Chapter 1
“Adeline, if you stare any harder, the Duke will notice.”
“He notices everything, no matter what anyone tries to hide. That is the problem.”
Lucy hid a wry smile behind the rim of her champagne glass as her youngest sister leaned further around Helen in blatant disregard for dignity. Across the ballroom, surrounded by laughing gentlemen and jeweled ladies, the Duke of Albury appeared entirely untroubled by the attention fixed upon him.
It was difficult not to understand why.
Even at a distance, Godfrey possessed the sort of presence that seemed to alter the air around him.
Tall and broad through the shoulders, dressed in unforgiving black evening clothes that fit him too well to be accidental, he stood with an ease that belonged to powerful men.
Candlelight caught briefly in his dark hair and the severe line of his profile as conversation gathered easily around him.
“He is not even smiling,” Helen observed dryly from beside them.
“He does not need to smile,” Adeline sighed.
Helen gave a quiet sound of disapproval, though amusement tugged at her mouth. At two-and-twenty, she carried herself with far more elegance than Lucy had ever managed. Dark blonde hair swept neatly beneath pearl combs, posture straight, expression composed.
Men gravitated toward Helen constantly, while women tended to orbit her for entirely different reasons. She moved through society as though she had been born understanding it.
Adeline, meanwhile, simply enjoyed it.
Adeline looped her arm through Lucy’s with a grin, all sunshine and mischief at nineteen. “You are fortunate you are soon to be married, Lucy. Otherwise, I should insist we march directly across the ballroom and introduce ourselves to the Duke.”
Lucy laughed softly despite herself. “And embarrass ourselves before half the ton?”
“Only half?”
Helen snorted into her drink.
Lucy glanced between them and felt herself soften despite the crowded ballroom around them. For a moment, the crush of the ballroom, the orchestra, the endless murmuring voices faded beneath something gentler. Familiar. Safe.
Their parents had been gone nearly three years now, yet evenings like this still carried echoes of them.
Their mother would have adored the flowers woven around the columns, while their father likely would have spent the evening complaining about the heat despite secretly enjoying every moment of spectacle.
Lucy swallowed around the thought before it could sharpen too painfully.
Around them, the ballroom glittered beneath hundreds of candles. Ladies drifted across polished floors in silks and satin, while footmen circulated with trays of champagne. Beyond the open terrace doors came the faint scent of summer rain against stone, though the storm itself had not yet arrived.
It was already the final ball of the Season, and in only a few weeks, she would become the Countess of Blatherwick. Some days, the thought still felt sickening.
Why did I think of that word?
Her gaze wandered instinctively across the crowd again, this time searching for Benjamin.
“Looking for your future husband again?” Hamilton’s voice came easily through the noise as he stepped beside them, tall enough that people naturally shifted around him without realizing they had done so.
Their elder brother wore dark blue tonight, his black hair slightly unruly despite his valet’s obvious efforts. At nine-and-twenty, he had inherited both the title of Earl of Mildenhall and the impossible task of holding their family together after their parents’ deaths.
Lucy made a non-committal sound. “Benjamin said he would arrive before the second set.”
“And he shall,” Hamilton said easily. “Blatherwick enjoys a dramatic entrance too much to miss an opportunity.”
Lucy relaxed at once, hating herself a little for it.
Benjamin always managed to calm her. That was perhaps not the grand passion spoken of in novels or poetry, but she thought there was comfort in steadiness, too.
He listened when she spoke. He never mocked her quietness when others did.
Around him, she rarely felt the sharp self-consciousness that often followed her through crowded rooms.
Surely that had to mean something.
The orchestra swelled into another dance. Nearby, two older ladies drifted into conversation just loudly enough to catch Lucy’s attention. “Leonard Kneller’s newest publication arrived yesterday.”
“Oh, I wept over the final stanza.”
“You always weep.”
“This time it was warranted.”
Lucy turned before she could stop herself. “Did you truly think the ending sad?” she asked.
The women blinked at her, startled.
And while Lucy’s immediate feeling was hoping the floor would swallow her whole, she also wished to know more about what readers thought about the most recent publication.
She rarely interrupted strangers. Her sisters knew it. Hamilton certainly knew it. Yet no one else in the ton knew that the illustrious columnist Leonard Kneller was one of their own, let alone was a woman.
The older woman recovered first. “You have read it, my dear?”
“Oh.” Lucy clasped her hands too tightly together. “Yes. Several times.”
“It is terribly romantic,” the other woman sighed. “Though perhaps a touch melancholy.”
Lucy could not help herself. “I think that is why people like it. It feels honest and humble in a way.”
Her thoughts escaped with a reverent softness that the older women could only attribute logically to her being recently engaged and seemingly enamored with her intended.
Both women smiled warmly.
“Yes, dear, you would find his words most lovely,” one said with a soft chuckle.
“We older women found it slightly sarcastic, if anything, but we would find it that way being so far from young love.”
Lucy felt a blush slowly creep up her neck and quickly fanned away the heat. “Why, yes,” she managed over her fan.
The three of them discussed verses and publications and whether Kneller’s recent work hinted at heartbreak. Lucy even forgot herself enough to laugh quietly at one lady’s dramatic reenactment of a poem’s ending.
“The startling effect I felt when I read his final line—Her touch, a dream most would never know. I felt myself grow startlingly warm!”
Lucy blushed, but her companions seemed perfectly at ease with the revelation. They laughed openly for a moment, when suddenly, a crash interrupted all conversation.
The ballroom doors had burst open with an angry flurry. The secondary sound of the doors slamming behind the intruder cracked through the music sharply enough that dancers faltered.
A woman swept inside, deeply flushed beneath an enormous arrangement of dark feathers. Her breathing sounded strained from haste, her gloved hand clenched around the edge of her fan.
“Oh my,” one of Lucy’s sisters whispered.
The feathered matron’s screeching voice rang across the ballroom. “There has been a scandal most atrocious.”
The silence lasted only half a heartbeat, then the ballroom erupted.
“Who was it?”
“Where did it happen?”
The matron pressed one trembling hand dramatically against her chest as though she herself had suffered the injury. “The Earl of Blatherwick was discovered in the east corridor with Miss Haverly. Alone.”
A dozen voices crashed together at once, but Lucy heard none of them clearly. Blood rushed so loudly through her ears that the ballroom suddenly felt unsteady around her. Candles blurred into golden smears.
“Blatherwick?” she managed to say aloud.
The two older women suddenly twisted to face her. Their features clearly conveyed embarrassment.
But then, the wheezing woman continued, eager horror sharpening every syllable. “Kissing her shamelessly even after I made my presence known!”
Lucy’s fingers loosened around her champagne glass, and it slipped, but Hamilton caught it before it struck the floor. The movement seemed to draw attention all at once. Heads turned through the crowd in ugly, rippling succession until the weight of it landed fully on her.
When had Hamilton gotten here?
She heard her thoughts loudly pound in her ears.
Pity and curiosity moved visibly through the crowd, though satisfaction lingered beneath both often enough. Nothing felt quite so cruel as society waiting quietly for a woman to humiliate herself further.
She stood very still. The two older women with whom she had just shared a laugh now stood behind their fans as if they would catch the bad luck from her.
Across from her, one of the older matrons looked stricken on her behalf. Another had already leaned toward her companion to whisper behind a fan.
Helen immediately stepped closer, her shoulder brushing Lucy’s. Halfway across the room, right before her vision blurred into faceless shapes, she recognized Adeline, who looked ready to throw her drink at someone.
“Lucy,” Hamilton said quietly.
She turned toward him at last, her vision darkening at the edges. Her brother’s face had gone alarmingly calm. Not the careless teasing expression he wore most days, nor even irritation. His jaw was clenched so tightly that a muscle flickered beneath his cheek.
“Come,” he said.
“I…” Lucy swallowed and smiled. “No. There must be a misunderstanding.”
Hamilton’s eyes closed briefly.
Around them, conversation surged louder.
“The poor thing.”
“They were to marry, were they not?”
“I heard he was infatuated with Miss Haverly weeks ago.”
“How mortifying.”
Lucy could feel every word striking against her skin. “No,” she whispered again, though now she was uncertain whom she was trying to convince. “Not Benjamin—”
Hamilton handed his untouched champagne glass to a passing footman with firm precision before taking her arm firmly. “We are leaving.”
“Hamilton—”
“Now, Lucy.” His tone ended the matter.
Helen gestured for Adeline to join them while Lucy allowed herself to be steered through the crowd by her brother. Her slippers moved automatically over polished floors she could barely see properly anymore.
Faces turned as they passed. Some attempted sympathy. Others gaped openly as if waiting for a dramatic response.
Lucy wanted to disappear.
At the edge of the ballroom, she caught sight of the Duke of Albury again. He stood near one of the marble columns, his gaze fixed directly on their retreating group.
Unlike everyone else, he was not whispering. He simply watched, but there was something sharp and assessing in his expression.
Beside him stood another gentleman Lucy vaguely recognized as Theodore Larcher, the Viscount Wright, who muttered something beneath his breath. The Duke answered shortly without looking away from her.
Hamilton pulled her through the doors, and the ballroom vanished behind them. The cooler corridor air struck her face sharply enough to make her breathing uneven.
“Lucy,” Helen said softly from behind her, “do not listen to them.”
“I am not,” Lucy lied.
Hamilton cursed under his breath as another pair of guests hurried past them, pretending not to stare.
“I shall kill him,” Adeline announced.
“Not before I do,” Hamilton replied.
Under any other circumstance, Lucy might have laughed. Instead, she found herself searching the corridor desperately.
And then she saw him.
Benjamin stood near the far staircase, surrounded by two anxious friends attempting to speak over one another. His dark hair looked slightly disheveled, his cravat loosened as though someone had grabbed at it. The moment he saw her, his expression changed instantly.
“Lucy!”
Hamilton stiffened beside her, but she had already pulled free.
She barely remembered crossing the corridor. Only the terrible pounding in her chest and the certainty that if she did not hear him explain what had happened, she would lose her mind entirely.
“Tell me it is not true.”
Benjamin reached for her hands at once. “Lucy, listen to me.”
“Say it!”
He glanced briefly toward the gathering onlookers before lowering his voice. “It was a mistake.”
Mistake.
The words struck harder than denial would have.
“It was a mistake, my darling,” Benjamin said urgently. “Surely you know that. Surely you know me.”
His fingers tightened around hers. It made her stomach turn strangely.
“She threw herself at me. There was champagne everywhere, everyone drinking, and she began crying, and then…” He exhaled sharply. “I was careless.”
Careless.
As though her humiliation were no more significant than spilled champagne.
Lucy looked at his face, now unfamiliar down to the smallest details. All of his features contorted into a strange, chilling urgency as he continued to talk in circles and plead his case. And suddenly, she understood what disturbed her most.
This was not remorse. It was fear.
“For how long?” she asked quietly.
Benjamin blinked. “What?”
“How long has this been happening?”
“It has not.” Irritation flashed briefly across his features before softening again. “Lucy, do not look at me like that. You know me.”
The corridor had become terribly warm.
“I love you, Lucy,” he said. “What happened meant nothing.”
The strangest part about his sentiment was that he had never said those words to her before now.
He had never proclaimed love, and neither had she.
Their union was convenient and comfortable, not love.
She wrote about love. This was never love.
And him saying it now, out of fear, only turned her blood to ice.
Before either of them could speak again, Hamilton appeared at her side and seized her arm. “That is enough, Blatherwick.”
Benjamin frowned immediately. “Mildenhall, please, make your sister see reason.”
Hamilton stepped between them. For the first time that evening, Lucy saw genuine fury break through her brother’s composure.
“If you come near my sister again,” Hamilton said quietly, “I shall forget every lesson my father ever taught me, and bury you wherever it is that you might stand.”
Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned and guided Lucy firmly toward the entrance.
Outside, the night air smelled sharply of impending rain and wet stone. Footmen rushed to open the carriage door. Adeline climbed in, muttering furious insults under her breath. Helen reached immediately for Lucy’s hand once she entered.
Lucy barely felt it as the carriage lurched forward. The city moved beyond the windows in blurred yellow lantern-light while silence settled and thickened heavily inside the carriage.
Lucy stared at her reflection in the darkened glass.
She looked exactly the same. The same blonde curls. The same blue satin gown. The same pearl necklace at her throat.
Yet beneath her corset, she had gone strangely hollow.