“Pray for me,” she pleaded, attempting a smile. “Pray that my mother chooses me. Pray that I find the courage to leave, if she does. And pray that I can bear to say farewell to whatever small pleasure I have found along the way.”
Arabella stood up and embraced her tightly. “I will pray for a miracle,” she whispered.
Eleanor rose as well, more restrained, but when she took Gwen’s hand, her grip was firm. “I will pray for clear roads and unbroken wheels,” she promised. “Miracles are fickle. Practicalities are less so.”
Gwen laughed through her tears. “Between the two of you, perhaps I shall reach something like safety.”
She left their house with the weight of decision pressing down on her shoulders, but also with a strange, flickering hope.
She had friends. She had a mother to fight for. She had a few nights left in which to feel something other than fear. And somewhere in the city, a man who had been only a dangerous arrangement now occupied too much of her thoughts.
The carriage jolted as it turned from Berkeley Square onto South Audley, the horses snorting clouds of pale mist into the dim afternoon.
Gwen exhaled slowly, pressing her gloved hands together in her lap. The conversation with Arabella and Eleanor replayed in her mind over and over, each word tugging at another until she felt quite undone.
She leaned back, closing her eyes for one blessed moment of stillness. Something crackled beneath her spine.
Her eyes flew open. She straightened, her brow furrowing, and reached behind her. At first, her fingers met only the velvet squab of the seat. Then, tucked between the cushion and the carriage wall, her fingertips brushed the edge of folded parchment.
Her breath caught.
No one should have been in the carriage but her. No one should have placed anything there without her knowledge.
She pulled out the note carefully, the sealless paper heavy and fine beneath her fingers.
Victor.
Her pulse quickened. She hesitated for only a heartbeat before unfolding it.
My Lady,
Tonight was mine to miss. Tomorrow shall not be.
My hunting lodge at midnight. My man will collect you from Greystone House.
You owe me night four.
V.
Gwen closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath.
Victor should not write to her. He should not know where or how to place such a note. He should not demand anything of her, not when her future teetered like a blade.
She pressed the folded parchment to her chest. She should refuse. She should pull back before the thread between them drew taut enough to break her.
But she already knew she would go.
God help her, she would go.
CHAPTER 13
The lodge stood a mile beyond the city’s noisy edge, where the last straggle of houses gave way to fields and a thin line of dark trees. It had once been a modest hunting box, built by some practical forebear who disliked the endless journey to the northern estate when he wished only for a quiet fire and a brace of pheasants.
Victor had improved it over the years. The stone walls were sound, the windows well glazed, the roof sealed against the weather. Inside, the rooms were simple yet comfortably appointed, with a small library, a drawing room, and a bedchamber few had ever seen.
It was useful for seclusion. For conversations that did not belong to town. For arrangements that could not be seen passing through the front door of Greystone House.
He had sent precise instructions that afternoon. The note to his footman contained one line:meet Lady G at the garden gate at half past eleven and escort her to the carriage.No fanfare. Novisible crest on the door. Only a dark, well-sprung vehicle and a driver paid as much for his discretion as his skill.
