Chapter 14
The silence on the gravel drive stretched into something suffocating and heavy, pressing down on Edmund’s chest until his lungs burned.
You have your father’s face exactly.
The words hung in the cool evening air, completely devastating in their simplicity. Sir Gerald Ashwell’s eyes were shining with genuine, moved emotion, staring at a secretary in a cheap brown coat as if he had just seen a ghost walk out of the twilight.
Edmund’s hand remained suspended in the space between them.
For one frantic, terrifying second, a reckless urge seized him.
He wanted to drop his hand, drop the ridiculous stoop of his shoulders, and confess the entire charade right there on the front steps.
He wanted to say, Yes, I am Edmund. I am the son of your old friend, and I am deeply sorry for lying to you.
But the words jammed in his throat, blocked by the sheer, catastrophic weight of what that confession would destroy.
Julian did not hesitate. He moved with the effortless, liquid grace of a man who had spent his entire life improvising his way out of taverns and angry drawing rooms.
“I must say, Sir Gerald, that is a new one,” Julian declared, letting out a rich, booming laugh that immediately shattered the frozen tension in the courtyard.
He clapped a heavy, familiar hand on Edmund’s rigid shoulder, shaking him slightly.
“Usually, people mistake me for a Spanish count, or perhaps a brooding poet. But Mr. Marsh being mistaken for English nobility? You will give the poor man airs.”
Sir Gerald blinked, physically startled by the sudden noise. He looked from Edmund’s pale, stricken face to Julian’s dazzling, aristocratic smile. The older man shook his head, a flush of embarrassment rising to his cheeks as logic finally overrode his initial shock.
“Good heavens,” Sir Gerald breathed, letting out a shaky, genial laugh as he rubbed a hand over his face. “Forgive me. Please, forgive me, my lord. The light is fading, and my eyes are not what they used to be. It was just… the angle of his jaw. It threw me entirely.”
“Think nothing of it,” Julian said smoothly, stepping forward to clasp Sir Gerald’s hand with the easy warmth of a lifelong peer. “I am deeply honored to be here, sir. My father spoke of Ashwell Park with immense fondness. I have been looking forward to seeing the estate for myself.”
“And we are thrilled to have you.” Sir Gerald beamed, the awkwardness dissolving under Julian’s manufactured charm.
Sir Gerald finally turned his attention back to Edmund, extending his hand. “Welcome to Ashwell Park, Mr. Marsh.”
Edmund forced his hand forward. His fingers closed around the older man’s grip. It was a firm, honest handshake, the kind of greeting his father had always respected.
“Thank you, Sir Gerald,” Edmund said. His voice was low, stripped of the usual servant’s deference. “I am grateful to be here. More grateful than I can properly express.”
He meant every single syllable. It was the only honest thing he had said all week, a quiet, desperate truth buried under a mountain of deception. He was grateful that his father’s memory was still alive here, preserved by a man who had loved him. And he hated himself for tainting it.
Behind Julian, Arabella looked as though she wished the gravel drive would simply open up and swallow her whole.
She had drawn her traveling cloak tightly around her shoulders, her cheeks burning with a humiliated, scarlet flush.
She refused to look at Edmund, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the toes of her boots.
She is ashamed of me, Edmund realized, a cold weight settling in his stomach. She is ashamed to be standing here, complicit in this lie.
Vivienne, entirely immune to the emotional undercurrents threatening to drown the rest of them, swept forward with a theatrical sigh.
“Father, please,” Vivienne announced, waving a gloved hand weakly in the air. “The roads were an absolute barbarity. I have swallowed half the dust in the county, and I am entirely exhausted. I must rest before dinner, or I shall simply collapse on the portico.”
Sir Gerald’s eyes crinkled with fond indulgence. “Of course, my dear. Welcome home. Your rooms are prepared exactly as you left them.”
Vivienne did not wait for the footmen to assist her. She swept past her father and disappeared into the brightly lit manor without a backward glance.
Corinna was different. She did not complain about the dust or the carriage suspension. She stepped down onto the gravel and threw her arms around her father’s neck, hugging him with a fierce, genuine warmth that made Edmund’s chest ache.
“It is so good to be home, Father,” Corinna murmured, her face buried briefly in his shoulder.
“I have missed you, my girl,” Sir Gerald said softly, patting her back. “The house is far too quiet without you.”
When Corinna pulled back from the embrace, she did not look at Julian. She turned her head, her dark hair catching the warm glow of the lantern light, and looked directly at Edmund.
Her gray eyes were steady, sharp, and incredibly searching.
There was no polite indifference in her gaze.
She looked at him as though she were trying to pry open his ribs and read the secrets carved into his bones.
The intensity of her stare made the breath stall in his lungs.
She watched him for one long, agonizing moment, her expression completely unreadable, before she finally gathered her skirts and followed her sister inside.
Edmund stood in the drive, the chill of the country evening finally seeping through his cheap wool coat, feeling entirely like a trespasser in his own life.
The country night was entirely too quiet.
In London, there was always the distant rumble of carriage wheels, the shout of a watchman, or the muffled music from a neighboring ballroom.
But here, in the guest chamber of Ashwell Park, there was nothing but the rustle of wind through the oak trees and the maddening, rhythmic sound of Julian snoring in the next room.
Edmund lay flat on his back, staring up at the plaster ceiling. The moonlight spilling through the gap in the heavy velvet curtains illuminated the room in pale, ghostly shapes.
Julian had fallen asleep almost immediately in the room beside his. Not just asleep, but entirely, infuriatingly comatose. Even through the wall, his snore seemed to vibrate the floorboards.
Edmund envied him violently.
He crossed his arms behind his head, his mind racing in a frantic, exhausting circle.
I should tell the truth, Edmund thought, squeezing his eyes shut.
I should walk downstairs tomorrow morning, find Sir Gerald in his study, and confess everything.
I should tell him that Julian is an artist from Paris, that I am the Earl of Ravenswood, and that I have invaded his home under entirely false pretenses.
The urge was incredibly strong. It tasted like salvation.
But if I tell the truth, I lose everything.
If he confessed, the Ashwell family would be deeply, unforgivably insulted. Sir Gerald would order him off the property. Vivienne would scream until the windows shattered.
And Corinna… Corinna would look at him with absolute disgust. She would know that every conversation they had shared, every quiet moment in the shadows of a drawing room, had been built on a foundation of lies. She would despise him.
Her face rose in his mind, unbidden and vivid. The stubbornly tilted chin. The way her gray eyes sparked with brilliant, ruthless logic. The way her breath had hitched when he touched her hand in the courtyard of the posting inn.
A jarring realization washed over him in the dark.
He had not thought about Cecily Vane all day.
Cecily, the woman who had shattered his heart in Paris. The woman who had driven him to construct this insane masquerade in the first place, just to protect himself from being used again. She had literally ambushed him in a London drawing room two nights ago, threatening to expose his entire life.
And yet he had spent the entire carriage ride obsessing over the exact shade of Corinna Ashwell’s eyes.
What is wrong with me? Edmund thought, a cold sweat breaking out along his collar. The memory of Cecily’s betrayal used to be a physical, agonizing pain in his chest. Now, it felt like a faded scar—a minor inconvenience compared to the terrifying, consuming panic of losing Corinna’s good opinion.
He turned onto his side, burying his face in the feather pillow, and prayed for sleep. It did not come until the small hours of the morning, and when it did, it was restless and fraught with dreams of gray eyes and locked doors.
When Edmund finally woke, the bright morning sun was streaming aggressively through the curtains. Julian was already awake and in his room, standing before the washstand and carefully adjusting the pristine white folds of his cravat.
“You look absolutely terrible,” Julian observed cheerfully, glancing at Edmund’s reflection in the mirror. “I sincerely hope you intend to do something about the dark circles under your eyes before we go down to breakfast. You look like a man who has been haunted by a particularly vengeful ghost.”
Edmund groaned, pushing himself up against the headboard and rubbing his face. “I did not sleep well. The country is too quiet.”
“Neither did I,” Julian said dryly, turning around to lean against the washstand.
“You were muttering in your sleep for half the night; I could hear you through the wall. You kept repeating the word ‘impossible’ and arguing with someone who was not there. It was deeply unsettling. I nearly came in here to throw a boot at your head.”
Edmund went perfectly still, a flush of heat rising to the tips of his ears.
“I was dreaming about the estate ledgers,” he lied gruffly, throwing the quilt aside and swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress.