Chapter 26 - Stephen
Stephen
There were different kinds of breaking.
The violent kind—when something shattered all at once, irreparable and final.
And then there was the slower kind, the insidious fracturing that happened over days, hairline cracks spreading through the foundation of who you thought you were until you woke one morning and realized you couldn’t bear your own reflection anymore.
He’d managed to achieve both simultaneously.
It had been two days. Two days of carrying her face in his mind like a wound that wouldn’t close, and Stephen was still clinging to the documents like a drowning man to driftwood.
They lay beneath the loose floorboard where he checked for them twice a day like a man gone mad, tied together with a piece of string to keep them from scattering.
He could have posted them a hundred times over by now.
Should have, probably. Given her the proof and spared them both the agony of another meeting.
Yet every time he’d wrapped them for posting, some excuse stopped him. Too dangerous. Too many ways they could be lost or intercepted. They needed to reach her directly.
All convenient justifications for the truth he didn’t want to examine too closely: he wanted to see her one more time.
He knew it was selfishness dressed up as noble intention.
At night he’d lie awake, one hand pressed against his chest, where something sharp had lodged itself since Bond Street, and try to convince himself that this was about giving her answers rather than easing his own guilt.
But the rationalization crumbled every time he replayed that moment when recognition had bled into betrayal, when he’d watched something in her shatter and known he’d been the one breaking it.
Was the apology forming in his mind truly for her, or was it just another way of taking something—her time, her attention, perhaps even her forgiveness—so he could walk away feeling less monstrous?
Perhaps she’d be better off if he simply disappeared.
Spared her the awkwardness of another encounter, the pain of reliving what he’d done.
But leaving her with nothing except silence and the memory of him vanishing without a word felt wrong.
Like he was saving himself discomfort at the cost of letting her think the worst.
She deserved better than that.
He’d be dismissed by tomorrow, shipped off to Bristol or wherever Phillips decided to send him.
Any sensible man would be calculating finances right now, planning next steps, worrying about references.
Instead his mind kept circling back to libraries he’d never see again, conversations that would never happen, a future he’d been fool enough to imagine.
So tonight, when the Fairmonts arrived for the ball, he would go to the library.
Give her the documents if she came. Try to explain, if she let him.
The odds of her appearing at all were vanishingly small, and he’d have no right to be surprised by her absence, no right to expect anything from her at all.
But at least he would have tried.
The Rutland library lay in familiar shadows, though this time Stephen entered it in servant’s livery instead of borrowed evening clothes. Honest at last, now that his dishonesty had poisoned everything it had touched.
He moved through the room silently, straightening books that needed no straightening, running his fingers along spines of volumes he’d secretly borrowed.
For the past couple nights, he’d crept down here after the household slept, searching the shelves for another Radcliffe novel he hadn’t yet read.
A form of self-inflicted torture, perhaps— reading the books she loved most, imagining her voice speaking the words, picturing her curled in a seat somewhere with these same pages spread before her.
Every Gothic heroine became Charlotte in his mind.
Every passionate declaration an echo of what he’d felt but couldn’t voice.
He’d returned them before dawn each time, careful to place them exactly where he’d found them—all except one.
The Italian remained in his room, tucked beneath his floor where no one would find it.
He couldn’t bring himself to return that particular volume, couldn’t surrender the one piece of her he was allowed to keep.
Tonight he’d told Phillips he needed to check the silver in the east wing, a transparent excuse that might buy him an hour at most before someone questioned where he’d actually gone. Not much time, certainly not enough, but it would have to do.
The room remained as always—floor-to-ceiling shelves, leather and old paper, but the quiet that usually felt like a sanctuary now made him restless, amplified every sound from the corridor, every distant footstep that might be her approach.
The documents sat tucked inside his coat while music drifted through the walls from the ballroom. Another waltz, bright and careless.
Would she come? For all she knew, he could be at any house in London tonight. But if she wanted answers, if she was searching for him at all, this was where she’d look.
The thought was absurd. Why would she lower herself to speak to him now, risk being seen with a servant alone?
Yet some foolish part of him couldn’t stop hoping, couldn’t stop listening for the soft click of the door, the whisper of silk against marble that would mean she’d chosen to come after all.
Time moved slowly, each minute stretching longer than the last. He tried not to watch the door, tried not to catalog every distant sound, but his attention kept returning to that rectangle of shadow where she might appear.
The soft click of the door opening made his heart leap violently.
He turned quickly, hope and dread tangling in his chest, but the face in the doorway wasn’t hers. Mr. Phillips’s severe gaze fixed upon him, and behind the butler stood Lord Rutland himself.
Stephen’s stomach dropped. With his employer standing there, bearing witness, there would be no gentle warning this time. No private discussion in Phillips’s office. Just consequences, immediate and final.
“Might I ask,” Phillips began, his voice carrying a blend of disappointment and authority that needed no raising to command absolute obedience, “what brings you to the library when you’re meant to be checking the silver?”
“I was—“ The words stuck in his throat. There was no good answer. No explanation that wouldn’t damn him further.
Lord Rutland stepped further into the room, his expression unreadable. He didn’t look angry—merely tired, as one might feel about a servant who’d become more trouble than he was worth.
“Turner,” his lordship said quietly, “your performance these past weeks has been… inconsistent. Absenting yourself from your post without notice. Failing to inform anyone when unfit for service. The delayed port at Lady Jersey’s musicale.
” He gestured vaguely at the library around them. “And now this.”
The words were delivered without particular heat or malice. Just a statement of fact, which somehow made them worse. Stephen wasn’t being dismissed for any grand transgression; he’d simply become a poorly functioning piece of the household machinery that needed replacing.
“My lord, I—“ Stephen began, but Lord Rutland raised a hand.
“See Mr. Phillips in his office tomorrow morning. First thing.” He turned to the butler. “Phillips, please ensure Turner returns to his duties for the remainder of the evening. You and I will discuss his dismissal after the guests have departed.”
“Of course, my lord.”
With a final nod, his lordship withdrew, footsteps fading down the corridor until oppressive silence settled over the library.
Phillips studied Stephen for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice had gentled slightly. “The ballroom requires additional staff for refreshments.”
The ballroom. Where Charlotte would be. Where he’d have to serve while she watched, finally seeing him as he truly was.
“Yes, sir.” Stephen’s voice sounded hollow even to his own ears.
The butler stepped aside and Stephen moved toward the servants corridor while behind him, the library returned to stillness.
Half an hour later, Stephen entered the Rutland ballroom.
The space was magnificent tonight—candlelight dancing across gilt molding and cream-colored walls, ladies in jewel-toned silks moving through the crowd like exotic birds, gentlemen in evening dress clustered near the windows discussing politics and investments.
A world he’d touched for a moment before it slipped through his fingers like smoke.
Stephen gathered a tray of crystal glasses, their facets catching the lamplight and refracting it into tiny rainbows.
He moved along the periphery with murmured offers of refreshment that went largely unacknowledged, attention sliding past him the way one might overlook wallpaper.
Present but unremarkable. He’d served in enough ballrooms to know the choreography by now, the particular art of being helpful while remaining invisible.
Yet despite every reasonable intention to keep his head down and his attention on his work, he found himself scanning the crowd, searching for auburn hair even as he told himself it was futile.
She wouldn’t be anywhere he could reach her.
She’d be dancing or surrounded by guests—never alone, never anywhere he could approach her.
And even if by some miracle she were, what could he possibly do?
Hand her the documents in the middle of a crowded ballroom?
But reason had stopped governing his actions weeks ago.
He had hours left, maybe days, before he’d be gone from London with no certainty of where he’d end up or what came next, and the thought of never seeing her again felt unbearable.
One more time. That’s all he needed. Even if she never looked his way, even if all he could offer was a tray of champagne and a murmured word she’d pretend not to hear.