Chapter 22
“You are too kind, Your Grace. A magnificent few days.”
Lord Pemberton clasped Hugo’s hand in the entrance hall of Thornwaite Hall and pumped it with the vigor of a man who had eaten well, drunk better, and intended to tell everyone he knew about both.
Lady Pemberton stood behind him, already pulling on her gloves. Her smile carried the satisfied warmth of a guest who had thoroughly enjoyed herself and wished to be invited back.
“The pleasure was mine, Pemberton.” Hugo returned the handshake and turned to Lady Pemberton. “I do hope the rooms were to your liking.”
“Perfection, Your Grace. The view from the south wing alone was worth the journey.”
Hugo straightened his cravat and moved to the next group.
The breakfast room had been cleared an hour ago, trunks were loaded onto carriages, and now the guests filed through the entrance hall in a procession of well-wishes and warm farewells.
Hugo stationed himself by the door and played the part of the gracious host. His smile was polished, his handshake firm, and his compliments were tailored to each guest.
Sir Philip and Lady Hale left in a flurry of praise and promises to return. Mr. and Mrs. Thorne departed with quieter gratitude. Edward and Sophia lingered near the staircase, waiting for the crowd to thin.
Lady Stapleton approached with Miss Stapleton lingering at her shoulder.
“Your Grace.” Lady Stapleton extended her hand, and Hugo bowed over it. “A splendid affair. You are a credit to Thornwaite Hall.”
“You are generous, Lady Stapleton.”
“I am honest.” Her dark eyes swept the entrance hall with the measured appraisal she brought to every surface she encountered. “Beatrice enjoyed herself immensely. Particularly the evening entertainments.”
Beatrice curtsied. “Thank you, Your Grace. It was a lovely party.”
“I am glad you enjoyed it, Miss Stapleton.”
Lady Stapleton’s gaze flicked toward the corridor where Lord Wilfrey was collecting his leather case from a footman. The look lasted half a second, but Hugo caught the calculation behind it. She was taking inventory. Measuring distances. Filing away who had spoken to whom and for how long.
She turned back to Hugo with a smile that gave away nothing.
“We must have you and Lady Lily to dinner when you return to London, Your Grace. Beatrice and I would so enjoy it.”
“We would be honored.”
Hugo watched their carriage pull away and felt the familiar prickle of unease that accompanied every interaction with Lady Stapleton.
Lord Wilfrey appeared next. He carried his leather case in one hand and his hat in the other.
“Thornwaite.” He extended his hand. “A truly excellent party. The grounds alone were worth the visit. I have made extensive notes on the watershed.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
“And the company was…” Wilfrey paused. His gaze drifted toward the corridor, where Lily had not yet appeared. “The company was exceptional.”
Hugo’s stomach tightened, but he kept his expression pleasant. “I am glad to hear it.”
Wilfrey held his gaze for a moment longer than necessary, his jaw clenched in a way a man in defeat did.
“Safe travels, Wilfrey.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
Wilfrey departed. Hugo exhaled through his teeth and turned to find Edward at his elbow.
“That was painful to watch,” Edward murmured.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“You were shaking his hand and smiling as though he had not just spent three days courting your fiancée under your own roof.” Edward crossed his arms. “Your left eye twitched, Hugo. It only does that when you are furious.”
Hugo’s jaw clenched. “My eye did not twitch.”
“It twitched twice. I counted.” Edward clapped his shoulder. “Until next time, friend.”
Edward collected Sophia, who pressed Hugo’s hand and told him the party had been beautiful, and they left through the front doors.
Hugo stood alone in the entrance hall and listened to the last carriage wheels crunch over gravel, and the house settled into the silence that follows the departure of guests.
Footsteps on the staircase.
Hugo turned.
Lily descended with Lady Oldbarrow half a step behind her. She wore a traveling dress of deep green, her hair pinned beneath a bonnet, her gloves already buttoned.
She looked composed, collected.
Not at all like a woman who had come apart in his arms twelve hours ago with her back against a terrace wall and his name on her lips.
The memory hit him without warning. The taste of her skin. The sound she made when her fingers tightened in his hair. The way her body had gone rigid and then liquid against him, trembling, yielding, and the ragged, broken cry that had escaped her mouth when she shattered.
His pulse kicked. He locked his jaw and forced the memory below the surface.
“Lady Oldbarrow.” He bowed over Margaret’s hand. “I trust the accommodations met your standards.”
The dowager regarded him with narrowed eyes. “The bed was comfortable. The wine was excellent. The company was tolerable.”
“High praise from you, my lady.”
“Do not let it go to your head, Your Grace. It is large enough.”
He turned to Lily.
Color flooded her cheeks the moment their eyes met. She curtsied, a precise, correct dip that kept her gaze fixed somewhere around the level of his cravat.
“Your Grace. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“Lady Lily.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips.
The contact lasted two seconds. Two seconds during which the warmth of her fingers through the thin glove sent a current up his arm and into his chest. The scent of rosewater reached him, and he remembered how that scent had tasted on her neck, on her collarbone, and on the bare skin of her thigh.
He released her hand.
“The pleasure was mine.” His voice came out steadily. He considered this a minor miracle. “Entirely mine.”
The double meaning landed between them like a lit fuse. Lily’s flush deepened. Her gaze snapped to his face, and for one unguarded second, her green eyes held everything she had told him she could not feel and everything she had shown him she did.
Then the mask descended. She straightened her gloves and turned to Margaret.
“Shall we, Aunt?”
“Eagerly.” Margaret gathered her traveling cloak. “If I spend another night in the countryside, I shall begin identifying trees by their Latin names, and then I will know all is lost.”
Hugo walked them to the carriage. He handed Lady Oldbarrow up the steps, then turned to Lily. His hand closed around hers as she climbed in, and she paused, one foot on the step, and looked down at him.
The morning light caught the green of her eyes, the loose curl at her temple, and the place on her neck where his mouth had been last night.
“Goodbye, Hugo.”
Not Your Grace. Hugo. His name in her mouth, soft and private and heavy with everything they could not say on a cobblestone drive with a footman standing six feet away.
“Goodbye, Lily.”
She climbed in. The door closed. The driver clicked his tongue, and the carriage lurched forward.
Hugo stood on the steps of Thornwaite Hall and watched it until it rounded the bend and disappeared behind the elms.
The house loomed behind him. Empty. Vast. Full of rooms where Lily had walked, laughed, argued, and looked at him, just once, across a crowded dance floor, in a way that had ruined him for every other woman alive.
He turned and went inside. He straightened his coat. He called for Marsden and asked about the evening’s menu and the state of the wine cellar and whether the east wing fireplaces needed sweeping.
The mask went back on. The world continued.
But her name stayed on his tongue like a taste he could not swallow, and he carried it with him through the empty rooms of Thornwaite Hall for the rest of the day.