Chapter 6
That afternoon, Lady Louisa walked down the main corridor with a pace designed to intimidate footmen.
Her right hand clenched her left as she rehearsed each line of her forthcoming reproach.
By the time she reached Lord Foxmere’s in the study, she had composed and discarded three speeches on public decency, the honor of women, and the foolishness of male pride.
None seemed adequate.
She paused before the door, knowing that hesitation would signify nerves. She had no time for nerves. She had resolve and a point to make.
She knocked sharply three times, then entered. The room was cluttered with books, and too warm. Every curtain was drawn, against the daylight, a lamp burned low beside the writing desk, and the hearth smoldered with dull, orange coals.
Lord Foxmere slouched in a leather wing chair, as if glued there by habit and brandy fumes.
His freshly cleaned but already scuffed boots were propped on an ottoman, and a half-empty glass dangled from the tips of his long fingers.
The bruise on his jaw, raw and vivid against his stubble, suggested he had not moved since his altercation with her brother.
He did not rise or uncross his ankles. Instead, he greeted her with a lazy grin.
“Primrose. To what do I owe the pleasure? Come to nurse me back to health or merely to gloat over my ruin?”
The sight of him, disheveled and determinedly nonchalant, infuriated her. She stepped further into the room. “Neither,” she spat, though her tone lacked the venom she intended. “If I wanted to see you humiliated, I’d have asked Lady Honoria to choreograph it.”
He raised his glass in salute and tipped it back with a wince. Even this small movement drew a flicker of pain across his face, quickly masked. “She’d do a better job, I suspect. Your brother’s form is unrefined, but he has the strength of a plow horse.”
Louisa scanned the clutter in the study. A landscape of open books, scattered notes, and a decanter with barely a swallow left. “You deserve it,” she said, her voice softening despite her efforts. “You know you do.”
He regarded her over the rim of his glass. “Ah, so the verdict is in. Prison or merely exile?”
She folded her arms. “You could at least pretend to be sorry.”
Niall considered this, then set his glass down and leaned forward. “Would it make any difference, Primrose? I’m already the villain. Yours, the ton’s, the entire damned continent’s.”
She found herself standing over him, feeling uncomfortably tall and too involved.
She sidestepped to the mantel, where she could regard him obliquely, buffered by a row of antique Greek philosophers.
“You’re not a villain. You’re just…” She floundered for the right word and found none that didn’t sound like a compliment.
“Reckless?” he suggested, recalling the morning’s debacle. “Unfit for polite company? Your mother called me a blight on the face of England, but I suppose there are worse things.”
“Are you going to take this seriously?” she demanded, her composure fraying.
“You’ve thrown my entire family into disarray.
Lucas is fielding letters from half the county.
My mother is…” she hesitated, unwilling to admit the magnitude of her mother’s distress, “practicing her weeping in the morning room.”
He regarded her steadily. “That’s rather impressive. The capacity to weep on demand takes discipline.”
She wanted to hurl a volume of Aristotle at his head. Instead, she focused on the kettle. The study’s tea service sat on the sideboard, and Louisa busied herself pouring a cup in silence. When she realized her hands were shaking, she willed them to stop.
He watched her, making her hyper-aware of each movement—the angle of her wrists, the tremor in her fingers, the way her hair drifted forward to frame her face. She expected him to mock her for the tremor, but instead he said softly, “Does it frighten you?”
She spun to face him. “What?”
He shrugged. “The idea of being associated with me. Even in rumor.”
She stared at him. “I am not frightened. Merely appalled.”
He did not press. Instead, he turned his gaze to the dying fire and let the silence deepen. For a moment, Louisa wondered if he’d simply fallen asleep with his eyes open—a trick she’d heard he could perform when bored by Parliament.
Then, quietly, “You could have denied it.”
Louisa swallowed her throat suddenly tight, and lifted her chin as if pride could shore up whatever that simple sentence unsettled.
She blinked. “What?”
“The engagement story,” he said. “You could have laughed it off, made it clear to everyone that you’d never even consider such a union. But you didn’t.” He looked up, and for the first time, she saw genuine vulnerability in his expression. “Why didn’t you?”
Her hands fumbled with the cup. She set it down, grateful for the table’s steadiness.
“Because,” she began, then lost herself in the tangle of explanations.
“Because denying it would only have made the rumor stronger. Because Lady Honoria was eager for an outburst. Because…” She trailed off, suddenly aware that her motivations were not as clear as she’d pretended.
He smiled, and the smile was not mocking but almost kind. “That’s what I told myself, too.”
Louisa found herself drifting closer to the hearth, the room’s chill gathering in the corners now that the fire was low. She eyed the bruise along his jaw, the way it deepened the hollows of his face. “Does it hurt?” she asked, unable to stop herself.
His hand went to the wound, fingers probing with detachment. “Only when I laugh. Or speak. Or think.”
She rolled her eyes. “So not at all, then.”
He grinned, but the effort made him wince. “Is this the part where you offer to kiss it better?”
She laughed, and the sound felt shockingly intimate in the small room. “I’d sooner apply arsenic.”
He nodded solemnly. “That’s what I like about you, Primrose. Always so tender.”
Without thinking, she reached for his chin, but caught herself before touching him. Instead, she let her hand hover in the air, as if the possibility of comfort might undo them both.
“You should ice it,” she said, retreating a step. “Though perhaps the brandy serves.”
He shrugged. “I’d ask you to bring me ice, but I sense I’d get a brick instead.”
A reluctant smile crossed her face. “You know me too well.”
He sobered. “No. I don’t. But I’d like to.”
The words hung between them, as heavy as the scent of smoke and the silence that followed. Louisa suddenly felt exposed, as if all her defenses had been stripped away by the mere act of proximity.
She busied herself with the tea, stirring twice though the sugar had long dissolved. “You should apologize to Lucas,” she said, not quite looking at him. “He’s not as thick-skinned as you.”
He nodded, small and serious. “I will. I don’t suppose he’d believe it, but I will.”
A beat. “And to me?” she ventured, only half in jest.
Niall looked at her, really looked, and she saw the faintest flicker of something like shame. “I am sorry, Louisa. For the trouble, for the drama, for everything.”
The sincerity vibrated through the room, raw and unpolished, so unlike the Foxmere she had known. She stared into her cup, the surface trembling.
He rose from the chair slowly, carefully, then crossed the few steps to where she stood by the table. He did not touch her. He simply stood close enough that she could feel the warmth of his presence and the weight of everything unsaid.
After a long moment, he said, “It wasn’t a jest, you know.”
She met his eyes, defiant. “What wasn’t?”
“The proposal.” He smiled, the old mischief returning in a half-measure. “Well. Maybe half jest. But not the part where I said you are the first person in years to treat me as if I were not a lost cause.”
Louisa opened her mouth to reply, but the words had abandoned her. All that remained was the ache in her chest, the awareness of his nearness, and the sudden thought that she did not want to leave this room.
“You’re an idiot,” she whispered, her voice almost lost in the crackle of the coals.
He inclined his head. “On that, at least, we agree.”
She looked down, noticing that her hands had stopped trembling. She pressed the cup to her lips and sipped, grateful for the illusion of control.
In the hush, she could almost believe that the world outside this room—the gossip, the scandal, the expectations—did not exist.
For a moment, she allowed herself to enjoy the illusion.
The only sounds were the slow tick of the mantel clock and the pop of a dying ember in the hearth.
Louisa sipped her tea, her eyes tracing the swirling cloud where the milk met the dark liquid.
Niall’s gaze pressed against her like a physical force, a current that threatened to pull her from her good sense.
“Did you hear what I said to your brother?” he asked, breaking the silence.
She lifted her chin. “That you take full responsibility for the engagement farce? Yes. Though I imagine Lucas wouldn’t have been satisfied unless you’d thrown yourself off the roof in penance.”
Niall half-smiled, a slow, rueful expression that seemed to deepen the bruise on his jaw. “I considered it, but then I remembered I have a poor head for heights.”
Louisa remained silent, unsure of what answer he sought or if she even wanted to provide one.
“I meant it, Louisa,” he said softly. “About taking the blame. About wanting to protect you.”
She set her cup down, the china clicking against the saucer. “You’re not the sort of man who worries about reputations. Not even your own.”
His eyes met hers, blue nearly black in the low light. “I never cared for my reputation. But I care about yours.”
The words lodged in her chest. “You are a menace, Foxmere. You’ve always been a menace.”
He inclined his head, as if accepting a compliment. “But not to you, Primrose. Never to you.”