Page 51 of A Wallflower for the Disguised Earl

Edmund narrowed his eyes, the protective older brother instantly rising to the surface, temporarily eclipsing his own disaster. “What are you talking about?”

Julian squared his shoulders, refusing to look away. “I am falling for Arabella. I have been for some time. And I cannot keep standing in this room, wearing your clothes, pretending to be something I am not.”

The drawing room went deadly silent.

Edmund stared at his best friend. He looked at the ink stains on Julian’s knuckles, the careless, charming tilt of his jaw, the history of gambling halls, tavern brawls, and fleeing through the back alleys of Naples. He looked at the man he had pulled from the gutter, and then he pictured him with his gentle sister.

The room shifted beneath Edmund’s feet.

“Arabella is not like the women you have known in Paris, Julian,” Edmund said. His voice was dangerously low.

He did not say the word rake. He did not need to. The implication hung in the air between them. He was telling Julian that he was not worthy of her. That his past disqualified him from her future.

Julian went very still.

The defiant, honest light in his dark eyes extinguished instantly. His shoulders dropped, the rejection landing with physical force. He stood there for a long, agonizing moment, absorbing the brutal assessment from the man who knew all his darkest secrets.

“I see,” Julian whispered.

He took a step back, putting distance between himself and Edmund.

“After everything we have been through,” Julian said, his voice entirely devoid of its usual warmth. “After Naples. After the debt. After all of it… I thought you knew me better than that.”

Julian did not wait for a response. He did not raise his voice, nor did he offer a sarcastic parting remark. He simply turned on his heel and walked out of the drawing room. The door clicked softly shut behind him.

Edmund stood completely alone in the massive, opulent drawing room.

The fire crackled quietly in the grate. He looked down at the hearth, where the ashes of the anonymous letter lay scattered among the hot coals, gray and weightless.

He had built this entire masquerade to protect himself, to protect his family. And now, he stood amidst the wreckage of it all. His mother was upstairs, preparing to walk into a society trap. His best friend had been entirely betrayed by his cruel judgment.

And Corinna, the woman who had challenged him, who had seen straight through the performance to the man beneath, was sitting across the city, believing he was nothing more than a coward who had walked away when Cecily Vane snapped her fingers.

He felt entirely lost. The absolute inability to handle the colossal mess he had created pressed against his chest, making it difficult to breathe.

He looked at the ashes one last time.

I have to make it work, Edmund thought, a fierce resolution finally breaking through the panic. I have to find Corinna. I have to explain it to her. Before the truth shatters them all.

Chapter 19

The heat inside Lady Sophronia Quill’s Mayfair ballroom was an oppressive, physical weight. Hundreds of beeswax candles burned fiercely in the glittering chandeliers, casting an unforgiving light over the throngs of silk and velvet.

The air was thick with the scent of hot wax, crushed roses, and the sheer, desperate ambition of the London Season.

Edmund stood near the grand archway, pulling at the edge of his cravat. He and Julian had arrived wearing nearly identical tailoring this evening, dark blue coats cut severely at the shoulders, crisp gray waistcoats, and immaculate white linen.

Julian had questioned the lack of sartorial flair, complaining that he looked entirely too subdued for an earl. Edmund had dismissed the choice as a necessary caution against gossip, though he privately worried what excuse he’d give if his mother, who had spent thirty years dressing his father for every occasion that mattered, ever thought to ask the same question.

In truth, he hadn’t examined the decision too closely. He only knew that the suffocating walls of the masquerade were closing in, and he instinctively wanted the visual differences between them erased, as if identical wool could somehow blur the disastrous reality of what they were doing.

The performance engaged the moment they crossed the threshold. Julian stepped forward, working the room with his usual charm, while Edmund fell back exactly two steps, folding his hands behind his back.

But tonight, the role of the quiet companion sat heavier on his shoulders than it ever had before.

Edmund scanned the swirling crowd of aristocrats. He ignored the dukes, the gossiping dowagers, and the brightly colored debutantes. His blue eyes tracked methodically through the room until he found her.

Corinna was standing near a towering arrangement of white lilies. She wore a gown of deep midnight blue that made her pale skin look almost luminescent. Her dark hair was pinned up simply, and her gray eyes were currently fixed on the orchestra with an expression of detached amusement. She was a young woman who preferred the margins to the center, yet to Edmund, she was the only person in the room who actually existed.