Chapter 15
“Is everything prepared?” Hugo asked one of his footmen at Thornwaite Hall.
“Yes, Your Grace. The guest rooms have been aired, the fires lit, and Cook has confirmed the evening menu. The wine has been brought up from the cellar as you instructed.”
“Good. Thank you, Marsden.”
Marsden bowed and withdrew. Hugo stood alone in the entrance hall of the house he had not visited in nearly two years and let the silence settle around him.
Thornwaite Hall was vast. The entrance hall alone could have swallowed a London townhouse.
Its vaulted ceiling arched overhead like the ribcage of some ancient beast, its marble floors polished to a mirror finish that reflected the light pouring through the tall windows.
Portraits of Hugo’s ancestors lined the walls in gilded frames.
Their painted eyes following every step with the impassive judgment of men who had built an empire on land and lineage and the absolute conviction that they deserved both.
Hugo’s father hung above the fireplace. The fourth Duke of Thornwaite, painted in his prime. His jaw was set, and his shoulders squared. His gaze carried the cold authority of a man who had never once looked at his younger son without finding him lacking.
Hugo turned his back on the portrait.
He had not stuttered in front of anyone in months.
He drew a breath. Held it. Released it through his teeth in a slow, controlled exhale.
He was not seventeen. He was not the boy on the marble floor with tears on his face and his brother’s contempt ringing in his ears.
He was the Duke of Thornwaite. Today he was hosting a party, and the woman he could not stop thinking about was arriving within the hour. He would greet her with steady hands and a steady voice and not a single crack in the armor he had spent fifteen years constructing.
He straightened his cravat. He checked his reflection in the hall mirror. He arranged his features into the expression of a man who owned the world and found it mildly entertaining.
The first carriage arrived at half past two.
Lord Wilfrey emerged from it with the precise, unhurried movements of a man who approached country estates the way he approached everything else: with meticulous preparation and zero spontaneity.
His coat was dove gray, his boots were immaculate, and he carried a leather case that Hugo suspected contained either botanical sketches or a journal in which he recorded the soil composition of every garden he visited.
“Your Grace.” Wilfrey extended his hand. “Magnificent property. The grounds are exceptional. Is that a Cedrus libani I spotted near the east gate?”
“I have no idea. But I am sure it will be thrilled to learn you noticed.” Hugo shook his hand and gestured toward the house. “Welcome. Your rooms are in the east wing. My man will show you up.”
Wilfrey followed the footman inside. Hugo watched him go and felt the familiar, low-grade irritation that accompanied every interaction with Lord Wilfrey, a man who could identify a cedar of Lebanon from a moving carriage but could not identify the extraordinary woman who had been standing in front of him for three Seasons.
The second carriage brought Edward and Sophia. Edward clasped Hugo’s shoulder in the wordless greeting of old friends, and Sophia kissed his cheek and told him the house was beautiful.
More carriages followed. Sir Philip Hale arrived with his wife, a cheerful woman who exclaimed over the rose garden before she had fully exited the carriage. Lord and Lady Harcourt, Sir Philip Graves, and Lord Ashton. Lord and Lady Pemberton. Mr. and Mrs. Thorne.
Then the Stapleton carriage.
Lady Stapleton descended first, her traveling cloak parting to reveal a gown of dark green that complemented her sharp features. Her gaze swept the facade of Thornwaite Hall with the cool appraisal of a woman assessing property value rather than architectural merit.
“Your Grace.” She dipped into a curtsy. “What a splendid estate. One forgets how impressive the countryside seats can be when one spends too long in London.”
“Lady Stapleton. Welcome.” Hugo bowed and turned to the younger woman emerging from the carriage behind her. “Miss Stapleton. I trust the journey was not too tiresome.”
Beatrice smiled. It was a careful smile, practiced and warm, the expression that made men feel seen without ever revealing what the woman behind it was thinking.
She was pretty in a soft, conventional way that Hugo suspected had been cultivated with the same precision her mother brought to everything.
“Not at all, Your Grace. The countryside is lovely.”
“Do come in. Your rooms are ready.”
Lady Stapleton swept past him with Miss Stapleton in tow. At the door, she paused and turned back.
“I understand Lord Wilfrey is among your guests?”
“He is.”
“How delightful.” The smile she offered was pleasant and utterly opaque. “Beatrice so enjoyed their conversation at the Whitmore ball.”
She disappeared into the house. Hugo filed the comment away and turned back to the drive.
The last carriage rounded the bend.
Hugo recognized the Brimsey crest on the door, and something shifted in his chest, a tightening that had nothing to do with nervousness and everything to do with anticipation.
He squared his shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back and reminded himself, for the hundredth time that day, that this was a performance and she was his partner in it and nothing more.
The carriage door opened. Lady Oldbarrow emerged first, surveying Thornwaite Hall through narrowed eyes with the critical assessment of a woman who had visited finer houses and intended everyone to know it.
“Adequate,” she pronounced.
Then Lily stepped down.
Hugo’s hands tightened behind his back. His lungs forgot their purpose.
She wore a sapphire muslin. The gown he had selected, the one with the neckline that dipped below her collarbone and the fabric that moved like water against her body.
Her hair was pulled back in a loose arrangement that left two honey-gold curls free at her temples, exactly as he had instructed in the note.
The afternoon light caught the freckles across her nose, the green of her eyes, and the elegant line of her throat above those collarbones he had spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about.
She looked up. Their eyes met across the gravel drive, and for one unguarded second, everything he felt was written on his face.
He knew it. He could not stop it.
He recovered. The mask slid back into place, and by the time she reached him, he was smiling with the warm, easy charm of a doting fiancé welcoming his betrothed to his country home.
“Lady Oldbarrow.” He bowed over Margaret’s hand. “Welcome to Thornwaite Hall. I have put you in the blue room. It has the best view of the gardens and, more importantly, the closest proximity to the wine cellar.”
Margaret’s mouth twitched. “You are learning, Your Grace.”
Hugo turned to Lily. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, letting the contact linger a fraction longer than propriety demanded.
“My betrothed.” His voice came out steadier than he felt. “You look extraordinary.”
Color bloomed across her cheeks. “You chose the gown.”
“I chose the fabric. You are the reason it looks the way it does.”
Her fingers curled against his, a small squeeze, and then she withdrew her hand and smoothed her skirts with the composure of a woman who had been caught off balance and was determined not to show it.
Hugo offered her his arm and led her toward the entrance. As they crossed the threshold, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Lord Wilfrey stood in the drawing room doorway, a glass of sherry in one hand, his gaze fixed on Lily with an attention Hugo had never seen from the man before.
Wilfrey’s eyes traveled the length of the ivory gown. They lingered on the neckline, the fitted waist, the way the fabric skimmed her hips. His lips parted a fraction, and the glass of sherry paused halfway to his mouth, suspended in the air by a man who had momentarily forgotten he was holding it.
Good.
That was the entire point of the gown. That was the entire point of the house party. Wilfrey was supposed to look at her like that. Lord Wilfrey was supposed to notice the collarbones, the curls, and the way the muslin moved when she walked.
This was the plan. Hugo’s plan.
The satisfaction he expected did not arrive. What arrived instead was a hot, corrosive twist in his gut that tasted like bile and felt like fury, and he wanted, with a violence that startled him, to step between Lily and Wilfrey’s gaze and block the man’s view entirely.
He did not. He smiled. He led Lily into the drawing room and introduced her to the assembled guests with the pride of a man presenting his future wife, and if his hand pressed a fraction too firmly against the small of her back, no one noticed.
No one except Lily, who glanced up at him with a question in her eyes.
He answered it with a smile that gave away nothing.
The house party had begun.