Hazel did not answer directly. “I love him,” she said instead, the words falling with a painful honesty she could no longer contain. “And that is precisely why I must not believe he loves me in return.”
The room stilled.
“I have spent my life enduring,” Hazel continued. “Enduring duty laid upon me without question, enduring hopes quietly surrendered and enduring the bitter knowledge that what I offered would never be returned in kind.” She lifted her gaze at last. “I have borne enough. I will not live upon scraps of affection, nor school my heart to patience any longer. If love is to be my undoing, it shall not be through endurance. I refuse to endure anything further.”
Matilda stepped closer. “Protecting yourself does not mean punishing yourself.”
“It means distance,” Hazel replied. “Which is exactly what we agreed upon at the beginning of thischarade. Distance, practicality, no illusions.”
Evelyn’s voice was tender. “And if the agreement no longer fits the truth?”
Hazel shook her head. “Then the truth must be made to fit.”
Cordelia opened her mouth, then closed it again, as frustrated tears glinted in her eyes. “You are very brave,” she said finally. “And very stubborn.”
Hazel managed a small smile. “I have always been both.”
She rose, smoothing her skirts, restoring the careful composure she had honed over the years. “I will keep my distance,” she concluded. “Not to wound him, but to preserve myself.”
Her friends exchanged looks which were knowing, worried and utterly unconvinced. And as Hazel moved back toward the window, gazing out at the familiar grounds of her childhood, she held fast to the only certainty she trusted now: love, however real, was no reason to abandon self-protection.
“I cannot believe I let you talk me into this.”
Greyson sat rigidly opposite Jasper in the carriage, with his arms crossed and his jaw set as though bracing for impact rather than a short drive across London.
Jasper, by contrast, looked insufferably pleased with himself. “You say that as though it were unusual.”
“I say it because it is a mistake,” Greyson replied flatly. “I do not require a committee to tell me I have made a mess of my own life.”
“No,” Jasper said cheerfully, tapping his cane against the floor. “You require friends. There is a difference.”
Greyson shot him a glare. “You enjoy this far too much.”
“I enjoyyoufar too much,” Jasper corrected. “You are usually so controlled. Watching you unravel is refreshingly human.”
“If you repeat that aloud when we arrive,” Greyson warned, “I will throw you from the carriage.”
Jasper laughed. “Promises, promises.”
The carriage jolted slightly as they turned a corner. Greyson stared out the window, watching the familiar streets pass by without truly seeing them.
“I should be going to her,” he muttered.
“You tried,” Jasper reminded him more gently. “She was not there, which means the next step is strategy, not martyrdom.”
Greyson exhaled sharply. “I do not strategize my marriage.”
“And yet here we are,” Jasper pointed out. “On our way to my house, where Robert will smirk knowingly, and Mason will pretend this is all terribly sensible.”
Greyson closed his eyes. “This is humiliating.”
“It is marriage,” Jasper replied. “Humiliation is part of the contract.”
That was when Greyson felt the wheels of the carriage slow down.
“Ah,” Jasper said brightly. “We’ve arrived. Prepare yourself. The husbands’ council is now in session.”
Greyson straightened, feeling resignation warring with resolve. “If this ends with Robert sayingI told you so?—”
