Page 64 of A Wallflower for the Disguised Earl

They walked in silence through the damp, gray streets of Mayfair. The fog was rolling in thick from the Thames, clinging to the brick townhouses and muffling the clatter of the passing carriages.

Edmund stared at the cobblestones, his mind turning in useless, frantic circles. “She would not see me.”

“I am not surprised,” Julian replied quietly, keeping his gaze straight ahead. “If I were Mrs. Cavendish, I would have had the footmen throw you into the street.”

“She considered it,” Edmund muttered.

They turned the corner, the imposing façades of the wealthy estates looming on either side.

“Arabella has an idea,” Julian said suddenly, breaking the heavy rhythm of their footsteps.

Edmund snapped his head up. “An idea for what? The scandal is already in print, Julian. We are bleeding out in every drawing room in the city.”

“An idea to stop the bleeding,” Julian corrected, his tone unusually measured and serious. “Or at least to control the direction of it.”

Edmund slowed his pace. “What is she planning?”

“She has genuine standing,” Julian explained carefully. “She is the grieving daughter of the late earl. She has the quiet respect of several good families in this city, women who have always found her sensible, dutiful, and entirely trustworthy. The kind of women who dictate the social tide.”

“And?”

“She intends to call on them,” Julian said. “Personally. Not write letters, not send cards. She is going to visit them, sit in their drawing rooms, and look them in the eye.”

Edmund stopped walking entirely. “To do what? Defend me?”

“No,” Julian said, stopping beside him. “To admit it. She is going to tell them plainly that the swap was a foolish, reckless joke between old friends that ran far beyond its intention. She is going to apologize without a single excuse, and she is going to ask for their understanding.”

Edmund stared at Julian, the sheer audacity of the plan catching him off guard. “A joke?”

“A prank that spiraled out of control.” Julian nodded. “It strips the malice from the narrative. It turns a sinister deception into a boyish mistake. The ton hates a liar, Edmund, but they will forgive a fool if the apology is delivered by someone they pity. And they pity your sister.”

Edmund dragged a hand over his face, a bitter taste rising in his mouth. “She is going to humiliate herself to save my neck.”

“She is going to manage the scandal,” Julian corrected firmly. “And she is infinitely better at this than either of us will ever be. She knows the rules of their world, and she knows exactly how to break them softly.”

Edmund looked at his friend, noting the tight lines around Julian’s mouth and the dark intensity in his eyes.

“Is she alright?” Edmund asked quietly.

Julian went perfectly still. The ambient noise of the London street seemed to fade away. Julian did not offer a quick quip or a dismissive shrug. He did not perform.

“She is doing what needs doing,” he said, his voice stripped bare, ringing with a deep, unshakeable reverence. “As she always does. She is beside me in this, Edmund. And I do not take that lightly.”

Edmund looked at him, and the final, lingering doubts in his mind evaporated. The shift between Julian and Arabella was no longer a small, fleeting attraction born of proximity and stolen glances. It was not temporary. It was solid, rooted, and entirely permanent. Julian was looking at Arabella’s courage and recognizing the absolute value of it, treating her loyalty like a sacred thing.

“I know you don’t,” Edmund said softly.

They began walking again, the silence between them shifting from strained to solid. They were two men walking into the wreckage of their own making, relying entirely on the strength of a nineteen-year-old girl to pull them from the fire.

By the time they reached the Mayfair townhouse, the fog had thickened into a miserable, freezing drizzle.

MacAulay met them in the entrance hall. The butler did not offer his usual gruff reprimands about tracking mud onto the marble. His face was grim, entirely devoid of color, and he held a silver salver in his gloved hands.

“My lord,” MacAulay said, stepping forward.

Edmund paused, shrugging out of his wet coat. “What is it, MacAulay?”

“A letter arrived by express rider an hour ago,” the butler said, extending the tray.