“Oh dear,” Cordelia murmured. “That sounds dangerously like infatuation.”
“It is not,” Evelyn said, sitting up primly. “And if you continue this nonsense, I shall ride the rest of the way with my mother.”
Hazel looked positively wicked. “Your mother, who is undoubtedly dreaming up the wedding breakfast as we speak?”
“Precisely,” Cordelia added. “And trying to choose a nursery color.”
“You are both monsters,” Evelyn declared though she could not quite keep the laughter from her voice.
The worst part, of course, was not their teasing. It was that they weren’t entirely wrong.
But she would never,ever, admit that aloud.
The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel drive, and Evelyn felt the familiar jolt as they slowed to a stop. Before the footman could fully lower the step, Cordelia had leaned toward the window with a soft gasp.
“Oh,” she breathed silently to herself. “It’s magnificent.”
The door was opened, and the three young women descended into sunlight and wind, which was brisk and cool and touched faintly by pine and heather. Evelyn’s slippers met the gravel as her eyes lifted at once to the estate before her.
She could not help it. Her breath caught.
The Duke’s estate, set like a crown jewel atop the northern hills, rose with an elegance that was both regal and ancient. It was not gaudy nor newly built with fashionable excess. No, it stood with the quiet power of something that had endured.
It boasted grey stone walls veined with ivy, soaring gables, arched windows glinting like eyes. There were turrets and chimneys, and high above, carved cornices and sweeping iron balconies. It should have felt severe, but it did not. It was… breathtaking.
There was something fairy-tale-like about it all but not the sort of tale filled with bright gowns and tinkling laughter. No, this was the realm of tangled woods and whispered secrets, of old magic and deep-rooted sorrow. There was a kind of darkness to it, subtle and compelling, like the final chord of a melancholy sonata.
And yet, everywhere she looked there were signs of care, of devotion, even.
The hedges were trimmed to perfection, the rose garden bursting with color even this early in the season, and the path winding toward the house was lined with young trees which were now rustling gently in the breeze. The land had not simply been maintained… it had beenloved.
Evelyn tilted her chin and scanned the grounds with narrowing eyes. Of course, he would be the sort of man who saw to the health of every hedge and seedling. That was exactly the sort of infuriating contradiction he embodied: commanding and cavalier in conversation, but with a secret, steadfast tenderness that was visible only when one wasn’t meant to be looking.
Evelyn felt it like a jolt. It was sharp and sudden, rising from somewhere in her chest. An idea, full and gleaming, taking root in an instant. Yes. That was it. That was exactly how she would end this charade once and for all.
She straightened, lips parting to share it, then stopped.
Hazel and Cordelia were no longer looking at her. Their expressions had shifted, their gazes pinned beyond her shoulder. Cordelia’s smile had faltered, a glimmer of something uncertain dancing across her features. Hazel’s brows had drawn together. Evelyn turned slowly… and froze.
At the base of the steps, in conversation with a liveried steward, stood the Duke. He was as tall and composed as ever, one hand gloved, the other gesturing as he spoke. But she barely saw him.
Everything else vanished.
There were two figures beside him. One of them a woman in soft blue silk, honey-blonde hair swept into a perfect chignon, the very image of composure. The other…him.
Evelyn couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Even the breeze seemed to shift. Distantly, she heard the Duke speak.
“Your sister and her husband arrived a bit earlier than expected,” he explained. “So, it appears we are all here now.”
The sound was muffled in her ears. All she could hear,trulyhear, was the pulse pounding in her skull.
He was exactly as she remembered. No. He wasworse. Somehow more smug. More assured. The cut of his coat, the ease of his posture, the tilt of his chin as his dark, demonic eyes met hers.
He smiled. A slow, knowing, arrogant smile.
Her hands clenched at her sides before she knew they’d moved. She could feel her nails pressing into her palms. She could feel the heat crawling up her neck. Her mouth was dry.
She couldn’t look at her sister. She wouldn’t. Not yet.
