Heat and sound hit him as he crossed the threshold.
He scanned the room. He saw everything—every tic and tell, every feigned yawn and exchanged glance. It was the old habit, that ability to size up a crowd and spot the danger before the danger even recognized itself.
The tension in the room recalibrated itself around him.
Even here, where secrets were supposed to ferment undisturbed, his presence was a distillery of rumor and dread. The barman nodded and hastily poured a whiskey neat, then slid it down the polished wood with the reverence one afforded an idol.
Hudson ignored the drink and made for the private alcoves at the far end, weaving past a pair of footmen in the Nightingale’s dark livery. He took the high-backed chair at his usual table, the leather creaking in familiar protest as he sat down.
The table was set for three, though he rarely needed the company. It was a signal—an old trick—to leave the additional chairs empty, a promise of negotiation or threat depending on who filled the seat.
He planted his elbows on the table and folded his hands, the posture of a man about to give orders. Chin lifted, back arrow-straight, he began the inventory: patrons, employees, potential liabilities. He caught snippets of conversation, dissected the meanings in the cadence of laughter and the wary glances tossed his way. Most people gave him a wide berth, instinctively steering clear of the eye of the storm.
With a flash of irritation, he thought of the scene at Oakhart House earlier: Cassie and her governess sneaking into the manor, stained with mud. He’d intended to be furious, to deliver a dressing-down that would restore the proper order of things. Instead, he’d found himself… what? Disarmed, certainly. Unsettled, yes.
The memory of Augusta’s face—luminous, impudent, and utterly unrepentant—rose unbidden.
His knuckles whitened around the edge of the table. He was not used to this. Being challenged in the way she challenged him, or being affected by anyone this much.
He had no idea what to make of it.
Thoughts of Augusta’s face so close to his own taunted him all night, even as he made his way back home and attempted sleep. When dawn broke, he was still wide awake, though unable to keep from dreaming of the things he may have done had Cassie not interrupted the charged moment.
He avoided breakfast, avoidedher, and made his way to the stables with pursed lips.
James was already waiting for him, his breath visible where he stood.
“Hudson,” he called, his grin wide enough to crack the cold. “I had wagered a shilling that you’d call off today’s ride. Happy to lose it. What is it that brings you out in this weather?”
“Habit,” Hudson replied, swinging himself up into the saddle with a practiced grace. “And the fact that if I remain indoors one minute longer, I’ll implode.”
“And here I thought you’d be up to the elbows in your Nightingale accounts,” James said, nudging his horse alongside.
Hudson set off at a brisk trot, savoring the brief peace before James inevitably talked it away. With each stride, the gelding’s muscles bunched and released, a rhythm that bled tension from his shoulders.
“I hear,” James said, as soon as they hit the main path, “that you’ve acquired a new weapon in the household wars. Miss Norton. It’s all over the kitchens that she’s uncommonly clever, and that Cassie hasn’t yet managed to make her run weeping into the night.”
“Indeed. We shall see whether she lasts or not.”
“Is she beautiful, at least?” James asked, the curiosity in his voice far from innocent. “Or did you forgo the usual qualifications in favor of brute necessity?”
“I paid little mind to her appearance,” Hudson lied, though even as he said it, his mind supplied the color of Augusta’s eyes andthe way her hair gleamed in the morning light. “My primary concern is Cassie’s education and safety.”
James hooted. “And here I thought you’d gone soft. Cassie’s the most willful child in England. It would take a dragon to keep her in line. Or an angel. Which is she?”
“I am not quite sure,” Hudson admitted with a sigh. “She is… something. She vexes me. She does not listen.”
“You sound… frustrated,” James noted with a grin. “Or perhaps enamored.”
Hudson scoffed, though his heart skipped a beat at the thought. “That is a preposterous thing to say.”
James chuckled, but relented, and together they rode the remaining mile in silence, broken only by the snort and crunch of hooves through crusted mud.
Hudson didn’t speak much, but the idea of his friend calling himenamoredwith the frustrating woman in his home stuck in his mind.
Hudson and James shed their boots and cloaks in the entrance hall, the warmth inside an immediate relief. Hudson led the way toward the drawing room, expecting to find Cassie hunchedover Latin verbs, but instead he heard music. An actual, honest melody, the notes stumbling but unmistakably deliberate.
He followed the sound to the music room. There, in the filtered sunlight, sat Augusta at the pianoforte, with Cassie beside her on the bench. The men hovered in the doorway, unnoticed for a moment.
