Her face went white as the rope of opals knotted around her neck.
“Julian,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Address me by my title. And spare me your excuses. What you have done will expose a place that deliberately operates in darkness because it is a sanctuary to people who the men and women ranting outside my door believe belong in hell for something that harms no one. People who are dear to me may be exposed in consequence, and people whose livelihoods depend on the discretion the place offers may suffer, and for what? So that the public may have the joy of righteous disapproval?”
He said this with extra pointedness, for Lady Constance Stonewell, the most rebellious young woman in all of London, was famously dismissive of conforming to society’s expectations. That a woman who welcomed opera girls and dancing bears into her drawing room could display the precise combination of prurience and prudishness that drove people like himself into the shadows was an act of hypocrisy difficult to fathom.
She’d always mocked him for being careful with appearances. But people like her were the reason people like him needed to be careful.
“I suppose,” she said quietly, looking even more miserable than she had when he’d made her read her poem, “that I didn’t consider … that it did not occur to me …”
He held up a hand. “Just hear this, Constance. I’ll go along with your plan for the sake of my family and my reputation. For the sake of my friends who will be endangered if these rumors continue unabated. But when this farce is over, regardless of where you go or what you do, you will do it without my friendship.”
She chewed her cheek, looking absolutely shaken.
“I understand,” she finally said. “And you have my word.”
“Fine.” He rose feeling stiff and empty, like his soul had given up and left his body in defeat.
“I’ll print rumors of our engagement in my circular to get the ladies talking, and we’ll convince my brother of our love tomorrow night at the Rosecrofts’ supper.”
He nodded. “I’ll get you a litter.”
He went outside and found two burly chairmen idling on the Strand, and led them up the stairs to the entry hall. Constance was waiting in the vestibule, her pretty gown soiled at the knees from kneeling on his floorboards.
She picked up her skirts and stepped into the sedan chair, drawing yards of cloth around her collapsed panniers so that it looked as though she were a princess nestled in a cloud of silk.
He looked away and nodded at the chairmen to remove her.
Constance stuck her head out the window of the conveyance. “Apthorp?”
Her blue eyes were misty and her cheeks were mottled pink.
“Yes?”
“You’re right. I see that now. And I’m truly very sorry.” Her voice broke, and before he could react, she closed the curtains.
His heart lunged painfully and he inhaled against the urge to pull the curtains open, smash his forehead to hers, and tell her that he would forgive her anything because the sight of her in tears did something to his organs that made it difficult to breathe.
But that was the gesture of the kind of man he could no longer afford to be.
And so instead he turned his back and walked inside so he wouldn’t have to hear her muffled sobs.
He had four weeks.
Four weeks to save his life.
Four weeks to learn how to stop loving Constance Stonewell.
Chapter 4
Yesterday I wrote in error
About that lord with golden hair—
The claims about his sullied hide
Were invented by a foe who lied
In a scheme designed to kill
Lord Golden’s most right-minded bill.
I must ask forgiveness of Lord G—
For subjecting him to mockery
And wish his lordship much felicity
In his future domesticity!
For one hears from sources very sound
He’s betrothed to eighty thousand pounds.
Some call her the loveliest girl in town,
With her silver tresses and cunning gowns
(A claim that one cannot rebuke,
For she’s the sister of a duke).
So here’s to Golden and his bride—
With apologies to his wronged backside!
—LETTERS FROM PRINCESS COSIMA
Apthorp checked the knot of his cravat as he stood before the Rosecrofts’ town house door.
Still exact.
He glanced at his gloves to ensure they had not collected dirt during the walk to Mayfair from the Strand.
Still pristine.
He made a final inspection of his cuffs—still impeccable—and cursed himself for stalling.
His valet had taken pains to return him to his usual standards of appearance. That he felt raffish and improper straight down to his liver was between him and his perfect tailoring.
He forced himself to raise his hand to the heavy iron knocker. Before his fingers touched it, the door swung open, revealing the very person he dreaded seeing more than anyone else: Constance’s brother, the Duke of Westmead.
Looking even more irritable than usual.
“Apthorp,” Westmead drawled. “I was curious how long it might take you to find the courage to actually knock at the door, but now I’ve grown bored of watching you merely stare at it. Do come in. You’ve arrived just in time. I’m absolutely itching to hit someone.”
“Your Grace.” Apthorp bowed, stepping inside the vestibule and trying to refrain from cowering at the threat.
Westmead slammed the door behind him so forcefully it echoed through the corridor and rattled the doors to the dining room thirty feet away.
No one stirred.
The house, usually a merriment of children, servants, and dogs on the evenings of the family’s weekly Monday suppers, was conspicuously silent. Apthorp glanced down the corridor, hoping for some sign of Constance. But she, the coward, was as absent as the rest of the family.
Westmead folded his arms. “Have anything to say to me?”
Apthorp cleared his throat. “Where is Lady Constance?”
The duke smiled tightly. “I imagine she is hiding, lest she be called as a witness when I am tried for shooting you.”
He sighed. “I gather you’ve heard the news.”
“No, not ‘heard,’ Apthorp, for no one saw fit to speak to me. Seen would be the word. Seen in a third-rate gazette on my way inside a coffeehouse in Shoreditch.” He smacked a palm to Apthorp’s chest and shoved him up against a wall. “Shoreditch, Apthorp. A group of fur traders were discussing news of my sister’s impending marriage to a ruined cully this afternoon in Shoreditch. And so, may I ask: what in the name of ever-living fuck could you be thinking?”
Apthorp winced. “I apologize, Your Grace. I intended to speak to you, but the gazettes got ahead of me. I submit, the situation is not ideal.”
“‘Not ideal.’ Mmm. Do you mean the bit where you cocked up the bill I’ve spent two years touting for you, or the bit where you somehow—in contravention of all sense—betrothed yourself to my sister?”
Westmead could be caustic at the happiest of times, but he was usually tightly controlled. The sheer force of his anger felt like a blow to the ribs and lingered, aching.