Chapter Twelve
“You’re glowing.”
Eliza looked up from the embroidery she had been mangling for the past hour, she had never been skilled with a needle, and today her distraction was making the results even more catastrophic than usual, to find Beatrice watching her with an expression of deep suspicion.
“I am not glowing. I am… warm. The fire is quite high.”
“The fire has been at exactly this level for three hours. You, on the other hand, have been smiling at nothing, humming under your breath, and stabbing that poor piece of linen as though it has personally offended you.” Beatrice set down her own, far more accomplished needlework and leaned forward. “What is going on, Eliza?”
“Nothing is going on.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am not.”
“Your ears turn pink when you lie. They’ve been pink since you came back from your ‘charitable visit’ yesterday afternoon.” Beatrice’s voice sharpened. “Where were you really?”
Eliza’s heart stuttered, but she forced herself to maintain composure. “I told you. I was visiting Lady Henderson’s charity school. She requested—”
“Lady Henderson is currently in Bath. She has been in Bath for the past fortnight. I know because Mama received a letter from her just yesterday, complaining about the quality of the waters.”
The silence that followed was damning.
Eliza set down her ruined embroidery and met her cousin’s eyes. There was no point in continued denial. Beatrice was too clever, too observant, and too familiar with Eliza’s tells to be deceived any longer.
“If I tell you,” she said carefully, “you must promise not to tell your mother.”
“That depends entirely on what you tell me.”
“Beatrice.”
“I cannot promise to keep a secret I don’t yet know the nature of.” But Beatrice’s expression had softened, curiosity winning out over suspicion. “Tell me, Eliza. Whatever it is, I would rather know than imagine.”
Eliza drew a deep breath. She had been carrying this secret for weeks now, the weight of it growing heavier with each passing day, the joy of it demanding to be shared even as the danger of discovery kept her silent.
She needed to tell someone. She needed to hear herself say it aloud, if only to confirm that it was real.
“I have been meeting with someone,” she said quietly. “In secret. At a private property outside London.”
Beatrice’s face went very still. “Meeting with whom?”
“I think you know.”
“Say his name.”
“William.” The word felt sacred on her tongue. “The Duke of Hollowshade.”
For a long moment, Beatrice said nothing. Her expression cycled through several emotions, shock, horror, something that might have been grudging admiration, before settling into a sort of resigned concern.
“How long?”
“Nearly three weeks.”
“And you have been… what? Taking tea? Discussing literature?”
“We have been…” Eliza’s cheeks flamed. “We have been conducting an arrangement. He is teaching me… things.”
“Things.” Beatrice’s voice was flat. “What sort of things?”
“Pleasure.” The word came out barely above a whisper. “He is teaching me about pleasure. About my own body. About—”
“Stop.” Beatrice held up a hand. “I do not need the details. I can extrapolate quite effectively from the colour of your face.” She was silent for a moment, then asked the question Eliza had been dreading. “Has he ruined you?”
“Not… not technically. He has been careful to preserve my… ability to marry respectably, if it comes to that.”
“If it comes to that.” Beatrice’s laugh was harsh. “Eliza, you are engaged in an illicit affair with one of the most notorious rakes in England. ‘If it comes to that’ is not a contingency; it is an inevitability. You will need to marry eventually, and when you do…”
“What if I marry him?”
The words escaped before Eliza could stop them, and she watched them land on Beatrice like stones dropped into still water.
“Marry him,” Beatrice repeated. “The Duke of Hollowshade. The man who has explicitly stated, on numerous occasions, that he will never take a wife. That man.”
“He is changing.” Eliza heard the desperation in her own voice and could not contain it.
“I know what everyone says about him. I know his reputation. But when we’re together, when it’s just the two of us, he is different.
Tender. Vulnerable. He holds me like I’m something precious. He looks at me like—”
“Like you’re special?” Beatrice’s voice was gentle but relentless. “Like you’re different from all the women who came before? Like perhaps, for you, he might be willing to change?”
“Yes.” Tears were pricking at Eliza’s eyes. “Yes, exactly like that.”
“Oh, Eliza.” Beatrice reached across and took her hand. “That is exactly what Mama warned you about. That is exactly what rakes do. They make you feel special. They make you believe you’re different. And then…”
“This is different.”
“It is not.” Beatrice’s grip tightened. “I know you want to believe that. I know it feels real. But men like Hollowshade, they do not change. They cannot. The wounds that made them what they are run too deep to be healed by a few weeks of pleasure, no matter how genuine that pleasure might feel.”
Eliza pulled her hand away. “You don’t know him.”
“Neither do you. Not really. You know the man he chooses to show you, the tender lover, the wounded soul, but you don’t know what he’s like when the arrangement ends. When the novelty wears off. When he reverts to the patterns that have defined his entire adult life.”
“He won’t—”
“He will.” Beatrice’s voice held no malice, only a terrible certainty.
“He will, Eliza, because that is what men like him do. And when he does, when he walks away without a backward glance, you will be left with nothing but a ruined reputation and memories that will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
The afternoon light slanted through the windows, painting gold across the carpet. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed the hour. The ordinary sounds of an ordinary day, carrying on as though Eliza’s entire world was not hanging in the balance.
“He said he would marry me,” she whispered. “If we were discovered. He promised.”
“A promise made in the heat of passion is not the same as a genuine intention to wed.” Beatrice’s voice softened. “Has he spoken to you of a future? Has he asked you to be his wife? Has he done anything concrete to suggest that this arrangement could become something permanent?”
Eliza opened her mouth to respond, but the words died in her throat.
Because the answer was no.
William had held her. Had kissed her. Had whispered endearments against her skin and looked at her with something that felt like love. But he had never said the words. Had never asked for her hand. Had never done anything to suggest that their arrangement was destined to become something more.
We have six weeks, he had said. Then we decide.
But what if his decision was already made? What if the tenderness she read as love was merely the courtesy of a skilled seducer, care without commitment, intimacy without intention?
“I don’t know,” she admitted finally, her voice breaking. “I don’t know what he wants. I only know what I want.”
“And what do you want?”
“Him.” The word was a sob. “I want him. Forever. I want to be his wife, his partner, the mother of his children. I want to wake up beside him every morning and fall asleep in his arms every night. I want a life with him, not an arrangement. But I don’t know, I can’t tell…”
Beatrice moved to sit beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“Then you need to ask him,” she said quietly. “Before this goes any further. Before you give him anything else. You need to know, Eliza. You need to ask him directly what he wants, and you need to be prepared for the possibility that his answer will not be what you hope.”
She could not ask him.
The thought paralysed her every time they were together, the fear of what his answer might be, the terror of shattering the fragile happiness they had built. As long as she did not ask, she could believe. As long as the question remained unspoken, hope survived.
So she did not ask.
Instead, she catalogued evidence. Collected moments. Built a case for love out of scattered fragments, like an archaeologist reconstructing a civilisation from shards of pottery.
The way he remembered her preferences: the particular shade of green that flattered her complexion, her favourite poems, her least favourite social obligations, her fear of thunderstorms, which she had confessed one afternoon when a squall blew in from the west.
The way he touched her, not just with passion, though the passion was undeniable, but with tenderness.
The brush of his fingers through her hair after she came apart.
The soft kisses he pressed to her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose.
The way his arms tightened around her in sleep, as though even in unconsciousness he could not bear to let her go.
The way he looked at her. That grey gaze tracking her across rooms, heated with desire but layered with something deeper.
The way his expression softened when she laughed.
The way he watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking, as though trying to memorise her features for some future when they would no longer be together.
Why would he memorise her if he planned to keep her?
The question haunted her, but she pushed it away. Refused to examine it too closely. Chose, deliberately and desperately, to believe in the version of the story where love conquered fear and the rake reformed for the woman who had touched his heart.
***
Their next afternoon together began like all the others, with a kiss and the slow removal of clothing, with the building urgency that characterised every encounter. But somewhere in the middle, something shifted.
They were in his bed, tangled together, his mouth on her breast, her hands fisted in the sheets, when he suddenly stopped.
“What’s wrong?” she gasped, her body straining toward him even as her mind registered the change in his expression.