The accusation hung between them, simple and unadorned.
Hudson stared at the untouched whiskey, at the way the amber liquid caught the dying light, and found he had no rebuttal worth offering.
“I thought Cassie was hurt.” The words emerged rough, scraped from somewhere deep. “I saw blood on her sheets, and I… Honestly, James, what would you have done? Your sister, your responsibility, and the woman you’ve entrusted with her care standing between you and the truth with that look on her face, that absolute refusal…”
“I would have asked,” James said quietly. The lightness had left his voice entirely, replaced by something that Hudson, in his more honest moments, would have recognized as friendship inits purest form, the willingness to deliver difficult truths without flinching. “I would have asked, and I would have listened to the answer, and I would have trusted that the woman I hired had reasons for her silence. Good ones. Perhaps even necessary ones.”
Hudson closed his eyes. The image rose unbidden: Augusta’s face as he had shouted at her. The way the color had drained from her cheeks. The brightness in her eyes that was not quite tears but something adjacent to them, something worse in its restraint. The set of her mouth, firm despite the tremors he had glimpsed, the dignity with which she had absorbed his anger and offered nothing in return.
He hated it. Hated the memory of it, hated himself for creating it, hated with a fierceness that surprised him the idea that he had been the cause of that expression on her face.
“I was cruel.” The admission cost him more than he cared to admit. “I accused her of negligence. Of failing Cassie. Of…” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “She was keeping a child’s confidence. A confidence I had no right to demand she break. And I treated her as though she had committed some unforgivable breach of trust.”
“You did,” James agreed. There was no judgment in his voice, which made the statement somehow worse. “The question is what you propose to do about it. Beyond brooding at windows and terrorizing the staff with your silence, which, while theatrically effective, is unlikely to undo the damage.”
Hudson lowered his hands. “I need to speak to her.”
“Astounding,” James said. “The man has a gift for stating the obvious. A regular oracle.” He pushed away from the desk, moving toward the door with the easy grace that characterized all his movements. “I suggest you do it soon. Apologize. Properly. She deserves that much. They both do.”
The door closed behind him with a soft click that felt like an indictment.
Hudson remained by the desk, one hand resting beside the untouched whiskey, and listened to the house settle into the evening.
He would find Augusta. Tonight. He would apologize, and he hoped, with a desperation that embarrassed him, that it would be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The library after dark was Hudson’s favorite room in the house, which was perhaps why he had not expected to find Augusta there.
She sat in the armchair nearest the fireplace, a book open on her lap, the lamplight catching the mahogany of her hair and turning it into something warmer and richer than its daytime shade.
She did not look up when he entered. Either she had not heard him, or she had decided that acknowledging his presence was an indulgence she could not currently afford.
Hudson stood in the doorway and allowed himself the small, dangerous pleasure of looking at her. She wore a simple nightdress beneath what appeared to be a woolen shawl, her hair loose around her shoulders in a way he had seen only once before, in this library, when it had fallen across his hands like silk.
“Miss Norton.” His voice emerged lower than he had intended, rougher at the edges.
She turned a page, still not looking up.
“Augusta,” he tried.
That elicited a reaction. A slight stiffening of her shoulders, a momentary pause in the movement of her hand, before she recovered and continued reading with a focus that would have been commendable in a scholar and was, under the circumstances, frankly insulting.
Hudson crossed the room and stopped at the edge of the carpet, close enough that he could smell the lavender she used in her hair, but still far enough that he was not technically invading her space.
“I need to speak with you,” he said.
She closed the book with a gentle thud that was more final than a slam, set it on the table beside her, and rose from her seat in a single fluid motion that spoke of a grace he had not fully appreciated until this moment, when he was witnessing it deployed as a weapon against him.
“It’s late, Your Grace,” she said. “And I believe we’ve said everything that needs saying. Goodnight.”
She moved past him toward the door, her shawl trailing behind her.
Hudson did the only thing he could think to do, which was to follow her. Into the corridor, where the lamps had been turned low for the night; past the gallery, where the portraits of Rivers ancestors watched their progress with painted indifference; up the staircase to the east wing, where the guest rooms were located and where Augusta’s governess chambers were, he realized with a fresh twist of guilt, significantly smaller than they should have been.
She reached her door, paused with her hand on the handle, and turned to look at him.
“Your Grace,” she said. “This is inappropriate.”
