Chapter Twenty-Five
Two weeks had passed in a blur of champagne toasts, fittings, final guest lists, and growing affection that simmered just beneath the surface.
In her chambers, Lydia stood before the mirror as Alice fastened the final buttons at her back.
Her gown was dusky lavender, nearly grey in the candlelight, with silver thread tracing delicate vines along the sleeves.
A dress of her own design, of course. Soft, stately, and a little daring—cut lower than usual at the back, the silk falling like poured moonlight.
“You look like a duchess,” Alice whispered behind her, adjusting one of the diamond combs in her hair.
Lydia smiled.
“Because I am,” she said. “I’d best get down there.”
As she stepped into the ballroom, Lydia paused to take it all in.
The ballroom shimmered under the soft glow of a hundred candles; light reflected in the golden trim of the walls and the delicate glass of the chandeliers overhead.
String music drifted from the far end of the hall, elegant and polite, barely heard over the low hum of aristocratic chatter and crystal glasses being lifted to painted lips.
Lydia moved gracefully through the crush of people, her satin skirts whispering over polished parquet floors.
She had already greeted half the ton, curtsied more than she cared to count, and smiled so long her jaw ached.
Her eyes, however, kept drifting to the other side of the room, toward the man whose gaze seemed magnetized to hers.
She meant to head toward him now, but her path was intercepted.
“Duchess!” came the familiar warble of Lady Baincroft, a woman who looked like she’d been cast from lace and powdered sugar, but had the bite of a lemon tart left out too long. “You must come meet my niece. She’s just come down from Yorkshire. Entirely ignorant of London, but very well bred.”
Before Lydia could so much as offer a protest, she was already being steered toward a trembling girl in a pale blue gown with a neckline so high it could have been confused for a curtain tie.
“My dear girl,” Lady Baincroft beamed at her niece, “this is the merchant duchess. Quite the success story, wouldn’t you say?”
Lydia’s smile was serene. “Or quite the cautionary tale, depending on who’s telling it.”
The niece giggled nervously.
Lady Baincroft tittered, too, not quite sure if it was meant as a joke. “Ah, yes, well. Such unusual roots you have. But then, everything grows in manure, doesn’t it?”
And that’s quite enough of that, Lydia thought.
Before she could manufacture an excuse to slip away, a voice cut in like a gift from heaven.
“There you are, darling,” Emma said brightly, slipping her arm through Lydia’s with the ease of a co-conspirator. “You promised me another glass of champagne, remember?”
“I did?” Lydia blinked.
“You did,” Sebastian added, appearing at her other side, eyes full of mischief. “And I promised to keep Emma from insulting anyone during her second glass.”
Emma shot him a look. “You act as though I’m the one who asked Lady Orville if her husband was still breathing.”
“In fairness,” Sebastian said, “he looked quite… at rest.”
Lydia laughed. Lady Baincroft muttered something about corsets and shuffled off to find someone more easily impressed.
“Thank God,” Lydia whispered as the woman faded into the crowd. “I was one minute away from shoving my earring into my own eye.”
Emma grinned. “That bad?”
“She referred to my rise as horticultural,” Lydia replied.
Lydia laughed again, softer this time. She looked at the pair in front of her—Emma radiant in champagne-coloured silk, her hand laced effortlessly with Sebastian’s, his thumb brushing against hers in unconscious rhythm. There was no doubt anymore.
“So,” she said, voice warm, “you’re really doing it. A Viscount and a bookseller.”
“A reformed rake and a woman with scandalous ankles,” Emma teased, holding up her hem just enough to flash a slipper.
“You know,” Sebastian said with mock sternness, “if you flash those at dinner, someone’s bound to faint.”
“Let them,” Emma smirked.
Lydia smiled at them both. “Thank you for coming tonight. For… being part of it. I know the ball was supposed to be about your engagement, and I hijacked it a little with all the business pomp.”
Emma shook her head. “No, Lydia. You made it ours. Everyone’s talking about the fabrics and the house and you—not in a scandalous way, in a… proud way. You did this. And we’re honoured to be part of it.”
Lydia felt her chest grow warm. “You’re very good at saying the right things.”
“I practice in the mirror,” Emma said gravely. “Sebastian, however, just wings it.”
He held up his champagne. “Cheers to that.”
They clinked glasses, laughter rising again between them like the flicker of a newly stoked fire.
But even in that comfort, Lydia felt it again—that gentle tug, that invisible string that hadn’t loosened all night. She turned her head just slightly, and there he was.
Nicholas.
By the window. Watching.
She glanced back at Emma, who raised a brow, knowing.
“Go,” Emma said, nudging her gently. “He looks like he’s about to combust.”
Sebastian muttered something about combustion being unseemly in public, and Lydia laughed as she turned and made her way through the ballroom once more.
Toward him.
“Your Grace,” she said, her voice perfectly civil. Almost.
He offered a bow of his head. “Duchess.”
There it was again. The ritual, the formality, and beneath it, something smouldering.
They stood a little too close for public comfort. Her skirts brushed his shoes. His shoulder blocked her from view of half the room. No one said a word.
But everything between them was loud.
“Are you enjoying the evening?” he asked, his voice low.
“That depends,” she murmured, lips barely moving. “Will you ask me to dance? Or keep staring at me like I’m your next mistake?”
His mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile. “Is it not possible for you to be charming without drawing blood?”
“I’ve never had the luxury.”
A pause.
Then he stepped just a little closer. Close enough that her breath caught.
“I was waiting for you to find me,” he said quietly. “You always do.”
Her cheeks warmed. But she didn’t look away.
“Maybe next time,” she whispered, “you could try coming to me.”
For a moment, his expression shifted. Something softened in the sharp angles of his face—not surrender, not yet—but something close.
He offered her his arm.
She took it, and just like that, the room faded behind them.
They moved onto the floor.
Their dance felt like its own secret. Every step pressed their bodies close, every turn drawing her into the familiar strength of his arms. The music swelled, but it was the pressure of his palm at her back that made her breath hitch.
His thumb grazed the edge of her spine; no one would notice, but she felt it like a spark.
“You planned this dress to torment me,” he said quietly, near her ear.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she replied with a tilt of her head.
But her voice wasn’t steady. Not quite.
Nicholas leaned in, his lips brushing just near her temple. “I had plans for us tonight,” he murmured, “but now I think I’ll have to rewrite them. Something slower. Something… drawn out.”
Her cheeks flushed. Her heart stuttered.
She said nothing, but her fingers tightened slightly at his shoulder.
They danced until the music ended, and when the room applauded, Lydia curtsied carefully. She turned to go, but he caught her hand before she could vanish.
“If it wasn’t improper,” he said under his breath, too soft for anyone else to hear, “I’d rip this dress off you right now and take you on the ballroom floor.”
Her breath hitched as she felt that familiar sensation of pleasure moving through her body.
“I need a moment,” she said. “To compose myself.”
Nicholas smiled smugly as she turned to go.
How does this man have such an effect on me? She thought as she made her way down the hallway.
The retiring room was a quiet escape. Gilded mirrors, soft lamplight, and the gentle scent of lavender from a nearby vase. Lydia moved to the far end, placing her hands on the edge of the vanity, steadying herself as her pulse fought to settle.
The memory of Nicholas’s voice in her ear still thrummed along her skin, his touch imprinted in a place she couldn’t name.
But she wasn’t alone.
A shape moved in the reflection. Not her own. Neither Emma nor Charlotte came to check on her.
It was her. Lady Beatrice stood near the window, framed by shadow and moonlight, as still as a statue. Her face, when she turned it, was lined with something Lydia hadn’t seen before. It was not pride or disdain, but fatigue. Something wilted.
“Your Grace,” the woman said softly. No bitterness in her tone. Just weariness.
Lydia didn’t answer. Her spine had gone rigid.
“I thought the room would be empty,” Beatrice continued, voice low. “I find… I’m less welcome at my own family’s celebrations these days.”
Lydia folded her hands before her, cautious. “Perhaps because you did your best to break the family apart.”
A flicker crossed the older woman’s face. A wince. She nodded once. “Yes. I did.”
The silence that followed was thick, taut like a drawn thread.
“I never hated you,” Lady Beatrice said suddenly. “But I feared what you represented. A woman not born to it—walking into our world and remaking it. Stronger than some of us ever were.”
Lydia blinked. She hadn’t expected… that.
“You called me unfit,” she said, her voice steady. “You made the staff turn cold. Funded the man who tried to destroy my work. Burnt down my warehouse.”
Beatrice didn’t flinch. “I did.”
“And now?” Lydia asked. “Why are you here?”
Before she could answer, the door creaked open behind them.
Nicholas.
He stepped into the room like a storm barely contained. His eyes sharpened the moment they landed on his aunt.
His hand flexed at his side. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Beatrice turned to him slowly, not shrinking from his fury. “I know. But I needed to speak with you… with both of you.”
Nicholas looked to Lydia, then back again. “You think you can sit in the shadows and play the penitent widow now?”
“I came to ask… not for my place back,” Beatrice said, her voice raw. “Only for forgiveness. I have no expectations. Only… regrets.”
Nicholas’s jaw tensed. Lydia could see the lines in his face. Restraint and old wounds stitched too tightly.
Beatrice’s gaze shifted. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. I don’t expect comfort. But I thought I should say the words while I still had the courage.”
A long pause followed. Lydia looked at Nicholas. His face was unreadable.
Then, slowly, she stepped forward.
Not to offer comfort, but rather to offer something harder. Grace.
“You hurt me,” Lydia said plainly. “But I’ve survived worse. And I don’t carry bitterness like a prize.”
Beatrice’s lips parted, her eyes moistening just slightly.
“I forgive you,” Lydia said, voice quiet but firm. “Not for your sake. For mine. Because I won’t carry your choices with me any longer.”
Nicholas remained silent for a beat longer, shoulders taut. Then at last, he nodded.
“When we’re ready,” he said, his voice cool but not cutting, “We’ll send for you.”
And just like that, the tension unravelled.
Beatrice gave a single nod, her hands clasped before her like a woman in mourning. And perhaps she was mourning a version of herself and a place she would no longer reclaim.
She slipped from the room without another word.
The silence left in her wake felt like the exhale after a long-held breath.
Nicholas turned to Lydia, his eyes dark with thought. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I did,” Lydia said. “Because I don’t want her shadow on our life. Not tonight. Not ever again.”
He looked at her, and in the softened line of his mouth, she saw something wordless pass between them. It was trust and admiration.
She took his hand, warm and steady in hers.
“Now,” she said, lifting her chin, “take me back to the ballroom before anyone thinks I’ve fainted, eloped, or started a duel.”
He laughed under his breath, pressing a kiss to her hand before tucking it into the crook of his arm.
Together, they walked out, not to the past, but into the life they had built, one step, one battle, one forgiveness at a time.