“She didn’t elope,” Sybil said quietly.
“Then what happened to her?”
She trusted the wrong man. She believed his promises. She paid for that trust with her life.
But she couldn’t say that. Not without revealing too much about her own fears, her own reasons for distrusting charming men who made pretty speeches.
“She found herself in an… unfortunate situation,” Sybil said carefully. “Unwed and expecting a child.”
Hugo’s expression didn’t change, but she caught the slight tension in his jaw. “And your parents?”
“Were horrified.” The bitterness in her voice surprised even her. “Not by her situation, mind you, but by the potential damage to their reputation.”
“What did they do?”
“What any respectable family does when faced with scandal.” She moved to the window, staring out at the darkened street. “They tried to make it disappear.”
“They wanted her to go away somewhere quiet and discreet, have the child, give it up for adoption, and return as if nothing had happened.” The memories came flooding back—Emmie’s tear-stained face, her desperate pleas, their parents’ cold indifference. “She refused.”
“So they cast her out.”
“They threw her out like refuse.” The words came out harsher than she’d intended. “Cut her off completely. Forbade anyone in the family from contacting her.”
Hugo was quiet for a long moment, processing this information. When he spoke again, his voice was carefully neutral.
“And you went after her.”
“I tried to.” Old guilt clawed at her chest. “But I was too late. She’d gotten ill—consumption, the physicians said. Weakened by exposure and malnutrition. By the time I found her…”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t voice the image that still haunted her dreams—Emmie lying in that squalid boarding house room, burning with fever, calling for their mother who would never come.
“She died,” Hugo said quietly.
“She died.” The words felt like confessing to murder. “Alone, frightened, abandoned by everyone who should have protected her.”
Including me. Especially me.
The silence stretched between them, heavy with the weight of old tragedy. Hugo moved closer, his footsteps silent on the carpet.
“So when you see your parents,” he said slowly, “you remember that they chose their reputation over their daughter’s life.”
“I remember that they killed her through their cruelty,” she corrected harshly. “And that they’ve spent eight years allowing everyone to believe she was some romantic fool who eloped rather than admit what they really did.”
“Which explains why you’ve avoided London society.”
“I have no desire to reconcile with murderers, no matter how hopeful they looked when you extended your invitation.”
Hugo’s expression had gone cold, calculating. “I didn’t know. About any of it. I heard the same story as everyone else—that she’d run away to Gretna Green, and you’d left London to be closer to her.”
“My parents’ version of events, no doubt.” Sybil let out a bitter laugh. “How convenient for them that everyone believes Emmie chose to disappear rather than being thrown out for inconveniencing them.”
“Christ.” The word was barely audible. “If I had known, I never would have invited them.”
“But you didn’t know because you didn’t bother to ask.” She turned to face him fully, her anger flaring bright and hot. “You simply assumed you understood the situation and acted accordingly.”
Hugo’s jaw tightened dangerously. “I was attempting to do something thoughtful.”
“Thoughtful would have been consulting me first.“
