“So is shouting at the woman who cares for my sister,” Hudson said. “So is accusing her of negligence when she was, in fact, keeping a child’s confidence. I seem to be making a habit of inappropriateness where you’re concerned. I’d like the opportunity to correct at least one instance of it.”
She opened the door and stepped inside, but did not close it.
Hudson followed her into a room he had not entered since the day of her arrival, when Mrs. Beale had shown him the accommodations as a matter of form.
It was exactly as he remembered. Modest, comfortable, furnished with the particular attention to practical comfort that characterized all of Mrs. Beale’s arrangements. A narrow bed. A writing desk beneath the window. A small bookshelf containing several volumes he recognized from the library, borrowed without his knowledge or permission, and currently the least of his concerns.
Augusta stood by the window, her back to him, her arms wrapped around herself beneath the shawl.
“I was wrong,” Hudson began. The words emerged more easily than he had expected, which was its own surprise. “Not merely mistaken, but wrong. I accused you of failing in your duty when you were, in fact, fulfilling it exactly as Cassie had asked you to. I questioned your judgment. I implied that you had put my sister at risk, when the truth is that you have done nothing but keep her safe and valued and seen since the day you arrived in this house.” He drew a breath. “I am sorry, Augusta. You did not deserve what I said to you, and I deeply regret causing you pain.”
She was silent for a long moment. The only sound in the room was the soft tick of the clock on the mantel and the more distant sound of the house settling around them.
“Cassie trusts me,” Augusta said, without turning. Her voice was quiet and steady, and her gaze was fixed on some point beyond the window that Hudson could not see. “It’s a fragile thing, a child’s trust. Easily broken. Almost impossible to restore once damaged. I would never do anything to jeopardize that. I wouldnever do anything to make her feel less safe, less valued, or less seen than she deserves to be.”
She turned then, and the lamplight caught her face in a way that made his chest ache.
“I understand that you were frightened. I understand that the blood frightened you. But the moment you saw it, you decided that I had failed. That I had hidden something from you deliberately, with malicious intent. You did not ask. You accused me. And that…” Her voice caught, before she steadied it. “That is difficult to forgive.”
“I know,” Hudson said. “I don’t expect forgiveness. I only expect that you hear me and that you know I am aware of the gravity of what I did.” He took a step toward her, then stopped. “I was entirely wrong to accuse you of hiding something when I… Well, there’s something else I need to tell you. Something I should have told you before.”
She looked at him wearily. “Go on.”
“My men found your sister,” he confessed. “Olivia. She’s in Scotland. She’s well. Healthy. Apparently quite content with her situation.”
He paused, watching her face. The hope that flared there, bright and unmistakable, before it was quickly banked behind her usual careful control.
“She does not wish to come to London. Instead, she has asked that you join her in Scotland. Permanently.”
Augusta’s hand went to the windowsill beside her, fingers pressing into the wood as though she needed the support.
“When?” she asked quietly.
“The letter arrived the day before the ball. I’ve had it since then.”
“You didn’t tell me.” It was not a question.
“No.”
“Why?”
The single word hung between them, simple and devastating in its directness.
Hudson met her gaze and found he could not look away, could not offer the easy lie or the half-truth that would have preserved whatever fragile peace still existed between them.
“I was afraid,” he sighed. The admission emerged raw, scraped from somewhere deep. “Afraid that if you knew, if you had the option, you would leave. Before the ball. Before Cassie had time to—” He stopped, unable to continue without revealing more of himself than he was prepared to.
“I thought you would choose your sister. As you should. As anyone should. But Cassie would lose you, and she has lost enough already. I could not…” His throat worked. “It was selfish. It was wrong. I should have told you the moment the letter arrived.”
Augusta was staring at him with an expression he had not seen before.
“You thought,” she said slowly, each word precise and measured, “that I would abandon your sister. That I would pack my things and walk out the door without a word to Cassie, without ensuring she was cared for, without…” She shook her head. “You thought I would do that to a child who trusts me. A child who asked me this morning not to leave her.”
“I thought,” Hudson said, “that you would have every right to. That your sister’s claim on you was greater than Cassie’s. Greater than mine. As it should be.”
“Cassie is a child who already lost her mother, who watched her home burn, who trusts so few people that when she does, it is with her entire heart, and you believed that I would walk away from her without a backward glance. Without ensuring she was safe. Without saying goodbye.” She took a step toward him, and the movement brought her into the lamplight, the hurt in her eyes impossible to miss. “What does that say about what you think of me, Hudson? What does it say about the woman you believe I am?”
Hudson felt the breath leave his lungs, felt the weight of it settle across his shoulders with a familiarity that was almost comforting in its wretchedness.
