Chapter 23
“Uncle Hugo, watch this!” Oliver stood on the drawing room carpet with a wooden sword raised above his head and a battle cry forming on his lips.
He was seven years old and possessed the absolute conviction that the sofa cushion propped against the fireplace was a dragon that required immediate slaying.
A few days after the house party had ended, Hugo sat in the armchair near the fire with Edward’s son Leo on his knee.
Leo clutched a biscuit in one fist and Hugo’s cravat in the other.
He watched his older brother’s performance with the solemn gravity of a three-year-old who had seen this dragon slain before and found the production lacking in originality.
“I am watching,” Hugo said. “Aim for the left side. Dragons are weakest there.”
Oliver adjusted his angle and brought the sword down on the cushion with enough force to send it tumbling off the fire screen. He thrust both fists into the air.
“He’s dead!”
“Magnificently slain. You are a credit to the realm.”
Oliver beamed and retrieved the cushion for a second assault. Leo reached for Hugo’s biscuit with the stealth of a born tactician, and Hugo surrendered it without a fight.
Lily stood in the doorway and watched them.
She had not been prepared for this. She had been prepared for the charm, the wit, the careful performance of a man navigating a social evening with practiced ease.
She had not been prepared for Hugo sitting in her brother-in-law’s drawing room with a toddler on his knee and biscuit crumbs on his waistcoat, coaching an eight-year-old through imaginary combat with the focused sincerity of a man who took dragon-slaying as seriously as parliamentary debate.
A warmth bloomed behind her ribs, unexpected and unwanted. She turned away before it could take root.
The dining room had been arranged for a small party. No footmen standing at attention, no elaborate service, just the family table laid with candles and good china and the comfortable warmth of people who did not need to perform for one another.
Edward carved the roast at the head of the table while Sophia directed the placement of dishes with the quiet authority she brought to everything.
Lord and Lady Brimsey occupied the seats near the fire, her mother already dabbing at her eyes because baby Jane had smiled at her during the apéritif, and Lady Brimsey considered this a sign of advanced intelligence.
Aunt Margaret settled into her chair and surveyed the table.
“The lamb smells acceptable,” Margaret announced.
“High praise from Lady Oldbarrow,” Edward said. “I shall inform Cook that she has achieved the impossible.”
“Do not mock me, Edward.”
“I would never dream of mocking you. I value my life too highly.”
Aunt Margaret’s mouth twitched. She reached for her wine.
Hugo took the seat beside Lily. He pulled out her chair and waited for her to sit, and his fingers brushed the back of her shoulder as she settled in. The contact lasted less than a second. Lily kept her eyes on her plate.
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Of course, Lady Lily.”
The formality sat between them like a wall built brick by brick from all the things they could not say.
Your Grace. Lady Lily.
As though the terrace had never happened. As though his mouth had never traced the inside of her thigh, and her fingers had never tangled in his hair, and the sound of her own voice crying out in the dark had not echoed in her memory every night since.
She unfolded her napkin and placed it in her lap.
The meal began, and Edward told a story about Oliver’s attempt to teach Leo to fence with wooden spoons, which had resulted in a broken vase and a philosophical disagreement about the rules of engagement.
Sophia corrected three of his details and added two he had left out. Lord Brimsey laughed until his eyes watered. Lady Brimsey excused herself to check on Jane and returned with the baby in her arms, who promptly fell asleep against her grandmother’s shoulder.
Hugo turned to Lord Brimsey. “How are the roses this year, my lord? I recall you mentioning a new variety last spring.”
“Thriving, thank you. The Damask cuttings took beautifully.”
“And the wine you brought, Your Grace?” Margaret lifted her glass and examined it against the candlelight. “What are we drinking?”
“A Burgundy. From a vineyard I visited last autumn near Beaune.”
“Which slope?”
“Southeast facing.”
“Soil?”
“Limestone and clay.”
“Drainage?”
“Excellent, Lady Oldbarrow. I inspected it personally.”
“You inspected the drainage of a French vineyard.” Aunt Margaret took a sip. “Personally.”
“I take wine seriously.”
“Clearly.” She took another sip and set the glass down. “It is acceptable. You may continue to select the wine for future dinners.”
“I am honored beyond measure.”
“Do not be. The bar was not high.”
He did not touch Lily. He did not lean close. He did not lower his voice or let his gaze linger or do any of the things that had made the previous weeks an exquisite, unbearable torment. He was polite, charming, attentive to her family, and scrupulously, devastatingly correct.
It was worse than distance. Distance she could have endured. This careful, mannered proximity felt like standing beside a fire that had been doused and trying to warm your hands on the smoke.
“More wine, Lady Lily?” Hugo lifted the bottle.
“Please.”
He poured. Their fingers did not touch the glass. She was certain he had engineered this.
“The meal is excellent,” he said to the table at large.
“You mentioned that,” Sophia observed from the other end.
“Did I? It bears repeating.”
Sophia’s gaze moved from Hugo to Lily and back again. Her expression did not change, but her eyes sharpened.
Lily concentrated on her potatoes.
After dinner, the party moved to the drawing room. Edward settled on the floor with Oliver and Leo for a final round of dragon combat before bedtime.
Hugo stood near the mantel with a glass of brandy and watched the boys with an expression Lily could not quite read.
Not longing. Not sadness. Something closer to recognition, as though he were watching a version of childhood he had not experienced and was cataloging every detail.
Oliver charged toward Hugo with the wooden sword and slashed at his knees.
“Defend yourself, Uncle Hugo!”
Hugo set down his brandy and caught Oliver mid-lunge, lifting him off the ground and flipping him upside down in a single, fluid movement. Oliver shrieked with laughter, his face red, his legs kicking in the air.
“The dragon has captured the knight!” Hugo announced. “What shall we do with him?”
“Put me down!”
“Surrender first.”
“Never!”
“Then the dragon keeps you.” Hugo tucked Oliver under one arm like a sack of flour and retrieved his brandy with the other hand. He took a calm sip while Oliver squirmed and howled with delight.
Leo toddled over and wrapped his arms around Hugo’s leg.
“My turn,” Leo said.
“You want to be captured too?”
Leo nodded with the solemn enthusiasm of a child who wanted whatever his brother had, regardless of whether it involved being held upside down.
Hugo set Oliver on the sofa, crouched down, and scooped Leo onto his shoulders. Leo gripped Hugo’s hair with both fists and giggled, and Hugo walked around the drawing room with a toddler on his shoulders and biscuit crumbs still on his waistcoat and not a shred of self-consciousness about it.
Lily watched from the settee. Her throat tightened.
Sophia appeared beside her and handed her a cup of tea.
“He is good with them,” Sophia said.
“He is.”
“Are you all right?”
Lily wrapped her hands around the teacup. “Of course. Why would I not be?”
“Because you and the Duke have been addressing each other as though you are strangers at a diplomatic function, and two weeks ago you could barely look at each other without the air catching fire.”
“We are being appropriate. He is my fiancé, and we are in the company of family.”
Sophia sat beside her and lowered her voice. “Lily. I am your sister. I know you. You fell in love with Italy and with books and with the idea of a life beyond drawing rooms. I know what you look like when something has shifted inside you, and something has shifted.”
“Nothing has shifted.”
“Everything has shifted. You are holding your teacup so hard your knuckles are white.”
Lily loosened her grip. She stared at the amber surface of the tea and willed her expression into something neutral.
“It is complicated, Sophia.”
“It always is.” Sophia pressed her hand. “You do not have to tell me. But you have to stop pretending that nothing is happening because pretending is hurting you. I can see it.”
Before Lily could respond, Margaret lowered herself into the armchair opposite with the deliberate grace of a woman who had been eavesdropping and saw no reason to pretend otherwise.
“The Duke poured your wine tonight without letting his fingers touch yours,” Margaret said. “That required effort. A man does not avoid contact with a woman unless the contact means something he is trying not to feel.”
“Aunt Margaret.”
“I am stating an observation, not an opinion.” Margaret sipped her wine.
“Although my opinion, since you have not asked, is that a man who plays dragons with children and pours wine with trembling restraint is a man who is in considerably deeper than he intended to be.” She paused. “As I suspect, are you.”
Lily set her tea down. She looked across the drawing room to where Hugo was lowering Leo from his shoulders and handing him to Edward, who carried both boys toward the stairs for bedtime.
Hugo straightened and brushed the crumbs from his waistcoat, and for one unguarded moment, his gaze found hers across the room.
What she saw in his eyes was not charm or calculation or the practiced warmth of a man playing a role. It was raw, open, and aching, and it lasted precisely one heartbeat before he looked away and reached for his brandy.
One heartbeat. It was enough.
“Everything is fine,” Lily told her sister and her aunt. “I have everything under control.”
Aunt Margaret and Sophia exchanged a look. Lily could tell that it communicated, with devastating efficiency, that neither of them believed a word of it.
Lily picked up her tea, drank it, and said nothing more, because the truth was lodged in her throat like a stone, and if she opened her mouth, she was not certain which words would come out first: the ones that protected her or the ones that would change everything.
She was not ready for either.