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“Did the lady do this to you, Mr Wilder?” Ophelia asked, gesturing to the tear. He tried to hide it behind his back, though he did not deny it.
“Were the master here, I would urge him to deal with her,” Mr Wilder said in a rush. “But he left early this morning.”
“Yes, I noticed that.” Ophelia looked to the empty place at the head of the table. She had seen Elliot leave early that morning and wondered where he had gone.
Maybe to see his mistress again.
“Well, show me to this bold woman, Mr Wilder. I will send her on her way,” Ophelia said with decisiveness.
“Very well, Your Grace.” He bowed in acceptance.
Ophelia offered a reassuring look to Grace and bid her to finish the breakfast before she left the room and followed the butler across the house. In the hallway, Ophelia could see their visitor had caused some destruction. A vase that had once sat on a pillar in the hall was shattered into pieces on the floor. A footman was collecting the pieces as quickly as he could.
“She pushed it over, Your Grace,” Mr Wilder explained in a whispered rush as he led her through the house.
“She is determined. I can see that,” Ophelia whispered back.
As they entered the sitting room, Mr Wilder left quickly, leaving Ophelia alone. She stood absolutely still when her eyes fell on the woman in the room.
Celeste was sitting in an armchair as if it was her own. She had Ophelia’s book in her hand and was reading it, though she turned her nose up as she did so.
“What a peculiar tale you read.” She let Ophelia’s bookmark drop out of the pages as she read, having no care or respect for the fact she was handling someone else’s property.
“What are you doing here?” Ophelia asked, standing tall as she felt pain simmering in her gut.
She can’t be here. No, I cannot abide this.
“You know who I am, then? Intriguing,” Celeste said with a smile as she closed the book and placed it down on the table beside her. “Have you seen your husband and me together, I wonder?”
The way the words were phrased made Ophelia nauseous. She crossed her arms over her body and attempted to make her face impassive, praying her expression did not reveal the fact that she was now picturing Elliot sharing a bed with Celeste. The mere image prompted that stinging feeling to return to Ophelia’s eyes.
“You will leave this house,” she murmured and gestured with a nod to the door behind her. “My husband may entertain your company, but I will not. Go, and do not return.”
Slowly, Celeste stood to her feet. “Fear not, Your Grace. I come as a friend.”
“A friend?” Ophelia spluttered. “In my experience, friends do not endeavour to seduce friends’ husbands.”
“Perhaps not,” Celeste acknowledged, with a smirk plain on her lips. “Consider this an act of kindness, then.” She stepped toward Ophelia, showing no sign of that gloating grin fading. “Because I think you should know the truth of who your husband really is, even as he attempts to hide it from you.”
“I know who he is.”
“Do you?”
Celeste’s simple question made Ophelia hesitate. She had thought she had known Elliot, but then he saw Celeste behind her back, and the woman kept coming to the house.
“Should you like to know his secret, Your Grace?”
“I will hear his secrets from his own lips, and no others.” Ophelia stepped to the door and placed a hand upon it, ready to open it and see the back of Celeste. She spoke again, though, making Ophelia halt in her tracks.
“Thissecret you will hear from my lips,” Celeste said with insistence. “I can see he has not told you, but you must know, especially when it affects us all so much.”
She laid a hand to her stomach. Ophelia watched the movement of that hand, feeling herself grow dizzy as she realised what Celeste was trying to tell her, even before she uttered the words.
“I am with child, Your Grace. I am sure you do not need to ask who the father is.”
Ophelia felt such a lump in her throat that she couldn’t utter a word. She merely stepped away from the door, stumbling on the rug beneath her.
“I told him of our child last night,” Celeste continued on, her smile still in place, though now it wavered. “Yet he has refused to acknowledge the child is his own. He says that as long as the two of you are married, he cannot acknowledge a child out of wedlock.”
