Page 58 of A Wallflower for the Disguised Earl

He stopped pacing but did not sit. “I prefer to stand.”

“As you wish,” she replied, her dark eyes tracking him. “I will not ask you to insult my intelligence with excuses. I will simply ask you to tell me the truth. All of it. From the moment you returned from Italy.”

Edmund looked at his mother, feeling the last remaining threads of his carefully constructed armor disintegrating into dust. He took a slow, jagged breath, and he told her.

He started with Julian. He explained the debt in Naples, the thugs in the alleyway, the life he owed the man who had pulled him out of the gutter. He moved to the contract with Sir Gerald Ashwell, the suffocating weight of the title, and the paralyzing terror of walking into a marriage blind.

He explained the swap. He detailed every deliberate lie, every borrowed coat, every manufactured excuse. He laid bare the entire Season, stacking each deception on top of the last until the sheer, catastrophic height of the structure seemed to sway and buckle in the quiet room.

Lady Margaret listened. When Edmund finally finished, his voice raw and hollowed out, a suffocating silence descended upon the room. The only sound was the ticking of the mahogany grandfather clock in the corner.

He waited for her fury. He braced himself for her to shout, to weep for the disgrace he had brought upon his father’s name.

“Your father,” Lady Margaret finally said, her voice perfectly level, “would not be devastated by the deception itself.”

Edmund flinched. He stared at her, entirely wrong-footed. “Mother, I…”

“Do not interrupt me,” she commanded softly. The softness was infinitely worse than a scream. “Your father understood the necessity of strategy. He was a practical man. But he would be utterly devastated by the reason beneath it.”

She stood up slowly, smoothing the front of her black silk skirts. She walked toward him, stopping just a foot away, looking up into his face with an expression of profound, aching disappointment.

“You trusted so little in your own worth,” she said, each word landing like a physical strike. “You believed so completely that you possessed nothing of value beyond your title and your ledgers, that you needed a disguise simply to observe a family rather than meet them honestly. The Earl of Ravenswood hid behind a secretary’s coat because he was afraid.”

“I was protecting our family,” Edmund protested, though the words sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

“You were protecting yourself,” Lady Margaret corrected ruthlessly. “And in doing so, you have placed everyone else directly in the line of fire. Do you understand what you have done to the Ashwell family?”

Edmund looked away, his jaw locking tight. “I know.”

“Do you?” She stepped closer, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Their reputation. Their good name. Vivienne’s prospects, Corinna’s future. All of it sits precariously on this lie. If it breaks in the open, Edmund, it will not only be your disgrace. You will drag them down with you. You will ruin the daughters of the man your father called a brother.”

“I will fix it,” Edmund said, his voice trembling slightly.

“You have until tomorrow,” Lady Margaret stated. She did not ask how he planned to do it. She simply delivered the ultimatum. “Tomorrow, the truth must be managed, or I will manage it myself.”

Without another word, she turned and walked out of the sitting room, closing the door softly behind her.

Edmund stood alone in the center of the room, the blood rushing in his ears. He walked over to the sideboard and poured a glass of brandy, his hands shaking so violently the crystal decanter rattled against the rim of the glass. He drank it neat, welcoming the burning slide of the liquor down his throat.

He needed to find Corinna. He had sent the note to meet at the Serpentine, but now he realized the absolute cowardice of waiting for her to come to him. He set the glass down and turned toward the door.

“Miss Cecily Vane,” MacAulay announced, stepping onto the threshold.

Before Edmund could issue a harsh refusal, Cecily swept past the butler. She brought a thoroughly intimidated lady’s maid with her, who immediately shrank against the wall near the door.

Cecily, however, moved with the unhurried, predatory grace of a woman who owned the very floorboards beneath her feet. She wore a walking dress of deep claret velvet, the rich fabric amplifying the vibrant copper of her hair.

“Good morning, Edmund,” Cecily purred, stripping off her leather gloves. She did not wait for an invitation. She crossed the room and settled onto the center sofa, arranging her skirts with careless elegance, looking entirely at home.

“You are not welcome here, Cecily,” Edmund growled.

Cecily laughed, a light, musical sound that completely ignored his hostility. “Oh, do not be so terribly dramatic. It does not suit your complexion.”

“I am not in the mood for games,” Edmund snapped, stepping toward her. “You delivered your threat. What exactly do you want?”

Cecily looked up at him, her dark eyes tracing the hard, severe lines of his face. She leaned back against the cushions, tapping her gloves against her palm.

“I know what you must think of me,” she said smoothly, dropping the playful pretense. “You think I am entirely callous. You think I abandoned you when you needed me most.”