It was the same now, in the wake of Somerset’s declaration.
This is going to hurt, Eliza thought vaguely, though in that moment, she could feel only shock.
“Excuse me?” she said, very politely.
“Eliza,” Melville said, “that is not precisely true—”
“She is still Lady Somerset to you, Melville,” Somerset snapped.
“Excuse me?” Eliza said again, of them both.
“When Lord and Lady Selwyn came to Bath in February,” Somerset said, still glaring at Melville rather than looking at her, “they devised an awful plan, to incite you into impropriety great enough that I would be forced to remove your fortune. They thought it likely you would be susceptible to an unpropitious flirtation, that I would react strongly given our history, and that Melville was just desperate enough to help them.”
Eliza felt herself sway slightly. She looked over to Melville.
“Is that true?” she asked. “You . . . volunteered your services?”
Melville shook his head fervently.
“No,” he said. “It was not—not like that. They visited me to discuss patronage, and we . . . brokered a deal, yes, but I did not know about the morality clause, I swear it. All they told me was that I should draw your affections away from Somerset, to court you publicly—and I did not think twice, because truly it was not the least burdensome. I would have done it anyway.”
“When was this?” Eliza said. She was not sure why it mattered, why such detail had any relevance, only that she needed to know. “When did they visit you?”
“The evening of your dinner party,” Melville said, reluctantly. “They sent a note around afterward—it was still early. I met Selwyn for a drink.”
“You were in such high spirits that Sunday,” Eliza remembered, with an awful, sinking feeling in her chest. “And—and that was when you began writing again. So . . . it was not my influence that caused such a change. It was theirs.”
“Can it not be both?” Melville said, lifting his arms a little as if he wished to touch her—then dropping them.
“Everything from that moment on was a deception,” Eliza said wonderingly.
“No, no, I swear—my motives may have been complex at first, but everything I said, everything we spoke of, it was because I wanted to. That was always me, all along.”
“I could not believe it, either, my lady,” Somerset said, contempt in his eyes as he looked at Melville. “Until my sister showed me the letters exchanged between them, I did not even think he could stoop to such low behavior.”
Somerset had seen proof then. It was not just Lady Selwyn’s word for it. There had been proof.
Melville was still staring at Eliza.
“It was always me,” he whispered again.
“I should have known better than to expect more from a man who has never completed an honest day of work in his life,” Somerset went on.
“Dear God, man, you served in the navy—we know,” Melville said, his silence breaking as he looked angrily over to Somerset. “If you should like a pat on the back, you may simply ask, there is no need to continually remind everyone!”
Somerset stepped forward, fists clenched. Melville did not move away.
“Oh, are you going to hit me?” he said. “And what do you imagine that will achieve?”
“I imagine it would make me feel better,” Somerset said through gritted teeth.
They were standing almost eye to eye, now, chest to chest. Eliza watched them as if she was standing a very great distance away. Once again, it was as if she were not here.
“All this time,” Eliza heard herself saying. “All this time, you have been working for the Selwyns?”
Melville blinked away from the stare he was holding with Somerset.
“No!” he exclaimed. He made as if to move toward her, but Somerset’s hand barred his way. He batted it aside but stayed where he was. “No. I ended the agreement as soon as you told me about the morality clause.”
He looked back to Somerset.
“Lady Selwyn will have told you that, will she not?” he said. “That I ended the agreement?”
“That is not what she said,” Somerset said.
“Liar,” Melville said, shaking his head. “You and her, both.”
“Who else knew?” Eliza asked. “Caroline?”
She imagined the pair of them, cloistered together and sniggering.
“No,” Melville said. “Caroline does not know.”
“And is that why you were so eager for me to paint your portrait?”
“The first time I asked,” Melville said, “it was before the scheme had ever been mentioned.”
“But after . . .”
Melville hesitated, and in doing so dashed an ugly black line through all of Eliza’s halcyon memories of his regard, his respect, each of the portrait sittings now tainted beyond repair by this horrible new perspective. She felt, in that moment, as small as she had ever done. She had had it all wrong again. You foolish girl, she heard the old earl whisper in her mind. You foolish girl.
“Every time you offered your escort,” Eliza said with dawning horror. “Every time you complimented, or flattered, or dared me into behaving carelessly . . .”
“It sounds so much worse than it was,” Melville entreated. “My motives were not so reprehensible: I wanted to know you, to spend time with you, I truly did.”
Eliza was shaking her head as if to clear her ears of water. Her mind was running through every single interaction that they had shared: their friendship, their flirtation, his encouragement, time and time again, to flout the constraints of her mourning. The clues had been there the whole time. None of it had been real.
“What a fool I have been,” she whispered. “You never cared for me.”
The pain came now. Throbbing through her in time with her heart, and with it came anger hotter than any she had ever known.
“I do,” Melville said desperately. “It was just that—”
“As soon as I heard the news,” Somerset interrupted Melville, “I knew I had to tell you. That is why I returned early.”
“Oh, how dare you,” Eliza began. Somerset nodded his head grimly, looking to Melville. “No, how dare you!” She jabbed a finger at Somerset. “How dare you sit here and lecture me on propriety, when it is your sister that has been behaving so wickedly. How dare you! If I were to tell people, what they have been planning, it is not I who would be castigated!”