Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
“Well, I think you will all be happy to know that my husband does not have a mistress,” Hazel announced, placing her teacup down with a decisive clink. “And I made an absolute fool of myself assuming he did.”
Cordelia nearly choked on her biscuit. Evelyn pressed a hand delicately to her mouth. Matilda blinked once before setting her cup aside in the calmest display of alarm Hazel had ever witnessed.
Cordelia recovered first, and her eyes were shining with delight. “You thought Greyson, the Greyson Thornhill, had a mistress? Oh, Hazel, that is marvelous. I mean terrible, of course, but also marvelous.”
Hazel groaned. “Cordelia, please do not enjoy this.”
“I’m not enjoying it,” Cordelia said far too brightly. “I’m savoring it.”
Evelyn reached across the table, patting Hazel’s hand with gentle sympathy. “I am certain anyone would have jumped to conclusions if they found a mysterious townhouse being paid for in secret.”
Matilda arched a brow. “Would they?”
Evelyn shot her a look. “Matilda.”
“What?” Matilda replied, lifting her chin. “Hazel is sensible. Sensible people make reasonable assumptions. And this assumption, while dramatic, was not entirely irrational.”
Hazel sighed. “It felt entirely irrational.”
Cordelia leaned in eagerly. “Tell us everything. How did it happen? Did you storm the townhouse? Did you demand answers? Did she, whoever she wasn’t, try to hit you with a candlestick?”
Hazel gave her a flat stare. “Cordelia.”
“I would have brought a candlestick,” Cordelia said with a sage nod. “Purely preventive.”
Evelyn laughed softly. “Oh, Hazel, all that matters is that everything turned out all right.”
Hazel slumped back in her chair. “Indeed. I was so certain I would walk in and find a woman in a silk robe fainting theatrically at my arrival.”
Cordelia gasped. “Was she? Was there silk?”
“No,” Hazel said dryly. “There was no silk. There was Mrs. Atherton.”
“Who was she?” Matilda inquired.
“The Duke’s housekeeper,” Hazel clarified. “She greeted me with the cheer of someone welcoming a long-awaited niece. And then promptly ushered me in to meet Greyson’s mother.”
Evelyn’s eyes widened. “You met his mother? Oh, Hazel, how wonderful.”
Hazel’s features softened, remembering the quiet, sun-filled room. “It was… unexpected,” she admitted. “But she is lovely. Fragile and kind.”
She told them about the unexpected visit, the book she read and the silent promise that she would come again.
Matilda reached for a pastry with measured elegance. “Hazel,” she said, “you visited your husband’s mother, comforted her, and eased her loneliness. That is admirable.”
Hazel felt heat rise to her face. “I did not mean to do anything admirable. I meant to… well… accuse someone of adultery.”
Cordelia burst into laughter. Evelyn tried to conceal her smile behind her teacup, but she failed miserably in that endeavor. Even Matilda’s lips twitched.
Hazel shook her head. “You are all terrible.”
“But we love you,” Cordelia corrected cheerfully.
“And we care for you,” Evelyn added warmly.
“And we see through you completely,” Matilda said, with a fond, knowing look.
Hazel blinked. “See through me?”
Cordelia was the first to narrow her eyes. That was a dangerous sign. She leaned back in her chair, arms folding with all the exaggerated elegance of a stage actress preparing to deliver a scandalous line.
“Well,” she drawled, “I, for one, think it is adorable that Hazel cares so deeply about her husband.”
Hazel nearly spilled her tea. “I do not.”
Three pairs of eyebrows rose in unison.
Evelyn smiled sweetly. It was the kind of sweetness that meant Hazel had been caught. “Hazel, dear, you marched across London to confront a mistress who did not exist. One might interpret that as… investment.”
Hazel sputtered. “I was concerned for my reputation.”
Matilda tilted her head. “You were rehearsing a speech to give a woman you had never met, whom you immediately disliked on principle.”
“I… well, I—”
Cordelia clapped her hands. “Oh, she cares. This is delightful.”
Hazel pressed her fingers to her temples. “If the three of you do not stop, I shall force you to leave immediately and never invite you here again.”
Evelyn giggled into her napkin. Cordelia looked wholly unthreatened. Matilda, the traitor, sipped her tea with serene satisfaction.
“Hazel,” Evelyn said gently, “we are only teasing because we love you. And because it is rather obvious you have… feelings.”
Hazel felt her heartbeat stutter.
She looked down at her lap, smoothing an imaginary crease in her gown. “I do not,” she murmured. “Not truly.”
Cordelia leaned forward. “But you could.”
That landed too close.
Hazel swallowed heavily. “Perhaps. But what would it matter? This was meant to be a marriage of convenience. He did not want affection.” Her voice softened. “And neither did I.”
Matilda’s expression turned tender. “But things have changed.”
Hazel hesitated. Memories rose unbidden: Greyson catching her as she fell from the ladder; Greyson removing the splinter; Greyson’s lips brushing her skin; Greyson telling her the story of his brother… In all of her memories, there was always Greyson.
Her heart squeezed painfully.
“I am afraid,” Hazel whispered.
Her friends fell silent.
She stared at the tea tray, unable to meet their eyes. “What if he does not want… the same things I find myself wanting? What if I… fall and he does not?”
Evelyn moved from her chair to Hazel’s side, taking her hand with quiet warmth. “Hazel, love is always a risk. But I have never seen a man look the way your husband looked at you during your wedding dance.”
Hazel flushed. “You imagined it.”
Cordelia popped a berry tart into her mouth. “We did not imagine it. He looks at you as though he cannot decide whether to kiss you or run away.”
Matilda nodded gravely. “Which is promising.”
Hazel stared at her. “Promising? He may actually run away.”
“Yes,” Matilda said serenely. “But only because he is overwhelmed, not uninterested.”
Evelyn squeezed Hazel’s hand. “You do not have to rush anything. But you also should not deny what you feel.”
Hazel inhaled shakily.
Cordelia reached across the table and tapped Hazel’s teacup with her spoon. “Whether you like it or not, you care about him. And he cares about you. We are merely waiting for the two of you to realize it.”
Hazel hid her face in her hands as her friends burst into affectionate laughter.
“Oh, you are all dreadful,” she mumbled through her fingers.
Evelyn brushed a curl from Hazel’s cheek. “We are. But we are right.”
Hazel peeked out, with her cheeks pink. “I do not want my heart broken,” she whispered.
Matilda reached over and gently took Hazel’s other hand. “Hazel, darling… I think he is far more likely to break his own than yours.”
Hazel’s breath caught.
And for the first time, she allowed herself to wonder if maybe she was not the only one whose heart was beginning to change.
Greyson laid down his cards with the mechanical precision of a man performing a task he was not remotely present for. Across the table at the Callbury Club, Jasper grinned like a fox who had found his way into an unguarded henhouse.
“My dear Callbury,” Jasper said, tapping Greyson’s utterly dismal hand with one long finger, “if your plan tonight was to fund my new stables, do let me express my deepest gratitude.”
Greyson blinked, dragging his gaze upward. “What?”
Jasper laughed outright. “You are losing. Horribly, spectacularly and in ways that should not be possible for a sober man with functioning vision.”
Greyson looked at his cards. He was indeed losing, quite tragically. But somehow, he could not remember when the game had started. All he could think about was how he wanted to do something for his wife, a small gesture of kindness.
Jasper tossed another card onto the pile. “Are you going to play, or shall I simply declare myself the victor and send for champagne?”
Greyson hesitated.
Jasper narrowed his eyes. “You have not heard a single word I’ve said for the past ten minutes, have you?”
Greyson opened his mouth, then closed it.
Jasper leaned forward with predatory delight. “Oh ho. This is interesting. Shall I guess what has captured the formidable Duke of Callbury’s undivided attention?”
Greyson scowled. “Do not.”
“Could it be his lovely new wife?”
Greyson stiffened.
Jasper slapped a hand to his chest. “It is his lovely new wife! Saints preserve us, I knew it. The Duke is distracted. By his Duchess! Alert the newspapers!”
Greyson glared at him, which Jasper appeared to accept as the confirmation it was.
“For heaven’s sake,” Greyson muttered, “must you be so insufferable?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Jasper said cheerfully. “Particularly when you are brooding about your wife in the middle of a card game.”
“I was not brooding.”
“Greyson, old boy,” Jasper said, throwing down another winning card, “you have placed the Queen of Clubs on top of the King of Hearts. Even my infant daughter could play a better game, and she has not yet mastered the concept of fingers.”
Greyson sighed.
Even Jasper knew when to draw the line. “What happened?”
Greyson hesitated long enough that Jasper’s eyes sharpened with curiosity rather than mischief.
“My mother,” Greyson said finally.
The mischief vanished entirely.
Jasper set his cards down with a soft thud. “Is she worse?”
“No.” Greyson exhaled. “Better.”
Jasper sat straighter. “Better?”
“She was… different today,” Greyson murmured. “More alert and more at ease. And apparently, it was because Hazel visited her.”
Jasper stared for a moment, then grinned with uncontained delight. “Your wife visited your mother? Alone?”
Greyson made a vague gesture. “It is… complicated.”
“That,” Jasper said, pushing aside the deck entirely, “is the single best sentence I have heard come from your mouth.”
Greyson looked down at his restless hands. “She read to her. She spoke with her. Mrs. Atherton said she had not seen her this peaceful in a long time.”
Jasper’s expression warmed. “That is wonderful.”
Greyson did not immediately agree.
Jasper noticed it. “You are troubled by this.”
Greyson hesitated, and without even saying them, the words felt bitter on his tongue. “You know why.”
Jasper leaned back, folding his arms. “Because of your brother.”
Greyson stiffened.
“You fear the same fate,” Jasper continued gently. Greyson’s jaw clenched. “He lost himself over a woman who did not want him. He lost his reason, his strength, his future.”
Jasper shook his head. “He lost hope. That is not the same as losing to love.”
Greyson looked away. “Semantics.”
“No,” Jasper said firmly. “Truth.”
Greyson’s voice lowered to a whisper. “I cannot be like him, Jasper.”
“You are not,” Jasper replied without hesitation. “You never could be.”
Greyson shut his eyes.
Jasper softened his tone. “What is it you fear most? That Hazel will not care for you? Or that she will?”
Greyson stiffened.
Jasper smiled sadly. “Ah. There it is.”
Greyson looked at his friend, this charming, reckless fool who had somehow found peace and happiness with Matilda, and felt a wave of something he could not name.
“I cannot lose control,” he murmured.
“You will not,” Jasper said. “Because you already know what it feels like to lose someone. You will not lose Hazel.”
Greyson didn’t speak.
Greyson groaned. “She told you?”
Jasper beamed. “Matilda told me. It was magnificent.”
Greyson dropped his head into his hands.
Jasper laughed but leaned forward, although now sincerity was overtaking his mirth. “Greyson… let yourself feel something. Hazel is not your brother’s story.”
Greyson did not respond. All he could think about was Hazel, but for the first time, fear didn’t overshadow the sensation. It only sharpened it.