She should apologize. She should confess. She should explain how foolish she had been, how wrong, how?—
No. She could not begin that conversation herself. What if she misunderstood? What if hedidn’teven know she’d been there? It was best not to blunder into humiliation until absolutely necessary.
Still, she could not ignore the tension radiating from the other end of the table. She had always been unable to sit quietly while someone she cared about suffered, even when she wasn’t sure whether that someone cared back.
Finally, mustering her courage, Hazel looked up.
“You seem unsettled this evening,” she said softly. “Are you quite well?”
Greyson paused, his fork halfway to his plate. He looked at her fully then, without hiding his gaze.
“I am well,” he said slowly. “Nothing is wrong.”
Relief flickered through her, brief and foolish.
Then, he shifted in his chair. “But… something is different.”
Hazel blinked, her stomach fluttering with equal parts dread and anticipation.
Oh no. He knows.
He knew she had been in his study. He knew she had gone to the townhouse. He knew she had met his mother. He knew she had behaved like an absolute lunatic, driven by jealousy and heartbreak.
She lowered her eyes. “If I did anything to trouble you…” She hesitated. “You may tell me.”
She was ready for his disappointment. She was ready for his displeasure. She was ready for the moment he said:You had no right.
“You did not trouble me,” he suddenly told her. “In fact… quite the opposite.” Greyson set down his fork with deliberate care, not taking his eyes off of her. “Howdidyou find out where my mother was?”
Hazel froze. There it was, the question she had been dreading; the same question she had foolishly hoped might never come.
Her cheeks warmed instantly. “I, well… I…” She cleared her throat, attempting to summon the composure of a duchess rather than the flustered creature she currently was. “It was… quite simple, really.”
One of his brows lifted.
She could not lie, but neither could she admit she had been tearing apart his study in a jealous frenzy. So, she chose… a strategic truth.
“I was in your study,” she began, trying very hard not to shrink into her chair, “looking for a particular book.”
Greyson’s expression did not change, but something in his eyes glinted as though he strongly doubted she had been pursuing literature at the time.
Hazel continued, forging ahead before she lost her nerve. “And I… happened to come across a letter… a lease, rather, for a townhouse in London.”
She forced a tiny laugh that sounded terribly like a squeak. “Quite a significant sum, actually.”
Greyson did not blink, but his entire posture sharpened. “And what,” he asked very quietly, “did you think that payment meant?”
Hazel flushed so deeply she feared she might spontaneously combust.
She inhaled, straightened her spine, and because it was the only way to get through this, she simply said it.
“I thought you had a mistress.”
Greyson stared at her.
Hazel rushed on before he could speak. “And I thought, well, if Ididhave to face her, I would prefer to do so sooner rather than later, because I cannot abide uncertainty, and I did not want rumors forming behind my back and if shewerewicked, then that would be dreadful, of course, but if she were perfectly lovely then I suppose that would be even worse, because then I would feel rather horrid about hating her when she probably didn’t deserve it?—”
“Hazel,” Greyson murmured.
