Page 48 of A Wallflower for the Disguised Earl

Without waiting for a formal invitation to cross the room, Mr. Marsh took two long strides toward her corner. “Miss Ashwell,” he said, his deep voice carrying a gravelly edge. “The earl asked me to call and check on your family after your early departure from the estate. A mere courtesy.”

“That is very kind of his lordship,” Corinna replied, her voice trembling slightly as she stood up to face him.

“The weather down south was… notable,” Mr. Marsh continued, his gaze dropping to her face, searching her features with an urgency he was struggling to hide. Something in his face was not quite composed; the strict mask of the humble secretary was cracking at the seams. “Would you… would you care to walk in the garden? Just for a moment.”

Corinna’s breath caught. She looked up into his handsome face, feeling the familiar, magnetic pull drawing her toward him. She wanted nothing more than to place her hand in his and step out into the quiet air where they could talk without the suffocating weight of the room watching their every move.

She opened her lips to say yes.

She was about to answer when his gaze flicked past her shoulder.

Mr. Marsh stopped breathing. His broad shoulders went rigid.

Corinna turned her head slightly.

Across the room, sitting gracefully upon the velvet settee with her plum silk skirts pooled around her, Cecily Vane was looking directly at him.

Cecily’s dark eyes were entirely still. A slow, knowing smile curved her red lips.

The silence stretched for three agonizing seconds.

Mr. Marsh’s jaw locked tight. A muscle jumped beneath his skin. The yearning heat in his blue eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, frozen panic.

Corinna looked back at him. She saw the exact moment the trap closed around him. She saw the way his large hands curled into tight fists at his sides, fighting a battle no one else in the room even knew was happening.

A proud pain pierced her chest. She refused to be a spectator to a secret she was not trusted to share. She refused to stand by while another woman wielded that kind of silent power over him.

Corinna drew herself up to her full height, her gray eyes turning ice-cold.

“You had better go, Mr. Marsh,” she said quite evenly, her voice carrying clearly across the quiet room.

Mr. Marsh flinched as though he had been physically struck. His head snapped back toward her, his blue eyes wide with shock. “Miss Ashwell…”

“I would not want to keep you from your other calls,” Corinna finished, her tone flat and devastatingly formal. She gestured toward the opposite side of the room, where Cecily still sat smiling over her teacup.

Mr. Marsh looked at her for one long, agonizing moment. He searched her face for anything that might bridge the jagged chasm opening between them. But he found only an impenetrable wall of quiet dignity.

The fight drained out of his shoulders. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing against his cravat.

“Of course,” he rasped, his voice barely audible.

He turned away from her. He offered a stiff, mechanical bow to Eleanor and Phoebe. “Thank you for receiving me. I shall convey your regards to his lordship.”

Without casting another glance across the room, Mr. Marsh turned on his heel and walked out. The double doors closed behind him with a soft, final click.

In the sudden quiet that followed, Phoebe calmly lifted the silver teapot, refilling the teacup she was holding with steady, unhurried hands. She did not comment. She did not look at Corinna.

Corinna stood frozen in her corner chair, staring at the closed door where he had just vanished.

Her chest burned with a mixture of fury, heartbreak, and a cold, sharp realization. She watched the way Cecily smoothly turned her attention back to Vivienne, entirely unbothered by the departure. Corinna understood, with absolute, unshakable clarity, that something monumental had just happened in this room, and that she was still missing far too many pieces of the puzzle to survive what was coming next.

Chapter 18

The front door of the Mayfair townhouse slammed shut behind Edmund, the sound echoing off the marble floors like a gunshot. He did not wait for MacAulay to take his coat. He stripped the cheap brown wool from his shoulders, tossed it blindly onto a console table, and stalked directly toward the drawing room.

Julian and Arabella were sitting near the fireplace. Julian was holding a teacup, looking entirely too comfortable in one of Edmund’s velvet coats, while Arabella was reading aloud from a small volume of poetry.

They both stopped the moment Edmund crossed the threshold.