Elizabeth nodded, squeezing her hand once more before following Clara out of Amelia’s bedchamber and going to their classroom.
***
Across London, in a townhouse that stood out from the rest for the sheer opulence and size, the Duke of Blackthorn, Graham Randall, scowled at his reflection in the long, oval-shaped mirror in his chambers.
“Shall I take this selection back, Your Grace?” his valet, Robert, asked him. The man’s brow twitched.Nervous, Graham thought.He is nervous of my displeasure of this selection.He has served me for five years and he is still nervous of me.
“No,” Graham answered.
He turned his attention from the scar on his left cheek, shuddering past the memories of how he got it, and looked at the selection of cravats. Silver, gray, a deep blue, a startling red. His stomach rolled. The selection was only a reminder that he had to wear one for that night’s ball, held by his aunt, Lady Victoria Smith.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I can fetch another selection,” Robert reminded him, clearing his throat.
“Just—” Graham growled. “Give me a moment.” He waved off his valet before he turned back to his reflection. As the valet muttered something about shining his boots once more, he hurried out, leaving Graham blessedly alone in his large, dimly-lit chambers. His patience was worn thin, and exhaustion of the mind rested heavily on him.
His jaw clenched at the thought of the ball.
He understood his aunt’s insistence that he attended them but they were irksome, a thousand thorns that pierced Graham right through. He could have feigned illness, if not for his mother’s disapproval and endless fussing—for that was undoubtedly what she would do.
It was foolish; he was two and thirty yet still under his mother’s influence. His mother’s, and his aunt’s, for it was his aunt who held that night’s ball.
He needed to finish getting ready as much as he did not like it, but his gaze could not stop returning to the scar. In his mind, he was already imagining the whispering, the looks. The way mere ladies and lords would dare gossip about him simply for the marring on his face. He jerked as he swore he heard the resounding crack of a pistol. No matter how much it was impossible, because that night had been five years ago, Graham swore his ears rang in the aftermath of the shot.
And then the worst noise, even worse than the pain singing through his face, even worse than the fear of being caught—a body that hit the floor with a sickening thud. A fatal thud. Graham’s jaw tightened even further as he forced himself to look at his hands. To swear they weren’t stained with blood—to know that they were clean, had been clean for five years.
His mouth was clamped shut as he looked at himself. His lips did not utter pleas, as he had that night, begging his dying friend to stay alive, to stay with him, to hold on. The blood had not stopped flowing.
Graham’s neck prickled, as if already lashed with the stares and accusations that had chased him from London’s social events ever since that night. It did not matter that the only man there to judge Graham was himself; he felt the watchful eye of the ton, nonetheless.
He turned his back on the mirror, he went over to the surface where he had set down his tumbler and drank deeply from the brandy he had already prepared. It was a ritual; this drink, right before any event that he was forced to attend. He didn’t know if he drank for courage or to forget and ignore. The liquor slid down his throat in a burning slide, and he winced, drinking another mouthful. Not enough to be obscene or caught by his mother’s keen senses, but just enough to quell everything tossing andturning inside of him.
The burn of the brandy tugged him away from his thoughts, darkly lost in the memories of that night. But as he set down his glass, his hand shook, and he caught his reflection’s gaze again. He winced, seeing the bare vulnerability there. Graham quickly schooled his expression into his usual scowl.
The walls went back up, stone by stone, and Graham was safe once again inside them.
His dukedom was important, and it required more of him than he felt able to give but that was simply his life. He could not run nor escape from it in any way. Ideally, he should not have sent the valet away but he had needed the moment away from prying eyes.
The last moment, it seemed, as a shadow fell over the doorway.
“They say a man without his cravat is man going nowhere at all. And if that is true, I believe it causes a bit of a problem as youareintended to be going somewhere tonight.”
Graham turned, arching a brow at Lord Owen Radcliffe, his closest friend, who walked into his room.
“I did wait in the study for a while,” Owen continued, pretending to check a pocket watch. “However, I found myself quite ennui-ridden. Pray tell why are you not attired?”
“I am.”
Owen eyed his collar with suspicion. “It appears… not so.”
Graham scowled. “I am almost done. I did not like the selection of cravats.”
“Fastidious,” Owen jested but Graham only scowled deeper. “Heavens, do you intend to scare away all of your marriage prospects with that scowl? It is not your most dashing expression, if that is what you are aiming for.”
“I do notwishfor marriage prospects,” he retorted sharply but he could not hide his amusement with the casual charm of his friend. He was so unaffected by Graham’s moods. They had been friends for a long time, after all. He was far used to the scowls and sharp tones.
Owen flashed a grin at him as if he noticed the hint of amusement. Nobody else would think to look any deeper than the defenses Graham threw up to protect himself but Owen always did. Owen knew he was much more than his reclusive state and scarred face and haunting past.
