The world was not beautiful until you existed in it.
Yours, Always
There was no signature. But he did not need one. Oscar knew only one thing: He would find the man who wrote those words. And when he did, he would make him suffer.
CHAPTER 34
“Iheard His Grace did not return until well past two in the morning. Two!” The voice, sharp as a paring knife, came from the portrait gallery as Nancy crossed the upper hallway.
She slowed, wary. The next words fell in a delicious, conspiratorial murmur. “They say the Duke has a new mistress. London-bred, I wager. Who else would dare?”
“They call him the Rake Duke for a reason,” said a second, more skeptical. “Did anyone truly think he’d give up his pleasures for a Scottish wildcat?”
There was a gasp—a genuine, delighted thing—followed by the hush that always preceded the juiciest morsel. “It’s every evening now. Last week, he missed supper three times. The poor Duchess. She’s too clever by half, but you cannot outwit a man like that. He’ll always chase what doesn’t belong to him.”
“And yet—” This was the third, the youngest, barely more than a giggle. “Did you not hear? The Duchess herself might have a lover. There are letters.”
A beat of silence, then: “Then they are fit for each other!” And all three dissolved into laughter.
Nancy pressed herself flat to the wall, stomach flipping. She had thought herself inured to the sound of servants’ gossip—had even cultivated a kind of pride in her notoriety, as if it were a badge—but today it cut.Oscar and a mistress. It’s not possible. He hardly has time for himself, much less the energy to keep two women on a string.
Still. There was something about the way the words landed, the oily certainty in the first girl’s voice, that left Nancy cold.
She ducked down the side stairs, moving fast enough that her slippers barely kissed the treads. In her office, she found the world exactly as she’d left it: ledgers stacked with the fragile neatness of a house of cards, a cold cup of tea ringed with scum, a thin dusting of chalk on the handle of her chair from Clara’s last attempt at arithmetic. Nancy sat, hands folded, and told herself to forget the gallery entirely.
You have work to do. You are not a child, to be wounded by rumors and kitchen tales. Oscar has his flaws—too many, some days—but he is not an imbecile.
She reached for her correspondence. Most was routine: an inquiry from the grocer about next month’s preserves, anote from the Women’s Group inviting her to a lecture on Enlightenment philosophy, a thick packet of legal documents requiring nothing but a signature.
At the bottom of the stack, she found a single envelope in heavy cream paper, addressed not to herself but to Oscar, the Duke of Scarfield.
Nancy frowned. This happened, sometimes—Wilks was nearly blind and the new footman even more so—but Oscar’s private mail rarely found its way to her desk. She was about to set it aside when her nose caught the faintest aroma of rose.
The envelope was sealed, but the scent was thick and cloying. She held it to the light: the hand was small, careful, but determined, every word pressed into the paper as if to leave a bruise.
Against her better judgment, Nancy slid a finger under the flap and broke the seal.
The letter inside was folded thrice, and the paper itself was pink—an expensive affectation, even among the titled. The writing was a flowing, continental script. Nancy read:
My Dearest Scarfield,
The hours we spent together last evening are already imprinted on my memory, and I find myself longing for the warmth of your embrace even now. The ruby necklace is exquisite; everytime I see myself in the glass, I think only of your hands fastening it round my throat.
I wish you would not wait so long to come to me again. I fear your little Duchess will soon discover how skillfully you balance duty and pleasure.
Your ever-devoted,
—S
Nancy let the paper fall onto the desk. She stared at it, willing it to burst into flames, or perhaps turn out to be a page from some terrible play. Instead, it lay there, heavy as a stone. The rose scent clung to her hands, to her sleeves, wormed its way into her nose until she wanted to sneeze.
No. It’s a joke. Or a trap. Or one of Adrian’s infernal pranks, designed to make Oscar look the fool. This cannot be real.
Except for the necklace. The ruby. Last week, Oscar had brought home a necklace—she’d seen the box, deep red velvet, hidden among his ledgers. He had said it was a gift for an associate’s wife, a token of gratitude for some political favor. Nancy had not thought twice; Oscar was always cultivating allies, always three moves ahead.
She looked at the letter again.
Every time I see myself in the glass…
