Dorian felt Anne’s hand tighten slightly against his sleeve.
A second voice followed immediately, sharper than the first. “Ruined entirely. My cousin in York says no one will receive her now, not even for afternoon calls. It seems everything about that unfortunate affair with Ashford Hall has finally come to light.”
Dorian’s expression did not change, but something inside him tightened at the ease with which his life had become someone else’s entertainment. Anne glanced at him briefly, but he gave no indication they should leave.
A third voice joined in, sounding older and wiser than the other two. “Mrs. Hargrave told me that Lady Vivian interfered with Ashford’s racing stables. Sabotage, if the accounts are to be believed. And not just that, but manipulation of the Duke of Ashford himself, as well as his wife.”
Dorian felt Anne go still beside him. He did not look at her, but his hand shifted slightly, grounding her without drawing attention.
Another guest let out a soft, scandalized sound. “That cannot be true.”
“It is,” the older woman replied firmly. “It has been confirmed by multiple sources.”
Anne spoke quietly beside him, barely moving her lips. “We are apparently a topic of sport.”
“We always were. Now we are just better informed about it.”
Her lips twitched with amusement, though it faded quickly as the conversation nearby continued.
A younger gentleman, clearly eager to insert himself into the discussion, leaned in with the enthusiasm of someone who enjoyed engaging in gossip more than a gentleman should.
“I heard something even more interesting,” he said brightly. “Lady Vivian believed she could force the Duke of Ashford back to his old ways, as though marriage were merely a lever to move another’s behavior.”
A woman beside him laughed faintly. “How dramatic.”
“It is not merely dramatic,” another voice replied, this one colder, more certain. “It is foolish. You do not try to sabotage Ashford and expect to remain untouched.”
Dorian recognized that voice. It was Sir Harold Finchley, a long-time acquaintance of the Devonshires. He always spoke as though reputation was currency and consequence was inevitable.
“The entire matter has collapsed in on itself,” he continued. “Lady Vivian is finished. There will be no recovery from this.”
A pause followed, and then someone asked the question that hung beneath all of it.
“And Holloway?”
“He will survive,” Finchley replied more slowly, “but only in the way men survive disgrace. No one in racing will trust him again, not after what has been uncovered.”
A murmur rippled through the group.
Dorian rolled his eyes at the exchange, but he noticed that Anne was enjoying it, and that made it more tolerable.
They moved slowly through the edge of the crowd as the conversation shifted, but the damage was already done. Word traveled fast, and it did not take long before another cluster of guests picked up the same thread.
A lady in a pale blue dress, introduced earlier as Lady Pennyworth’s cousin, leaned toward her companion with visible relish. “I do not know which part is more astonishing,” she said, “the fact that Lady Vivian Marlowe believed she could dismantle a duchy, or that she thought no one would notice.”
Her companion laughed behind her fan. “Or that she chose Ashford of all people. One would expect her to have better judgment, even if she were desperate.”
Dorian felt Anne glance at him again. He looked down at her, briefly, and she tilted her head slightly in question. He gave the smallest shake of his head. People would talk. They always would.
A man nearby, older and more reserved than the rest, cleared his throat, and both ladies fell silent. “The truth is simple enough. Lady Vivian underestimated what happens when you attempt to weaponize a man’s marriage.”
“And what happens?”
The man glanced briefly across the lawn, where Dorian and Anne stood close enough that they could have been mistaken for another couple among many. “You find out that some things cannot be turned against a man without consequence.”
“We should leave,” Dorian suggested, “before we become commentary.”
Anne glanced up at him again. “It is rather too late for that.”
