Chapter Fifteen
The morning sun cut through the library windows in slats of gold and dust.
Nicholas sat at his desk, a pen in his hand, staring at the same ledger page he’d been reading for nearly half an hour. The ink had long since dried. The numbers blurred.
It was useless.
His body was here, in Hawthorne House. But his mind? That was still in the warehouse. Still pressed against Lydia, inhaling the soft floral scent of her skin. The warmth and wetness of her.
He looked down at his fingers, remembering how it felt to be inside of her. Still hearing the sounds of her voice as she came. The way her body arched with pleasure. The pleasure he had given her.
God help him.
He dropped the pen with a soft clatter.
This was a mistake. All of it. He wasn’t ready to get close to someone again. Not after he had been burned so many times.
Yet he kept making mistakes, because whenever he was around her, he couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t reason with himself or remind himself of all those times he’d been hurt.
He ran a hand through his hair and stood abruptly, pacing in front of the hearth.
Every time he closed his eyes, he could feel her again.
The silk of her dress beneath his hands. The exact moment her breath caught in her throat and her lips parted—not in protest, but surrender.
And yet, it hadn’t been a conquest. Not like before.
It had been... something else. Something that had stayed with him. Wrapped around his ribs like a wire, tightening with every breath.
Nothing has changed, he told himself. It was just curiosity. Tension. A release.
But the lie felt brittle.
Something had changed. Because now, he couldn't stop thinking about her.
Not just the curve of her neck or the way her eyes fluttered shut when he whispered against her skin. But the steel beneath her softness. The quickness of her wit. The way she took up space in a room without apology.
He had touched her in a way no one else had ever touched her—and she’d let him. Not because he demanded it. Not because it was owed. But because she wanted to, and because she trusted him. And trust was a currency he hadn’t had in years.
“Damn it,” he muttered, moving to the window.
Below, the garden stretched out in neat rows. Somewhere, a gardener clipped hedges in a steady rhythm. Servants passed between the kitchen and the east wing. Everything appeared as it always had.
But he felt... off-kilter.
Unmoored.
***
Later that same day, Nicholas had just closed the folio on a finalized supplier contract, one Lydia had negotiated with surgical precision, when the door to his study burst open without so much as a knock.
He didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
“I see the concept of knocking remains foreign to you,” he muttered.
“Spare me the sarcasm,” said Beatrice, sweeping in like the winter wind in full plum-coloured satin. “You’ve a guest arriving within the hour.”
Nicholas stilled. “What guest?”
“Miss Victoria Allendale.”
His pen froze mid-scratch. Slowly, he lifted his head. “Come again?”
Beatrice didn’t blink. “She’ll be joining us for supper.”
The name echoed through him like a cracked bell. He hadn’t heard it spoken aloud in years. Not since the last time Victoria had written—something polite and hollow and long after she’d chosen the approval of society over a future with him.
“Why,” he said evenly, “is Miss Victoria Allendale coming to my house?”
His aunt’s expression tightened. “Because I invited her.”
He rose from his chair, slow and deliberate. “Without consulting me?”
“This is still my home too,” she said crisply. “And might I remind you, Nicholas, that when your father died and left this family in ruin, I supported the household with my own money—quietly, discreetly—until you found your footing?”
“My footing,” he said through his teeth, “was pulled from beneath me the day he passed me a title wrapped in scandal and debt.”
His aunt didn’t flinch.
“Victoria is an old friend,” she continued. “She’s elegant. Connected. She comes from a line unmarred by disgrace.”
“And she walked away from me the moment it mattered.”
The words were out before he could check them. His voice low. Cold.
Beatrice’s gaze narrowed. “She was a child. So were you.”
“No,” he said flatly. “She was a coward. And I have no use for cowards.”
Silence settled between them for a moment, taut and unpleasant.
“You’re married now,” Beatrice said finally, lifting her chin. “And I know what that marriage is. You may lie to the rest of London, but I see through it.”
“You see what you want to see.”
“I see a merchant’s daughter with no dowry worth that name, whose arrival in this house has sent your staff into disarray and your reputation into speculation. And now, instead of managing that—”
“I am managing it,” he snapped. “I’m rebuilding the estate. I’m settling the debts. And I’m doing it with a woman who, unlike Victoria, didn’t flinch when the walls started to fall.”
Beatrice’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “You can’t erase lineage with cleverness, Nicholas.”
“No,” he said. “But perhaps cleverness will keep this house from collapsing under the weight of its own pride.”
They stood in silence as the clock on the mantel ticked, loud and insistent.
“Regardless,” she said at last, smoothing a hand over her gloves, “she’s on her way. It’s too late to undo it now. You’ll be civil.”
Nicholas turned back to his desk, jaw tight. “I’m always civil.”
“And your wife?”
That made him glance back, sharply.
“Does she know about Victoria?”
“No,” he said. “And there’s no time to warn her.”
A beat passed.
“Then this will be...interesting,” said Beatrice, before sweeping from the room.
Nicholas stood still for a long moment, fists clenched at his sides.
He hadn’t thought of Victoria in years. Not seriously. Whatever sentiment had once existed between them had long since withered into a vague bitterness. A footnote in the story of his ruin.
He didn’t want her back. But his Aunt had invited her with purpose. She’s invited Victoria to remind him of what she considered a suitable match. And perhaps, to show Lydia that this house still played by noble rules.
Damn her for it. He knew his Aunt still hoped for an annulment, but she was playing a dangerous game.
He moved to the window, staring out toward the drive.
If Victoria was already en route, it would be moments, moments, before she arrived. And disrupted the tender beginnings of something delicate and precious in his marriage.
Nicholas exhaled through his nose as the servants rang the dinner bell.
***
The sound of the carriage wheels hadn’t even faded before the front doors opened with theatrical grace.
Miss Victoria Allendale swept into Hawthorne House as if the last ten years had not happened.
Her dress was a confection of pale green silk. It was much too fine for a quiet supper, too loud for someone pretending this visit was casual. Feathers fluttered from her hat like a dying swan, and pearls dripped from her ears to her collarbone in precise little rows.
“Nicholas,” she cooed, as if they hadn’t parted under silence and shame, “you’ve grown even more handsome.”
Before he could speak, she leaned in, bold as ever, and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
He flinched.
Subtle, but she felt it. Her lashes flicked.
“Still so shy,” she whispered, lips too close to his ear. “I always did find it charming.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he merely offered her a nod and stepped back. Further than necessary.
This is a performance, he told himself. And like all performances, it will end.
Just then, Nicholas heard the soft tread of footsteps on the stairs, just a heartbeat before Lydia entered the room.
He turned as she stepped through the threshold. She kept her shoulders straight, chin lifted, every inch the duchess she had trained herself to be. She wore a gown the colour of burnished copper, and it caught the light like fire stitched into fabric.
For a moment, he forgot everything.
Until Victoria opened her mouth.
“Ah,” she said with saccharine delight. “Here she is.”
He saw Lydia pause. A subtle tightening around the mouth, a flicker of suspicion in her eyes.
“You must be the new Duchess,” Victoria said, crossing the room as though she already owned it. “It’s such a pleasure. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“How flattering,” Lydia replied, coolly. “I confess I hadn’t heard of you at all.”
Victoria’s smile tightened by a thread.
“I’m Miss Allendale,” she said. “Miss Victoria Allendale.”
Lydia glanced at Nicholas, but he couldn’t meet her eye.
Victoria’s laugh was practiced and light. “Oh, well, I’m sure Nicky didn’t mention me. He always was terribly discreet about… personal matters.”
A muscle twitched in Nicholas’s jaw.
Beatrice, settled like a hawk on the edge of the settee and raised her teacup with the air of someone enjoying a particularly well-written play.
“Victoria is an old friend of the family,” his aunt said. “She’s practically one of us.”
“That was a very long time ago,” Nicholas added tightly.
Nicholas looked at Lydia, who didn’t speak as she held her smile in place. But it had changed. Smoothed into something impassive and distant. Polite in the way one might be to a rival ambassador. When she looked at him, it was brief. A flick of her eyes. But it landed like a slap.
Damn it.
He should have warned her. But the invitation had been made behind his back, the arrival earlier than expected. And now the damage was done.
Just then, the door opened again behind them.
“I hope I’m not late,” came Sebastian’s voice.
He stepped inside, looking faintly windblown and slightly smug, as always, until his eyes landed on Victoria.
“Good God,” he muttered, blinking. “Is that Miss Victoria Allendale?”
“Charmed to see you again, Lord Greaves,” she purred, turning smoothly toward him.
“Not what I’d call it,” he murmured under his breath, heading toward the drinks table.
A second later, Charlotte entered, wrapped in soft blue muslin, her blonde hair pinned with ivory combs. She spotted Victoria immediately.
Her face froze.