Crewelingered there.
He was alone. The servants had moved on, the other guests had vanished, and he remained like a figure in a painting, silhouetted against the fading candlelight. His posture was as rigid as it had been all evening, but there was something different in the angle of his head and the set of his shoulders.
Their eyes met, and Alice felt the weight of it—something vulnerable. Something that resembled the uncertainty coiling in her own chest.
For a long moment, neither moved.
Then Crewe turned away, stepping back into the shadows. Alice lingered in the dim corridor, enveloped by the night and the faint scent of extinguished wax.
She walked to her chamber, entered without summoning her maid, and stood at the window, gazing out at the grounds below.
What wounds lay beneath Crewe’s carefully maintained facade?
And why did she find herself yearning, against all better judgment, to know?
CHAPTER 5
The gardens of Oakford Hall wore the morning like a debutante wore pearls—draped in extravagance, as if beauty required no effort. Alice moved along the gravel path, her skirts gathered enough to clear the dew-wet grass, breathing in the cool air that smelled of roses and fresh earth. The house party had barely survived breakfast. Guests drifted to their various amusements, and she escaped before anyone could conscript her into writing letters, or worse, discussing ribbons.
The night had not been restful. She had stood too long at her window, watching the moonlit lawns, her thoughts circling like moths around a flame she could not name. Clara's warning lodged beneath her ribs like a splinter,He carries too much regret.Her ownwords from the game, those unbidden syllables about forgiveness, returned to her in the dark hours with uncomfortable persistence.
Alice shook her head, as if she might dislodge the memory. The morning was too fine for such brooding. A thrush sang somewhere in the hedgerow, and the roses along the south border had begun to open their first blooms of the season. Large, champagne-colored flowers, heavy-headed and fragrant.
She paused to examine a particularly magnificent specimen when laughter pierced the air.
It was not pleasant laughter. Years spent in ballrooms and drawing rooms had taught her the difference between genuine mirth and its crueler cousin, the bright, brittle sound that signaled someone was being made sport of. She turned her head, tracking the noise to a gap in the clipped boxwood hedge, and moved toward it with the instincts of a cat that had heard a mouse.
Through the ornamental archway, she found them.
Lady Harrowby and Miss Penelope Satterthwaite stood at the center of the rose garden's inner circle, positioned like judges at a tribunal. Their gowns were impeccable. One was in striped muslin that must have cost her father a quarter's income, the other in pale yellow with lace so delicate it looked asif it might dissolve in the morning damp. Their expressions matched their finery—polished, superior, and contempt arranged into smiles.
Before them stood their victim.
The young woman, perhaps nineteen, was slight and unassuming in a serviceable brown dress that had been fashionable three seasons ago. Her hair was pinned with more practicality than style, and she clutched a small leather-bound volume to her chest as if it were a shield. Her face flushed with humiliation, her eyes downcast, her shoulders curving inward.
"Quite remarkable, really," the one in stripes said, her voice carrying with practiced clarity. "I had thought plain dressing was a choice, but I see now it must be a calling. Like becoming a nun, but without the advantage of the veil."
Her companion laughed, a sharp sound that echoed in the garden. "Some creatures should stay in the country where they belong. The gardens there are more forgiving of weeds."
The young woman in brown flinched as if struck.
Something inside Alice turned cold and still.
She recognized that flinch. Years ago, she had experienced it herself when she was young and foolish enough to believe that cruelty was deserved. Before she had decided that if she must be judged,she would at least give them something interesting to judge.
Her spine straightened, and her chin lifted as she stepped through the archway with deliberate grace.
"Good morning," she said, her voice bright. "What a surprise to find such lively conversation so early. I thought I was the only one awake before ten."
The fashionable pair turned, their expressions shifting from surprise to calculation. Alice was not someone to be dismissed. Her family was too established, her connections too useful, her tongue too dangerous. They arranged their faces into something resembling welcome.
"Lady Alice," the one in yellow managed. "We were just?—"
"Discussing botany, I believe." Alice swept past them with a smile that revealed too many teeth. "How fortunate that Miss Winters is here." She turned to the young woman in brown, whose face had gone from flushed to pale. "My dear Miss Winters, I have been hoping to find you. Lady Oakford mentioned your expertise in flora, and I am desperate for someone to tell me whether that alarming growth near the fountain is meant to be there or if the gardener has simply given up hope."
Miss Winters opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
Alice linked her arm through the young woman's with the ease of old friendship. "Do say you'll come look with me. I cannot tell an iris from a lily without assistance, and I refuse to embarrass myself further by asking one of the gentlemen. They know even less than I do and won't admit it."
