Chapter 11
“Thornwaite, are you listening?”
Hugo blinked. Lord Ashton sat across from him in the leather wingback, a cigar smoldering between his fingers, his brows raised. Beside him, Sir Philip Graves nursed a brandy and watched Hugo with mild amusement.
“Forgive me.” Hugo shifted in his chair and reached for his own glass. “What were you saying?”
“The canal shares. The proposal from Barrett and Sons. I asked whether you intended to increase your position before the quarter.”
“I am still considering it.”
He was not considering it. He had not considered anything related to canal shares, Barrett and Sons, or the quarterly reports that Ashton had been discussing for the better part of twenty minutes.
His mind was on a balcony at the Theatre Royal, and no amount of brandy, cigar smoke, or conversation about shipping investments was going to dislodge it.
The kiss he’d shared with Lady Lily replayed behind his eyes in fragments. The catch of her breath when his mouth found hers. The way her fingers had curled into his waistcoat, gripping the fabric, pulling him closer with a strength that surprised him.
The taste of champagne and rosewater on her lips and the three seconds—he had counted them, because apparently, he was now a man who counted seconds—when she had kissed him back with a hunger that matched his own.
His blood heated. He shifted his weight and took a long pull of brandy.
It was desire. Nothing more. He had not bedded a woman since this arrangement began, and his body was responding to the drought with predictable urgency.
Lily Readthorpe was beautiful and sharp, and she smelled of rosewater, and he had kissed her, and now every nerve in his body wanted more.
The mechanics were simple. The solution was simpler: help her catch Wilfrey’s attention, dissolve the engagement, and return to the life he had been living before a forged pamphlet had upended everything.
“You seem distracted, Thornwaite.” Sir Philip set down his glass. “I do not believe I have ever seen you stare into a fireplace for quite so long without making a joke about it.”
“I was contemplating the flames. Very philosophical.”
“You were contemplating something.” Philip’s mouth curved. “Or someone.”
“Leave him alone, Graves.” Lord Harcourt settled into the chair beside Ashton and stretched his legs toward the fire.
He was older than the others, silver at the temples, with the comfortable build of a man who enjoyed port and had stopped apologizing for it.
“The man is engaged. He is entitled to a bit of distraction.”
“Precisely.” Hugo seized the opening. “I find myself consumed by thoughts of my fiancée. It is a terrible affliction. I recommend avoiding it entirely.”
Ashton laughed. Philip raised his glass in mock salute.
“And how is the lovely Lady Lily?” Harcourt asked. “Settling into the role of future Duchess?”
“With characteristic determination.” Hugo turned the glass in his fingers. “She is a remarkable woman. I count myself fortunate.”
The words came out smoothly, practiced, carrying the weight of a devoted fiancé without any strain.
He had been performing variations of this speech at every event for more than a week, and the ease with which it left his mouth should have been reassuring.
Instead, it sat wrong in his chest, not because it was a lie, but because he was no longer certain which parts of it were.
“My wife has been singing her praises,” Harcourt continued. “Says she has a sharp mind. High marks from Lady Harcourt. She does not impress easily.”
“Lady Lily has an exceptional mind. Not just sharp.” Hugo drained his brandy and set the glass aside.
“Careful, Thornwaite.” Philip grinned. “You almost sounded sincere.”
“A momentary lapse. It will not happen again.”
The conversation drifted. Ashton returned to his canal shares. Philip described a horse he was considering purchasing from a breeder in Newmarket. Harcourt held forth on the state of Parliament with cheerful pessimism.
Hugo listened with half an ear and turned his empty glass between his fingers. The brandy was gone, but the taste lingered, and beneath it, the ghost of champagne and rosewater that he could not scrub from his memory no matter how many drinks he poured over it.
This was desire. Straightforward, physical yearning, sharpened by weeks of abstinence.
He was a man accustomed to satisfying his appetites, and he had agreed to starve himself for the duration of an engagement that existed solely to repair someone else’s reputation.
His body was protesting the terms. That was all.
The sooner Lily secured Lord Wilfrey’s attention, the sooner the engagement dissolved, and the sooner Hugo could return to his life.
His rooms. His freedom. His evenings spent precisely as he pleased, without the complication of a woman who argued with him, challenged him, and kissed him as though the world were ending, and she had decided to spend her last three seconds with her fingers twisted in his waistcoat.
The thought should have appealed. Instead, it landed flat, a prospect stripped of whatever quality had once made it worth pursuing.
He signaled the steward for another brandy and pushed the thought aside.
“Harcourt.” He cut into a lull in the conversation. “You hosted a house party last autumn, did you not? At your estate in Hampshire?”
“I did. Twelve couples, five days, and my wine cellar has never recovered.” Harcourt patted his stomach. “Why do you ask?”
“I am considering hosting one myself. At Thornwaite Hall.” The idea had been forming since the opera, shapeless and half-realized, and now it crystallized. “A weekend gathering. Select guests.”
“Thornwaite Hall.” Ashton raised his brows. “You have not hosted at the Hall in years.”
“All the more reason. The estate could use some life. And it would give Lady Lily an opportunity to meet my circle in a more intimate setting.”
The logic was clean. A house party would bring Lily and Wilfrey into sustained proximity.
Not the fleeting contact of a ballroom, where a waltz lasted three minutes and a conversation was interrupted every thirty seconds by another guest angling for the Duke’s attention.
A house party meant shared meals, afternoon walks, evening parlor games.
It meant days of access, and if Lily applied what he had taught her, Wilfrey would find himself drawn back to the woman he had abandoned over a scandal sheet.
Hugo would invite Wilfrey. He would seat them together at dinner. He would engineer every opportunity for Lily to remind the man what he had walked away from.
And then the engagement would end. And Hugo would be free.
Free to do what, precisely, he did not examine.
“Capital idea,” Harcourt said. “A house party at Thornwaite Hall. I shall tell Lady Harcourt at once.”
“Do. And gentlemen, feel free to suggest any guests who would round out the party.” Hugo paused, timing the delivery. “Lord Wilfrey, perhaps? I have been meaning to extend an olive branch. He and I have not spoken at length in some time.”
“Wilfrey at a house party.” Philip snorted. “The man will bring a magnifying glass and spend the entire weekend examining your hedgerows.”
“All the more entertaining for the rest of us.”
Ashton chuckled. Harcourt proposed a toast to the revival of Thornwaite Hall. The glasses clinked in the warm, smoky air, and the club hummed with the comfortable murmur of men who believed they controlled their own destinies.
Hugo leaned back in his chair and let the plan settle into place. It was clean. It was logical. It solved the problem.
He did not think about the fact that a house party at Thornwaite Hall also meant having Lily under his roof.
Lily in his corridors, at his dining table, in his gardens.
Lily sleeping in a guest chamber down the hall from his own, close enough to find in the dark if he lost his mind entirely, which was beginning to feel less like a hypothetical and more like a schedule.
He did not think about that. He would not consider the possibilities.
He ordered another brandy instead.