Chapter Five #2
Nicholas crossed the room and topped off his glass, careful to keep his back to her. He didn’t like lying to her, not directly. But letting her believe in something untrue? That he could manage. For now.
***
The fire crackled politely behind the grate. Candlelight shimmered across silver cutlery and heavy porcelain. Everything gleamed on the surface.
Nicholas sat at the head of the long dining table, watching the evening unfold like a play he could not direct.
His aunt was in fine form tonight. Seated to his right, wearing deep plum satin and an expression that suggested she’d smelled something off and was determined to identify it before the end of the soup course.
To his left sat Lydia, upright and calm, her green silk gown understated and elegant against the fading blue brocade of the dining room chairs. She had said little so far. She didn’t need to.
Beatrice was doing enough for everyone.
“So,” she said coolly, as a footman ladled pheasant consommé into her bowl, “you’re from the Grantham family. I believe your father sold textiles, did he not?”
Lydia inclined her head with perfect politeness. “He did. High-quality silks and brocades. His clients included half the peerage, your late brother among them.”
Beatrice’s smile was tight. “Ah, yes. I do remember the ballroom curtains. A little excessive, weren’t they?”
“I believe your brother wanted to impress the Duchess of Warwick at the time,” Lydia replied lightly. “I assume they made their intended effect.”
Beatrice raised a brow. “Well. One must know how to market oneself.”
Lydia smiled. It was smooth, unruffled. “It was a talent of my father’s. He was quite persuasive.”
Nicholas sipped his wine. He could practically hear the subtext thudding between them. Beatrice was circling. Lydia wasn’t yielding an inch.
And he, stupidly, was enjoying it.
Lydia’s calm under scrutiny impressed him more than he liked to admit. He had expected nerves, but instead, she was handling his aunt like a seasoned diplomat, grace with just a flash of steel.
Beatrice dabbed her lips with a linen napkin. “You must understand, Miss Grantham, it’s not often one hears of a duke marrying... well, into trade.”
Nicholas tensed.
Lydia took a delicate sip of wine. “Then perhaps it's time we all broadened our expectations.”
Sebastian chuckled from further down the table, breaking the silence. Charlotte gave Lydia a small, unreadable smile.
Beatrice didn’t back down. “And how exactly did the two of you come to this arrangement?”
Nicholas’s grip tightened on his glass.
Lydia didn’t even blink. “I believe the story is that we met by chance and found each other quite tolerable.”
Beatrice’s eyes glinted. “How romantic.”
“Some of us find practicality quite seductive,” Lydia said lightly, “especially when set beside the usual offerings.”
Beatrice let out a quiet hmm and turned back to her plate.
Nicholas looked away, wracked with guilt.
Not just because of the girl’s background, or the scandal it might provoke.
Beatrice could stomach scandal; she had weathered enough of it during her own marriage.
No, what would truly wound her was that he hadn’t told her first. That he’d made this decision in secret, as if he didn’t trust her, as if he were too ashamed.
And perhaps… he was.
Beatrice had fought for him. For Charlotte. For the name. She had been the one who stood between them and complete ruin when their father’s debts began to surface like rot beneath the floorboards. And now he had solved the problem without her.
With a solution she would call reckless, humiliating, even dangerous.
Because she would see it for what it was: a gamble.
And Beatrice did not gamble. She planned and negotiated. She calculated.
Nicholas had simply... agreed to marry a woman he barely knew. A woman who unnerved him. Who made him feel seen in a way he didn’t want to be.
He had made the deal behind closed doors, and now he was trapped in the story they’d invented, a love match built on fiction, a marriage that hadn’t even begun and was already balanced on a knife’s edge.
And he had to lie to the one person in the world who’d always known when he was bluffing.
Beatrice would see through it.
Sooner or later, she’d look at Lydia and Nicholas sitting beside each other and know it wasn’t real.
But tonight, at least, he needed her to believe it was.
Nicholas cleared his throat and rose slightly. “A toast.”
All heads turned.
He lifted his glass. “To new beginnings. And to the woman who made me forget every reason I’d sworn never to marry.”
Lydia glanced at him, startled. But she raised her glass all the same.
Sebastian smirked, and Beatrice narrowed her eyes.
When the glasses were down, Nicholas said quietly, “If you’ll excuse us, Miss Grantham and I could use a breath of air.”
Without waiting for permission, he stepped away from the table.
Lydia rose smoothly and followed.
The hall outside the dining room was cool and dim, lined with old oil portraits and candle sconces. Nicholas led Lydia toward the drawing room but stopped short once they were out of earshot.
She turned to him, folding her arms. “So. ‘The woman who made you forget every reason you’d sworn never to marry’? Really?”
“It was either that or let my aunt imply you’d trapped me with a forged letter and blackmail.”
She lifted a brow. “Well. You’re getting better at fiction.”
“You’ll need to as well,” he said flatly. “From now on, you and I are to be the image of a proper courtship. Everyone outside this house must believe we’re in love.”
Lydia tilted her head. “You’re giving me orders now?”
“I’m giving you facts. The fewer people who know the truth, the better. Only Charlotte, Bash, and your friend Miss Carlisle are aware. That’s how it stays.”
Lydia’s mouth tightened. “And you think I’m going to start weeping in corners and confessing everything to the footmen?”
“No,” he said. “I think you’re too smart for that. But people like my aunt Beatrice aren’t blind. She’ll see through you if you give her an opening.”
“I don’t care if your aunt approves of me,” Lydia said.
“Well, good,” Nicholas said. “Because she wouldn’t approve of anyone outside the peerage.”
“Even if you loved them?”
“That’s the only reason she might accept it,” Nicholas said. “Because despite everything else, my aunt wants me to be happy, and she’s the only person left who gave a damn about this family when everything fell apart.”
“How so?”
“She kept the creditors at bay, gave Charlotte somewhere to turn, kept Hawthorne House from being sold off brick by brick. And she did it all while pretending we still had dignity to our name.”
Lydia was silent for a moment.
“And now you’ve invited her into a lie.”
“I know.”
“So why keep lying?”
“Because I need her to believe I made this choice for something noble. Even if it wasn’t.”
Lydia stepped forward, close now. “Very well.”
They stood there, close enough for tension to hum between them. His hand twitched at his side. He hated how aware he was of her, of her scent, the quiet confidence in her stance, the spark behind her eyes.
She wasn’t a threat, but a challenge, and part of him, God help him, liked it.
Lydia’s voice dropped. “I didn’t trap you, Your Grace. You stepped into this deal of your own free will. So don’t act like I’m the villain in your little play.”
He didn’t answer. Because her words were true, and they burned more than any of Beatrice’s barbs.
“Shall we go play devoted?” she asked dryly.
He offered his arm. “Let’s.”
They returned together, arm-in-arm.
As Lydia moved to sit, Nicholas instinctively reached for her chair and pulled it closer to his own before she could take her seat. His fingers brushed the back of her hand as she sat, just a whisper of contact.
She looked at him, but he didn’t look back.
The rest of dinner passed in a blur of roast duck, tart wine, and sharp glances. When the final course was cleared, Lydia stood, offered quiet goodbyes to each guest, including a perfectly cordial farewell to Beatrice, and took her leave with her usual grace.
Nicholas watched her go.
But as he did, he sensed his aunt’s eyes on him. As he met her gaze, he saw it: that look of disapproval, of suspicion.
He quickly looked away, but her eyes did not leave him, and an uncomfortable weight settled in his stomach like a stone.