a man who could organize anything except the words that mattered.
“Is His Grace at home?” Lily asked. She hated herself for asking.
“He left early this morning, Your Grace. He did not say where.”
Of course he did not. Of course he had left before she woke, so that he would not have to stand at the bottom of the staircase and watch her go, so that he would not have to choose between the mask and the truth, so that the last image between them would not be a goodbye he could not bear to speak.
She tucked the envelope into her reticule. She pulled on her gloves. She looked around the entrance hall one final time, at themarble floor and the portraits on the walls and the door to the study where she had stood and fought and lost.
“Take care of him, Mrs. Aldridge.”
The housekeeper’s composure wavered for one breath. “I will, Your Grace.”
Lily walked out the front door. Nell followed. The gray morning light swallowed them both.
She walked to the carriage, climbed inside, and the door closed. The driver clicked his tongue, and the horses pulled forward, and the townhouse, the street, and the man standing in the entrance hall fell away behind her.
Lily pressed her hand against the window glass and watched London blur.
She did not cry. She had cried enough. She sat straight, with her chin lifted and her shoulders squared, and she told herself that the ache in her chest would ease with distance, the way her aunt Margaret had promised, and that somewhere between Calais and Rome she would find whatever it was she was looking for.
