Page 70 of A Wallflower for the Disguised Earl

Her aunt’s face was entirely devoid of color, the sharp lines of her cheekbones standing out starkly in the dim morning light. Phoebe closed the heavy door behind her with a quiet finality and turned the lock.

“Aunt Phoebe?” Corinna asked, her voice sounding thin and brittle in the quiet room. “What is that?”

Phoebe did not answer immediately. She crossed the carpeted floor, her footsteps heavy, and stopped directly in front of the window. She held the paper out.

“I found this slipped beneath the front door,” Phoebe said, her voice stripped of all its usual dry amusement. “The footmen did not see it. I woke early and found it myself. I read it before anyone else could.”

Corinna stared at the paper. Her stomach plummeted. It was another broadsheet. She reached out with trembling fingers and took it. The cheap ink smeared slightly against the damp skin of her thumb. She looked down and began to read.

If the first pamphlet had been a brutal strike against the Ashford name, this second publication was a vicious assassination of Corinna’s own character. It was significantly worse. The bold black letters swam before her eyes, painting a picture she barely recognized.

The younger Ashwell sister, the broadsheet declared in highly dramatized prose, knew of the wicked deception from the very beginning. A jealous, scheming wallflower, she encouraged the earl’s attentions deliberately while her beautiful elder sister was being formally courted. She manufactured romantic situations in the shadows to humiliate her own flesh and blood out of pure spite.

The words burned her eyes like acid. It painted the Ravenswood family, specifically Lady Margaret and the earl himself, as innocent parties, caught in the web of a provincial girl’s manipulative jealousy. Corinna read the final, damning sentence at the bottom of the page.

The wedding between the earl and the elder Miss Ashwell will proceed shortly, effectively repairing the damage wrought by the treacherous younger sibling.

Corinna stopped reading. The paper slipped from her numb fingers, fluttering down to rest against the toes of her leather boots.

The room tilted violently on its axis. The floral pattern on the wallpaper blurred into a sickening rush of color. She swayed, the floorboards seemingly vanishing from beneath her feet as her knees threatened to buckle entirely.

Phoebe was there instantly. Her aunt’s strong, paint-stained hand clamped down heavily on Corinna’s arm, steadying her against the wooden window frame.

“Breathe, Corinna,” Phoebe commanded, her voice low and fiercely protective. “Do not let them steal your breath. Look at me. Look directly at me, right now, and breathe.”

Corinna dragged in a ragged gasp of air. “She wrote this. Cecily Vane wrote this.”

“Of course she did,” Phoebe agreed, her grip remaining iron-firm. “It has the putrid stench of Parisian malice all over it. She is entirely clearing the earl’s name and casting you as the villain.”

“She is securing Vivienne’s marriage to the title,” Corinna whispered, the horrifying, flawless logic of the strike coming into sharp focus. “She is using my ruin to force Edmund to honor the contract. If he backs away from Vivienne now, he confirms to the entire ton that he was complicit in my supposed scheming. He confirms that he intended to humiliate my family. He is trapped.”

“And so are you,” Phoebe noted grimly, picking up the broadsheet from the floor and tossing it onto the cold grate of the fireplace. “If you hide in this house today, you validate every single word printed on that filthy piece of paper. The ton will assume you are cowering in your bedchamber out of guilt and shame.”

Corinna looked at her aunt, her gray eyes wide and completely hollowed out by the sheer magnitude of the disaster. “What else can I possibly do? If I step outside that door, they will tear me apart. They will look at me and see exactly what she wrote. They will see a jealous, manipulative spinster.”

“Let them look,” Phoebe snapped, her spine straightening with resolve. “We are going out. You will wash your face, Corinna, and you will dress in your finest walking gown.”

“Aunt Phoebe, please,” Corinna begged, her throat tightening with unshed tears. “I cannot face them. I cannot face the whispers. Not today.”

“Hiding achieves absolutely nothing, Corinna,” Phoebe insisted, releasing her arm to step back and level an uncompromising glare at her niece. “If you stay in this room, you let Cecily Vane win the game by forfeit. You are a brilliant player. You do not surrender the board simply because your opponent flipped the table. Ring for your maid immediately. We are going to the milliner’s shop on Bond Street. You are going to purchase a ribbon, and you will not flinch.”

***

An hour later, the carriage wheels rattled over the uneven cobblestones of Mayfair.

Corinna sat perfectly rigid against the velvet squabs, wearing a walking dress of bruised plum and a bonnet that offered minimal shielding from prying eyes. Phoebe sat opposite her, radiating a calm authority. The journey felt agonizingly short. The carriage rolled to a halt outside the elegant, glass-fronted milliner’s shop, the horses huffing in the cold air.

The footman opened the door, letting in the damp, freezing air of the street. Corinna hesitated, her gloved hands gripping the velvet seat so tightly her knuckles ached.

“Head high,” Phoebe murmured, stepping down onto the pavement first. “Do not blink. Do not give them a single inch of ground.”

Corinna swallowed hard and followed her aunt.

The brass bell above the shop door chimed cheerfully as they stepped inside. The interior was wonderfully warm, smelling of pressed felt, starch, and lavender water. It was also entirely crowded with the worst possible audience.

Three aristocratic women were clustered near a display of expensive silk ribbons. Corinna recognized Lady Danbury and two of her gossiping daughters. The moment Corinna crossed the threshold, the lively, bubbling chatter in the shop died instantly.

Lady Danbury turned slowly, her eyes sweeping over Corinna with a look of blistering disgust. She leaned over and whispered something behind her gloved hand to her eldest daughter, who let out a cruel giggle.