Chapter Twelve
The clink of cutlery against porcelain was the only sound louder than the silence.
Lydia lifted her fork with deliberate care, aware of every movement.
She wore a gown of soft lavender silk with a square neckline and embroidered cuffs.
But tonight, it felt tight at the shoulders, too formal and too fragile.
She couldn’t tell if it was the corset or the glares from the far end of the table that made her spine ache.
Lady Beatrice sat like a marble statue beside Nicholas, her posture regal, her lips pinched. She hadn’t spoken directly to Lydia once all evening, but her sharp glances had said plenty.
Nicholas, seated at the head of the long mahogany table, had barely looked at her, either.
Not since that night in the study. Nearly three days ago.
He’d offered no explanation. No apology.
No words at all, in fact. And tonight, his gaze remained fixed on his plate, his replies clipped and cordial when required.
He was dressed impeccably as ever in his black coat, silver waistcoat, cravat like a blade, but something about him felt coiled. Wound tight beneath the civility.
Across from Lydia, Emma was doing her best to fill the silence.
“Oh, but you can’t tell me you enjoy quail,” she said brightly to Sebastian. “It tastes like disappointment wrapped in feathers.”
Sebastian grinned, lounging slightly in his chair.
“I enjoy it when it’s not trying to escape the plate.” He speared the tiny bird with theatrical disdain. “Frankly, I prefer anything that doesn’t require a magnifying glass to locate.”
Emma smothered a laugh behind her napkin.
“You ought to open a cookhouse,” she said. “Serve only food one can pronounce and actually chew.”
“And scandalize every titled stomach from here to Bath?” he asked. “Tempting.”
Lydia caught the way Emma leaned toward him ever so slightly. The way his gaze lingered a fraction too long as she sipped her wine. When their fingers brushed as they reached for the same glass, something electric passed between them. It was a silent spark, unspoken but visible.
Lydia tucked the moment away.
Beside her, a footman approached to pour water. He did so with the care of someone handling livestock, barely meeting her eyes. The water splashed, cool and sudden, onto her sleeve.
“Careful,” she said gently.
The servant gave a tight nod and withdrew without a word.
She wiped the spill with her napkin, jaw set.
Lydia had received a chilly welcome when she’d first arrived, but she’d hoped it would improve with the servants. Instead, each day it only grew worse. Teacups were delivered cold to her in the parlour. Dresses returned wrinkled. The doors were left unopened when she approached.
She was, by all accounts, still the duchess in name only.
Across the table, Lady Beatrice dabbed her mouth with her linen napkin and spoke in a tone that could slice glass.
“So, the Duchess of Harrow’s ball,” she said to no one in particular. “A lovely affair, if one enjoyed posturing and spectacle.”
Nicholas gave a noncommittal hum. “It served its purpose.”
Lady Beatrice’s gaze shifted to Lydia. “Indeed. Appearances must be kept, no matter how…unorthodox the arrangement.”
Emma blinked. Sebastian coughed into his wine.
Lydia set her fork down with care.
“I’d say it was rather successful,” she said smoothly. “Everyone looked. No one blinked.”
Lady Beatrice arched a brow. “Not blinking is often a sign of shock.”
“Or awe.”
There was a long pause.
Then Sebastian, with the smoothness of a practiced diplomat, chimed in.
“Personally, I found it refreshing. A bit of drama, a bit of mystery. What is the point of a ball if not to stir the imagination?”
Beatrice sniffed. “That may be the view from your particular armchair, Lord Greaves, but society does not thrive on imagination. It thrives on standards.”
“Then thank God I’m not society,” he murmured.
Emma grinned, and Lydia barely stifled her smile.
The rest of the meal dragged on. Roast beef, spring peas, and lemon syllabub for dessert, all exquisitely prepared and served without warmth. Each course felt like a performance, and Lydia could feel herself growing weary of the role.
Nicholas didn’t speak to her once.
But she caught him watching her, once, just once, when she laughed at something Emma whispered behind her hand. His expression didn’t shift. But his gaze lingered longer than it should have.
When the final course was cleared, Lady Beatrice rose with regal stiffness.
“I believe I shall retire,” she announced. “There’s only so much modern innovation I can absorb in one evening.”
She swept from the room, her skirts rustling.
The moment she was gone, Sebastian leaned closer to Lydia and whispered, “Don’t worry, she glares at everyone. Once she glared at a bishop so long he offered her absolution just to escape.”
Emma choked on a laugh.
Lydia smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
The weight of the room still pressed against her. The silence between herself and her husband stretched, taut and aching, across the candlelit table.
She reached for her wine, her fingers steady, her spine unbending.
If Nicholas wouldn’t speak, she wouldn’t beg for words.
But something had to break soon. Because the silence was starting to feel louder than anything else.
***
Later that night, the fire had burned low.
Lydia sat curled in the corner of a velvet settee, her feet tucked beneath her, a book open but untouched in her lap.
The drawing room was quiet, save for the soft crackle of dying embers and the rhythmic ticking of the tall case clock in the corner.
She’d lit no candles beyond the hearth, just enough light to avoid thinking too clearly.
She wasn’t reading. Not really.
Her gaze had blurred somewhere between the words and the shadows dancing along the Persian rug.
Her thoughts had long since retreated from fiction, rerouted toward the memory that had begun to haunt her: his mouth on hers, rough and hungry, as if he’d been trying to silence something in himself with every kiss.
She hadn’t stopped thinking about it.
Not for a second.
She closed the book.
The door creaked open gently.
Emma’s head appeared around it, hair slightly mussed, cheeks still flushed from wine and laughter.
“There you are,” she said softly, stepping inside.
“I thought you’d left?” Lydia asked.
Emma sat across from her, kicking off her slippers and curling one leg beneath her skirts. She looked unusually serious.
“I wanted to talk with you,” she said.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
“He’s not easy,” Emma said gently. “I could sense the tension between you two tonight.”
Lydia said nothing, a lump rising in her throat.
Emma’s eyes were kind, but steady. “I can’t say I am too experienced in the world of men, or marriages,” she admitted.
“But I want you to be careful. Men like him, they live in fortresses built out of silence. Stone walls and sharp edges. They only let you close enough to admire the gates, never to see what’s inside. ”
Again, Lydia remained silent.
Emma leaned forward slightly, her voice still soft. “It’s clear to see that he is used to being the one in control. And when that slips—even for a second—it turns into anger. Or coldness. Or… walls again.”
Lydia swallowed hard.
Emma looked at her for a long moment. “Just… be careful. If you fall for him before he lets you in—before you even know if he truly sees you—it’ll break you.”
Lydia let out a small breath, trying to sound amused. “You make it sound like a cautionary tale.”
“I’m a merchant’s daughter, too,” Emma said simply. “We don’t get the luxury of heartbreak. We survive. That’s what we do.”
Lydia looked away, because inside, she already knew.
She’d known from the moment he kissed her in the pavilion.
From the heat in his touch and the contradiction in his voice when he told her she wasn’t ready for the things he wanted.
He’d said it with a tremor of pain in his throat, like he believed it—believed he was too much. Or maybe believed she wasn’t enough.
And still… she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
The way his jaw clenched when he was holding something in, and the low rasp of his voice when he lost control. The feel of his hand, firm and sure, sliding over the curve of her waist like he was afraid of forgetting it.
She felt it all, again and again, like a match struck in her blood.
The truth, which she couldn't even admit to herself, wasn’t that she was falling. She’d already fallen, and there was no safety in it. No certainty. Just a long drop and the ache of not knowing if he’d catch her.
She turned back to Emma, forcing a thin smile.
“I will be careful,” she promised.
Emma reached out and gave her hand a soft squeeze. “Just… don’t let his silence convince you that you don’t matter. You’re braver than he knows.”
Lydia nodded. But the words didn’t stick.
Because brave or not, she wasn’t sure what came next.
Only that she’d walked into this marriage thinking she could keep her heart behind glass.
Protected. Untouchable. But now, she wasn’t sure there was anything left between them but heat and silence. And both were slowly burning her alive.
***
The east corridor was cooler than the rest of the house, lined with narrow windows that let in soft grey light. Lydia’s slippers whispered across the parquet floor as she made her way toward the linen closet, one hand trailing lightly along the panelled wall.
Her gown was simple this morning, cream muslin with tiny, embroidered roses at the sleeves, but her shoulders were square, and her chin was high.
She had decided, quietly and without ceremony, that she would no longer apologize for existing in this house.
Even if it was built to remind her she didn’t belong.
As she neared the stairwell, she caught sight of a young maid, no more than seventeen, red-haired and thin-lipped, emerging from a side door with a bundle of bed linens folded haphazardly over one arm.