Chapter 18
Eighteen
They buried the old Duke in the family crypt which sat hunched and predatory against the lower slope of the Wildmoore grounds in the country. The sky hung low and sullen, refusing even the decency of rain.
August stood as the pillar at the entrance, a full head taller than anyone save the stone angels posted at the eaves. His mother gripped his arm with both hands, while her body racked with the violence of sorrow. On his other side was Eliza. She stood quietly and did not cling to anyone.
He felt the presence of his sisters—April, May, and June—a few paces behind.
Each with their husbands and a scattering of the better-dressed children, a Vestiere phalanx assembled to observe but not to interrupt.
Their faces blurred together in his peripheral vision, a mosaic of crumpled handkerchiefs and puffy eyes.
The hush was so complete that the thump of the casket on the crypt floor was a gunshot.
His mother’s knees buckled. August bore the weight as she sagged, his arm bracing her, so she would not crumple on the marble threshold. Dorothy sobbed with such volume and force that the syllables could not arrange themselves into words. He stood with her, immovable, until the first wave passed.
Eliza shifted closer, her body angled just enough to shield Dorothy from the pitiless scrutiny of the mourners behind them.
The vicar concluded with a spasm of Latin and a splash of holy water. Two footmen, faces frozen in the manner of professional mourners, replaced the stone slab. The scrape and grind as it slid home vibrated all the way up August’s spine.
Then, nothing. A stillness so deep, it was as if the world had been shorn of all but the present agony.
April and May stepped forward, encircling Dorothy in a web of arms and whispered comfort.
They lifted her away from the crypt and with a few subtle signals, drew the rest of the assembly in their wake.
The crowd drained from the little clearing in a hush, leaving only the scent of cold marble and the afterimage of spectacle.
August did not follow.
He did not know how long he stood, watching the blank surface of the crypt door. It felt like a standoff. He counted the veins in the marble, the web of moss clinging to the arch, the way the sky seemed to flatten above the family dead.
He expected Eliza to leave with the rest, to vanish and leave him to his ritual.
Instead, she remained. He did not turn, but he knew she was there. Her presence was a weight, not burdensome but real.
The silence between them filled and expanded, pressed out the taste of loss and replaced it with something else. He did not recognize it at first. It was not comfort. It was not even solidarity. It was a kind of witness, a refusal to let the moment slip into nothingness.
A hand rested on his back, and he knew without looking that it was hers.
They stood like that, unmoving, the world collapsed to the width of a palm.
He could not say how much time passed. He could only say that he did not feel entirely alone.
And he would not have changed it, not for anything.
By the time the sun threatened the horizon, the drawing room at Wildmoore Hall had swelled past its limits. The air was thick with perfume, cologne, and the metallic residue of too many black armbands. Condolences came in endless waves, not unlike the battering of a shoreline.
August manned the receiving line with the same face he wore at Parliament: neutral, attentive, giving nothing away. He bowed, accepted the handshake, nodded at the muttered platitudes. When appropriate, he conjured a brief, lifeless smile. This was the part he was bred for.
His mother had retreated upstairs. The sisters, flanked by their husbands and offspring, formed small eddies in the flow, directing the truly inconsolable to side rooms. Eliza handled the old dowagers with ruthless efficiency, guiding them into corners and pouring them sherry until their voices lowered from shrill to manageable.
He had just survived a particularly wrenching embrace from the Countess of Annesley when a hush descended, brief but absolute, like the eye of a hurricane.
Lady Wilhampton entered. She wore black so rich, it looked like an oil slick, with a veil sweeping behind her in a drama entirely unsuited for daylight. Her gloves were pearl-buttoned, and her handkerchief was embroidered with something funereal.
She did not wait to be announced.
“My dear Duke,” she said, and in three steps, she took his hand between hers. Her grip was not warm but calculated—just firm enough to suggest intimacy, just soft enough to imply the possibility of more.
August registered the color of her hair (red, mercilessly bright), the glimmer of her green eyes, and the way her bodice seemed to have been engineered for maximum sensation.
She is not here to mourn.
“Lady Wilhampton,” he said, giving her the courtesy of formality though she would have none of it.
“I could not rest until I saw you,” she purred, voice pitched for his ear alone. “You must allow me to—Oh, you poor man.” She squeezed his hand then let hers drift up to his arm, where it stayed.
He did not recoil. He did not reciprocate. He simply endured.
She stepped closer, obliterating the boundary of polite distance. “I know what you need in this dark time,” she said, and her lashes swept down in a performance worthy of Covent Garden.
He glanced past her—automatic—searching for an exit, a rescue, a bolt of lightning. Instead, he found Eliza. She was twenty feet away, in perfect profile, head bent as she made some conversation with Lady Hartwell.
She was not watching, but he felt her awareness anyway. A direct, burning line from her to him, as if she could see through the crowd.
Lady Wilhampton moved in, lowering her voice. “They say you have been so strong. But even the strongest man needs… understanding.”
What I need is a rope ladder and a week in France.
But he was tired. The day had stretched him to transparency. Wilhampton’s hand remained on his arm, and he lacked even the will to remove it.
She smiled at him, a sharp, perfect curve, then raised her voice by a half-measure, so it would carry to the nearby knot of gossips.
“We all have losses, but not all of us are brave enough to face them alone.” She paused, giving the moment air.
“Come, let’s find a place away from these people. I know you must crave peace.”
She pulled gently at his arm, steering him toward the door. But then Eliza appeared at that moment.
“Lady Wilhampton,” she said, her voice as cool and clear as a winter stream, “how good of you to come.”
Wilhampton turned, not relinquishing August’s arm. “Duchess.” She smiled, all teeth. “You are well?”
Eliza nodded, her eyes flat and unreadable. “I am very well. And I thank you for your concern for my husband, but I am afraid the Duke’s presence is required here.”
Wilhampton blinked, once. “He is needed elsewhere, Duchess. Surely you understand—”
Eliza closed the gap. “What I understand is that the Duke has been receiving mourners for hours and needs rest, not company.”
Wilhampton’s grip tightened. “Of course. I merely wished to offer my condolences privately. These matters are so… personal.”
Eliza’s lips barely curved. “My husband’s personal matters are my concern.”
He reached, without forethought, and took her hand. Not as a gesture but as an anchor. The crowd watched, but he did not care. He let the contact steady him.