Her breath caught. He watched the shiver move through her, a single tremor that traveled from her shoulders down her spine. Hugo felt an answering pull in his own chest that he had no name for and no intention of examining.
“I am no one’s to protect, Your Grace.”
She left. The front door opened and closed. Hugo moved before the thought had fully formed. A woman alone in a hackney at midnight. He should escort her home. He reached the entrance hall and pulled the door open, the offer already on his tongue.
Edward stood beside the hackney, holding the door for Lily as she climbed inside. He glanced up at Hugo across the lamplit street. Their eyes met. Edward gave a single nod, brief and loaded, and climbed in after her. The hackney pulled away.
Hugo stood in the doorway and watched it go. Edward knew. He had brought her here and waited, which meant the situation was grave enough to draw a duke out at midnight. And the nod had said everything Edward’s voice had not:Fix this.
Hugo stepped back inside and closed the door.
Hugo stood in the empty parlor. The fire crackled. The brandy sat untouched on the mantel. The crumpled pamphlet pressed against his ribs from inside his waistcoat pocket, and the faint scent of rosewater lingered in the air like a question he had not been asked.
He picked up the brandy and drained it in one swallow.
She was going to refuse. She was going to fight this on her own, and she was going to lose, because Society did not reward defiance in women the way it rewarded it in men. The unfairness of that fact settled into his chest like a stone.
He would fix this. Whether she wanted him to or not.
CHAPTER 3
“Where on earth have you been?” Lady Brimsey stood in the entrance hall of Brimsey House with her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
Lord Brimsey hovered behind her, his coat discarded, his cravat loosened, and a glass of something amber clutched in his fist.
Lily closed the front door behind her and leaned against it. “I went to see the Duke of Thornwaite.”
Lady Brimsey’s hand flew to her throat. “You didwhat?”
“I went to find out whether he was responsible for generating the scandal that appeared in the gossip sheets tonight.” Lily pulled her gloves free one finger at a time. “He was not.”
“You went to a bachelor’s residence.” Lord Brimsey set his glass down with a deliberateness that suggested he was exercisingconsiderable restraint. “Alone. At midnight. While a scandal sheet connecting you to that very man was circulating through every drawing room in London.”
“And I came back with an answer, Papa. Which is more than anyone else accomplished tonight.”
Lady Brimsey sank onto the hall bench and pressed her handkerchief to her lips. “This will undo everything. Everything Sophia and Edward worked to rebuild. The debts, the disgrace, all of it clawed back inch by inch, and now this.”
“Mama, nothing is coming apart.”
“You do not know that.” Her mother’s eyes glistened. “A rumor is a living thing, Lily. It grows. It feeds on silence and denial alike, and by morning, every household that matters will have a copy of that wretched sheet on their breakfast table.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. The footman opened it to a messenger boy clutching a stack of notes. Lord Brimsey rifled through them in silence, his expression tightening with each one. He paused on the last, a single folded sheet sealed with blue wax, and held it out to Lily.
Lady Lily, I regret to inform you that I will be unable to make our planned call on Thursday. A prior engagement has arisen that requires my attention. I wish you and your family well.
Lord Wilfrey
Lily folded the note and set it on the hall table.
“Lord Wilfrey has canceled his call.”
Lady Brimsey pressed the handkerchief harder against her mouth.
Edward brought her to Brimsey House, where Sophia and her parents were waiting. Lady Brimsey rushed to the entrance hall the moment the door opened, her handkerchief clutched to her chest, and Lord Brimsey stood behind her with his jaw set and his eyes bright. Sophia drew Lily into the parlor while their parents conferred with Edward in the hall.
“Tell me everything.” Sophia settled into the chair near the fire. “What did Thornwaite say when he read the news?”
“He was angry. Not at me. At the pamphlet itself. He said someone had used his name as a weapon.”
