“How about black and red?” Amelia asked suddenly. “For the ball. We could create a very striking space. Black drapes, red furnishings, candlelight glowing in the darker space.”
“It could cause for a very dramatic space,” Daphne mused, her eyes already lighting up. “We cannot do masks but this would add a sense of mystery and tension, for everybody shall be searching the shadows for their partners.”
“Candlelight would cast the guests in the most emphasizing lights.”
“I adore this idea!” the other girl squealed, clapping her hands. “What an enchanting idea.”
Amelia nodded, thinking aloud even as she kept some thoughts to herself. The duke had always hid in the shadows. What better way for him to feel at ease with the ballroom bedecked in those shadows, allowing him to be another face in the crowd, comfortable as much as he could be, in his own home?
And when the ton knew how the shadows felt perhaps they would be more lenient and welcoming to her husband.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“It was not so long ago I was preparing you for Lady Smith’s ball,” Lily mused, adding the last flowered touch to Amelia’s hair. “You look beautiful, Your Grace. You are every inch the Duchess of Blackthorn.”
The ton’s gossip had been in uproar over her red gown, and she had chosen the same color for tonight’s ball, just a much more striking dress with layers and sleeves that capped her shoulder. There was an overlay of black on the skirt, adding an air of darkness to her dress, as if it had been made from the shadows themselves. It was a most daring choice, and she knew the ton would speculate about her further, but she did not care.
“They speak about me so poorly,” Amelia said, her stomach fluttering with nerves, even as she looked at the confident facade she wore. “So tonight I shall let them see that I have lived in the shadows long enough to be formed from them, and now,Ichoose to emerge. At my husband’s side, we shall be stronger than their words and gossip and scorn.”
Lily finished placing the last red blossom in her hair, and stepped back. “Indeed, they’ll see, Your Grace. I have prepared a hopeful debutante, a quiet girl still holding onto hope, and now you have let me prepare you as a duchess. For that, I am most grateful.”
In a moment of needing the solace of her former life’s familiarity, Amelia reached out to squeeze Lily’s hand before she turned to the door. She smoothed down her dress, adjusted her black gloves, and went outside to meet her husband whom she had barely spoken to since his outburst in the library.
***
Graham stood in front of his mirror, his valet holding out a selection of cravats.
This is rather reminiscent of the ball where I met Amelia, he thought, looking at the colors. There was no silver, only several shades of red. He raised a brow at Robert.
“I do not understand,” he said drily. “They are all red.”
“Her Grace has requested you wear red tonight, Your Grace,” Robert said, smiling at him with mischief in his eyes. “It seems the Blackthorn ball tonight has a theme, and you are required to adhere.”
Graham scoffed. “Indeed. Then I shall go for the darkest shade.”
“A most complimentary choice, Your Grace.”
“I do not need flattering,” he muttered, allowing Robert to take out the cravat chosen and tie it around his neck before knotting it intricately. He pinned a brooch with the Blackthorn crest on, and stepped back.
“Tonight, you and Her Grace shall rise from the shadows of your pasts.” Robert beamed happily before bowing and leaving Graham confused.
“Rise from the shadows?” he muttered, raising a brow in the wake of his valet. He turned back to the mirror, assessing his dark hair, styled back from his face, leaving only a few strands to fall over his forehead. They brushed the scar on his left cheek that spread from his temple to his jaw, making the skin pulled and jagged. Dark eyes stared at himself, hard with anger, and he tried to forcefully soften them but he could not. He traced a finger over the scar on his cheek, clenching his hand before lowering it.
The rest of his attire was black, and his boots had been newly polished. Over the last several days he’d spent so much time riding through the estate in an attempt to clear his head. To be back in his stiffer tailcoat and best leather boots was a different sort of stifling he was not quite comfortable with.
He thought of Amelia, dressing in her room. Was she as nervous as he was? Was she scrutinizing herself, knowing they would both be under the careful observation of the ton once again? He did not know what she had done for their ball—in fact, he had ridden in order to forcibly remove himself from all involvement of the ball itself—so he could only hope she had presented a grand thing, something with armor, something that would protect her from the ton’s gossip when he could not.
Sighing, he finally turned on his heel before exiting his room—only to meet the duchess outside of her own bedroom. He did not know what he was more stunned by: the beautiful gown she wore that swept the floor, or the striking hairstyle that highlighted every feature that he could not stop drinking in. Her once-soft face looked harsher beneath the lights of the hallway, and with the darker colors draping her, Amelia looked striking.
Graham swore that his heart stopped dead for a moment.
“Husband,” she murmured, drawing near to him. Her steps were light as she crossed to where he stood, dumbstruck.
“Wife,” he managed back. His chest ached with the force of his thundering heart as he crooked his arm for her to slip her hand into. “You look—”Enchanting. Captivating. Beautiful. I am a man with an ache inside his chest, and the only thing I crave is you.“You look beautiful.”
It was a meager word, one he had told her before, and she deserved a far better vocabulary, but he could not think clearly.
Amelia gave him a small, flushed smile, as she finally came face-to-face with him, only inches separating them.
