Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The library after dark was Hudson’s favorite room in the house, which was perhaps why he had not expected to find Augusta there.
She sat in the armchair nearest the fireplace, a book open on her lap, the lamplight catching the mahogany of her hair and turning it into something warmer and richer than its daytime shade.
She did not look up when he entered. Either she had not heard him, or she had decided that acknowledging his presence was an indulgence she could not currently afford.
Hudson stood in the doorway and allowed himself the small, dangerous pleasure of looking at her.
She wore a simple nightdress beneath what appeared to be a woolen shawl, her hair loose around her shoulders in a way he had seen only once before, in this library, when it had fallen across his hands like silk.
“Miss Norton.” His voice emerged lower than he had intended, rougher at the edges.
She turned a page, still not looking up.
“Augusta,” he tried.
That elicited a reaction. A slight stiffening of her shoulders, a momentary pause in the movement of her hand, before she recovered and continued reading with a focus that would have been commendable in a scholar and was, under the circumstances, frankly insulting.
Hudson crossed the room and stopped at the edge of the carpet, close enough that he could smell the lavender she used in her hair, but still far enough that he was not technically invading her space.
“I need to speak with you,” he said.
She closed the book with a gentle thud that was more final than a slam, set it on the table beside her, and rose from her seat in a single fluid motion that spoke of a grace he had not fully appreciated until this moment, when he was witnessing it deployed as a weapon against him.
“It’s late, Your Grace,” she said. “And I believe we’ve said everything that needs saying. Goodnight.”
She moved past him toward the door, her shawl trailing behind her.
Hudson did the only thing he could think to do, which was to follow her.
Into the corridor, where the lamps had been turned low for the night; past the gallery, where the portraits of Rivers ancestors watched their progress with painted indifference; up the staircase to the east wing, where the guest rooms were located and where Augusta’s governess chambers were, he realized with a fresh twist of guilt, significantly smaller than they should have been.
She reached her door, paused with her hand on the handle, and turned to look at him.
“Your Grace,” she said. “This is inappropriate.”
“So is shouting at the woman who cares for my sister,” Hudson said. “So is accusing her of negligence when she was, in fact, keeping a child’s confidence. I seem to be making a habit of inappropriateness where you’re concerned. I’d like the opportunity to correct at least one instance of it.”
She opened the door and stepped inside, but did not close it.
Hudson followed her into a room he had not entered since the day of her arrival, when Mrs. Beale had shown him the accommodations as a matter of form.
It was exactly as he remembered. Modest, comfortable, furnished with the particular attention to practical comfort that characterized all of Mrs. Beale’s arrangements.
A narrow bed. A writing desk beneath the window.
A small bookshelf containing several volumes he recognized from the library, borrowed without his knowledge or permission, and currently the least of his concerns.
Augusta stood by the window, her back to him, her arms wrapped around herself beneath the shawl.
“I was wrong,” Hudson began. The words emerged more easily than he had expected, which was its own surprise.
“Not merely mistaken, but wrong. I accused you of failing in your duty when you were, in fact, fulfilling it exactly as Cassie had asked you to. I questioned your judgment. I implied that you had put my sister at risk, when the truth is that you have done nothing but keep her safe and valued and seen since the day you arrived in this house.” He drew a breath.
“I am sorry, Augusta. You did not deserve what I said to you, and I deeply regret causing you pain.”
She was silent for a long moment. The only sound in the room was the soft tick of the clock on the mantel and the more distant sound of the house settling around them.
“Cassie trusts me,” Augusta said, without turning.
Her voice was quiet and steady, and her gaze was fixed on some point beyond the window that Hudson could not see.
“It’s a fragile thing, a child’s trust. Easily broken.
Almost impossible to restore once damaged.
I would never do anything to jeopardize that.
I would never do anything to make her feel less safe, less valued, or less seen than she deserves to be. ”
She turned then, and the lamplight caught her face in a way that made his chest ache.
“I understand that you were frightened. I understand that the blood frightened you. But the moment you saw it, you decided that I had failed. That I had hidden something from you deliberately, with malicious intent. You did not ask. You accused me. And that…” Her voice caught, before she steadied it. “That is difficult to forgive.”
“I know,” Hudson said. “I don’t expect forgiveness.
I only expect that you hear me and that you know I am aware of the gravity of what I did.
” He took a step toward her, then stopped.
“I was entirely wrong to accuse you of hiding something when I… Well, there’s something else I need to tell you.
Something I should have told you before. ”
She looked at him wearily. “Go on.”
“My men found your sister,” he confessed. “Olivia. She’s in Scotland. She’s well. Healthy. Apparently quite content with her situation.”
He paused, watching her face. The hope that flared there, bright and unmistakable, before it was quickly banked behind her usual careful control.
“She does not wish to come to London. Instead, she has asked that you join her in Scotland. Permanently.”
Augusta’s hand went to the windowsill beside her, fingers pressing into the wood as though she needed the support.
“When?” she asked quietly.
“The letter arrived the day before the ball. I’ve had it since then.”
“You didn’t tell me.” It was not a question.
“No.”
“Why?”
The single word hung between them, simple and devastating in its directness.
Hudson met her gaze and found he could not look away, could not offer the easy lie or the half-truth that would have preserved whatever fragile peace still existed between them.
“I was afraid,” he sighed. The admission emerged raw, scraped from somewhere deep. “Afraid that if you knew, if you had the option, you would leave. Before the ball. Before Cassie had time to—” He stopped, unable to continue without revealing more of himself than he was prepared to.
“I thought you would choose your sister. As you should. As anyone should. But Cassie would lose you, and she has lost enough already. I could not…” His throat worked. “It was selfish. It was wrong. I should have told you the moment the letter arrived.”
Augusta was staring at him with an expression he had not seen before.
“You thought,” she said slowly, each word precise and measured, “that I would abandon your sister. That I would pack my things and walk out the door without a word to Cassie, without ensuring she was cared for, without…” She shook her head.
“You thought I would do that to a child who trusts me. A child who asked me this morning not to leave her.”
“I thought,” Hudson said, “that you would have every right to. That your sister’s claim on you was greater than Cassie’s. Greater than mine. As it should be.”
“Cassie is a child who already lost her mother, who watched her home burn, who trusts so few people that when she does, it is with her entire heart, and you believed that I would walk away from her without a backward glance. Without ensuring she was safe. Without saying goodbye.” She took a step toward him, and the movement brought her into the lamplight, the hurt in her eyes impossible to miss.
“What does that say about what you think of me, Hudson? What does it say about the woman you believe I am?”
Hudson felt the breath leave his lungs, felt the weight of it settle across his shoulders with a familiarity that was almost comforting in its wretchedness.
She was right. Of course, she was right.
He had judged her, had assumed the worst of her, had constructed a version of her in his mind that was capable of the very cruelty he had just accused her of, and he had done it without evidence, without cause, without the slightest justification beyond his own fear.
“I don’t know,” he replied, the words barely above a whisper. “I don’t know what that says about me. Only that I was wrong. Again. That I have been wrong about you repeatedly, consistently, since we met at the Nightingale.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “My methods of protecting the people I care about are not always… elegant. They are rarely fair. And they have caused you pain, twice now, and for that I am sorrier than I can express.”
Augusta fell silent. She stood before him in her nightdress and her woolen shawl, her hair loose around her shoulders, her eyes holding his with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe.
Hudson had the distinct sensation of standing on a precipice, of having offered everything he had to offer and waiting, with a desperation that embarrassed him, to learn whether it would be enough.
“Don’t do this again,” she said, her voice quiet but steady, each word deliberate.
“Don’t assume the worst of me. Don’t decide, without asking, what I am capable of.
If you have questions, ask them. If you have concerns, voice them.
But do not look at me and see a stranger.
Not after…” She stopped and swallowed. “Not after what we’ve shared. ”
“I won’t,” Hudson said. “I promise.”
He became aware all at once of how close they were standing. Close enough that he could count her eyelashes when she looked down, close enough that her scent filled his senses, lavender and something uniquely her that he had no name for but would recognize blindfolded in a crowd of a thousand.
“Augusta,” he said, her name a prayer and a surrender.
She looked up at him, and whatever she saw on his face made her breath catch. He saw it happen. Saw the moment her control slipped, saw the warmth flood her expression, saw her hand rise without conscious thought to rest against his chest, above his heart.
He covered her hand with his. Felt the rapid, birdlike pulse at her wrist. Felt the slight trembling of her fingers against his shirt.
“I…” he trailed off. “Tell me that this is too soon, that you need time, that what I did is unforgivable and you need space to—”
She did not let him finish. Instead, she rose on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his with a hunger that made his knees weak.
For one suspended moment, Hudson remained perfectly still, allowing himself the dangerous pleasure of being kissed by her, of feeling her mouth against his, her body pressed against his chest, her hands finding their way to his shoulders with a certainty that suggested she had been thinking about this far longer than was strictly appropriate for a woman who had mere hours ago been ready to walk out of his life forever.
Then his arms came around her, one hand cradling the back of her head while the other settled on the small of her back, and he kissed her with all the desperation of a man who had been starving.
Then, he slowly pulled away.
“I should go,” he murmured against her lips. “It’s late. You’ve had a difficult day.”
“Stay,” Augusta pleaded. The word emerged barely above a whisper, charged with a want that matched his own. “Just for a while.”
With that, he drew her in for another kiss, slower this time, deeper, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips.