Chapter 26
“What about this one?” Lady Brimsey held up a bolt of white silk, her eyes glistening, her lower lip trembling.
“It is lovely, Mama.” Lily stood beside a display of lace trimmings and stared at them without seeing them.
Her fingers rested on a spool of ribbon she had picked up three minutes ago and had not yet set down. She had not turned it over. She had not examined the weave, the color, or the quality. She was holding it because her hands needed an occupation, and her mind was elsewhere.
Hugo watched her from across the shop. She had been like this for two days. Polite. Present. Absent. She answered questions when asked, nodded at the appropriate moments, and moved through the wedding preparations with mechanical efficiency, following a map someone else had drawn.
It was not like her. Lily did not drift. She held up bolts of fabric and delivered opinions about stitching and weave count with an authority that suggested three books on textile manufacture committed to memory. This quiet, pliant version of her unsettled him more than any argument ever had.
“The silk is excellent, Lady Brimsey,” Hugo said. “Though, if I may suggest the ivory rather than the white? It will complement Lady Lily’s complexion.”
Lady Brimsey clutched the ivory bolt to her chest as though he had handed her a holy relic.
She disappeared behind the partition with Madame Dupont, who had already been paid triple her usual rate to employ six additional seamstresses and deliver the finished gown in four days.
Hugo had arranged it that morning. Some problems yielded to money, and he was grateful this was one of them.
The sound of animated French rose from the fitting area like birdsong.
Lady Oldbarrow stood near the front window, examining a display of fans with focused disinterest.
“She has been holding that ribbon for four minutes,” Margaret observed without turning around. “I counted.”
“I noticed.”
“She does not normally hold things without purpose. She is either reading them, critiquing them, or using them to make a point. She does none of those things when she is preoccupied.” Margaret set down the fan. “What did you say to her when you proposed?”
Hugo’s jaw tightened. “I told her I would protect her.”
“And?”
“And that I would handle everything.”
Lady Oldbarrow turned. Her blue eyes held the sharpness of a woman who had spent sixty years observing men and had refined her contempt to an art form.
“You told her you would manage everything. How romantic.”
“It was not meant to be romantic. It was meant to be practical.”
“It was meant to be safe, which is worse.” Lady Oldbarrow’s voice dropped.
“My niece is not a problem to be managed, Your Grace. She is a woman who is about to marry a man she believes does not want her, and you are standing in a dress shop watching her hold a ribbon like a sleepwalker and doing nothing about it.”
The words landed with the precision of a surgeon’s blade. Hugo opened his mouth and closed it again.
Lily’s aunt raised one eyebrow, turned back to the fans, and said nothing more.
Hugo crossed the shop to where Lily stood. He reached out and gently removed the ribbon from her fingers.
“You have been holding this since we arrived.”
Lily blinked. She looked at the ribbon in his hand as though she had never seen it before. “I was examining it.”
“You were staring through it. There is a difference.”
“I was thinking.”
“About what?”
“About whether ivory or white is more appropriate for a wedding that exists solely to prevent social ruin.”
The words carried a sharpness that was more like the Lily he knew. Hugo felt something ease in his chest.
“Ivory,” he said. “It is warmer. And you look terrible in white.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“White washes you out. You need warmth. Color. Something that makes your eyes look like they are arguing with the fabric.”
She stared at him. The haze cracked, just a fraction, and something alive flickered behind it.
“My eyes do not argue with fabric.”
“Your eyes argue with everything. Which I rather enjoy.”
Her mouth twitched. She caught it, pressed her lips together, and fought it down. But the flicker remained, and the blank, distant expression she had been wearing for two days loosened its grip.
“Buy the ivory,” she said.
“I already told your mother.”
“Of course you did.”
He paid for the gown, the lace, the matching gloves, and a pair of silk slippers that Lady Brimsey selected with tears streaming down her face.
He settled the account without blinking and escorted the ladies to the carriage, and when he handed Lily up the step, her fingers curled around his for half a second before releasing.
He watched the carriage pull away, then turned and walked in the opposite direction.
He had another call to make.
“Your Grace. What a pleasant surprise.”
Lady Stapleton stood in the parlor of her Mayfair townhouse, her smile composed, her eyes flat.
Nothing about her suggested surprise. Nothing about her ever did. She wore a morning dress of dark green, and her dark hair was pinned in a severe arrangement that sharpened the angles of her face.
“Lady Stapleton.” Hugo did not return the smile. “I need a moment of your time. In private.”
Something shifted behind her careful composure. A flicker of calculation was quickly suppressed.
“Of course. Have a seat, Your Grace.”
She did not offer tea. Hugo did not sit.
“I will be direct,” he said. “I know about the pamphlets.”
Lady Stapleton’s expression did not change. “I am afraid I do not know what you mean, Your Grace.”
“The forged Lady Fairhart scandal sheets. The first, distributed at the Fenwick ball. The second was delivered three nights ago. Both printed with German ink on English paper, commissioned through a printshop in Leipzig that was conveniently emptied before my investigators arrived.” He held her gaze.
“One of your delivery men was caught. He told us everything.”
The composure held for three seconds. Then it cracked. Lady Stapleton’s jaw tightened, and a word escaped under her breath that no Viscountess should have known, let alone spoken in the presence of a Duke.
“He was supposed to be discreet,” she said.
“He was supposed to be invisible. But you paid him five pounds and sent him out in the middle of the night. He was caught, and he talked.” Hugo took a step closer. “Did you think I would not find you?”
Lady Stapleton’s chin lifted. The fear that had flashed across her face hardened into something colder. Defiance.
“What I did, I did for my daughter. Beatrice deserved a chance to see Lord Wilfrey, and your fiancée was standing in her way. My ambitions are for my daughter’s future. You would do the same.”
“I would never fabricate scandal sheets and forge another woman’s name to trap an innocent person. That is not ambition, Lady Stapleton. That is malice.”
She opened her mouth to respond. Hugo cut her off.
“I have spent several days investigating you. Not just the pamphlets. Everything.” He reached into his coat and withdrew a folded sheet of paper.
He did not hand it to her. He held it between his fingers, visible but out of reach.
“I know about your husband’s debts to the gaming houses on Jermyn Street.
I know about the forged letter of credit he used to secure the lease on this house.
I know about the money he borrowed from Lord Harrington under false pretenses, and I know that Harrington has been looking for a reason to call in the debt. ”
The color drained from Lady Stapleton’s face. Her hands, which had been clasped in front of her, dropped to her sides.
“If another pamphlet appears, if another forged word is printed under Lady Fairhart’s name, if so much as a whisper reaches me that you have attempted to harm Lady Lily or anyone connected to her, I will ensure that every detail on this paper reaches every drawing room, every gentleman’s club, and every newspaper in London.
” Hugo’s voice was quiet. Controlled. Absolute.
“Your husband’s reputation will be destroyed.
Your family’s credit will collapse. And the doors that are currently open to Miss Stapleton will close so fast she will not hear them shut. ”
Lady Stapleton’s breathing had changed. Her chest rose and fell with a rapid, shallow rhythm.
“You are threatening me.”
“I am informing you of the consequences.”
Silence stretched between them. The sitting room clock ticked. A carriage passed in the street outside, and the sound of hooves on cobblestones drifted through the window.
“What do you want?” Lady Stapleton’s voice was tight.
“You will remain in London until Miss Stapleton is married. You will conduct yourself with impeccable propriety. You will not approach Lady Lily, you will not approach the Readthorpe family, and you will not publish, distribute, or commission any material bearing Lady Fairhart’s name or any other pseudonym.
Once Miss Stapleton is settled, you will leave London. Permanently.”
“Permanently? You cannot expect me to…”
“I can. And I do.” He held the folded paper up. “Unless you would prefer the alternative.”
Lady Stapleton stared at the paper. Hugo watched the fight drain out of her, watched the defiance collapse into bitter resignation.
“Fine,” she said.
Hugo reached into his coat a second time and withdrew an envelope. He set it on the table between them.
“Two thousand pounds. Added to Miss Stapleton’s dowry. It should help expedite finding her a suitable match.”
Lady Stapleton looked at the envelope. Then she looked at Hugo. Her expression held something complicated. Not gratitude. Not quite hatred. Something in between.
“Your Grace…”
“Miss Stapleton had nothing to do with this,” Hugo said. “She should not pay for her mother’s sins.”
Lady Stapleton’s throat worked. She reached for the envelope and pressed it against her chest.
“Goodbye, Lady Stapleton.” Hugo inclined his head, crossed the sitting room, and let himself out without looking back.
The front door closed behind him. The afternoon sun hit his face. He stood on the steps and breathed the warm London air.
The pamphlets would stop. Miss Stapleton would be provided for amply. Lady Stapleton would disappear.
He had won. The threat was neutralized, the enemy contained, the problem solved with the surgical efficiency he brought to every challenge he deemed worthy of his attention.
He should have felt satisfaction. A month ago, he would have.
A month ago, he would have climbed into his carriage, poured himself a drink, and moved on to the next problem without a backward glance.
And in four days, he would marry Lady Lily, and that fact sat in his chest with a weight that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with the woman herself.
Her green eyes. Her sharp tongue. The way she had looked at him across the study when he announced his intention to marry her, searching his face for something he had been too afraid to show her.
He wanted to marry her. The admission surfaced unbidden, and he did not push it down.
He wanted to marry her, and the wanting terrified him, because wanting things had never ended well for Hugo Beaumont.
Wanting his mother to stay alive. Wanting his father to look at him without disappointment.
Wanting his brother to be kind. Every want had been a door opened onto loss, and he had learned, long ago, to stop opening doors.
And yet.
He straightened his coat and walked toward the waiting carriage, and the weight of the folded paper in his pocket felt like nothing at all compared to the weight of the words he still could not bring himself to say.