“Thank you.” Nell offered a stiff nod, already turning away. She walked through the festival like a ghost, her feet carrying her toward the puppet show where Martha had taken the children.
She is nothing of consequence.
The words kept replaying over and over, like a wound she couldn’t stop touching.
She'd seen his face when their eyes met — the flicker of regret or surprise before his expression had shuttered completely. He’d known she was there—and he’d known she’d heard. And he’d said nothing.
She found Martha near the sweet stall. Lily was half asleep against her shoulder, while Oliver stood guard with a stick of honeyed almonds clutched in one hand.
“Mama!” Lily stirred enough to protest. She rubbed her face with a sticky fist. “We have not seen the fire eater yet!”
“Another time, love.” Nell kept her voice steady as she took Lily’s small hand. “Mama is tired.”
Oliver studied her face. He said nothing. He slipped his free hand into hers and held on tight.
The boy had never asked about his father. He knew Gabriel was dead. He knew, in the way children know things they are never told, that the man had hurt her. He had seen it in the way she flinched when a door slammed too hard, the way she checked the locks three times every night, the way she went rigid when a man stood too close. He had pieced together the shape of the monster without ever being shown its face. And he had decided, somewhere in the quiet of his own small heart, that no man would ever hurt her again.
They walked home together through the quiet streets. Martha carried Lily, whose protests had faded into soft, rhythmic snores. Oliver matched his pace to Nell’s, shooting worried glances at her profile that she pretended not to notice.
At home, she sent the children to bed with kisses and murmured promises. Martha squeezed her shoulder in the hallway, a silent question in her dark eyes, but Nell merely shook her head. She couldn’t talk about it. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
Alone in her bedroom, she stood before the mirror and looked at the woman in green silk.
That dress does remarkable things. For a shopkeeper.
She’d been a fool. She had danced with Mr. Willoughby, and laughed the way she had nothing to fear. She’d walked into the darkness with a viscount who had asked her for something true, as though truth were something safe to give.
She is nothing of consequence.
The green silk came off. Button by button, she undid Martha’s careful work, her fingers remaining steady even as something inside her crumbled. The fabric pooled at her feet. She picked it up, folded it, and wrapped it in muslin before returning it to the dark corners of the wardrobe. It was hidden away where it belonged — where she belonged.
She climbed into bed in her shift and pulled the covers up to her chin. The sheets were cold, the room was dark. And somewhere across the village, a viscount had looked her in the eyes and called her nothing. She didn’t cry. She’d learned not to cry during her years with Gabriel. But she lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling, feeling the last fragile pieces of hope crumble to dust in her chest.
Dominic sat alone in the study of Bramwell Park, a single candle guttering on the desk before him. He hadn’t gone back for the shawl—he couldn’t bear to. He would just let it rot in the grass or let some villager find it. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the look on her face when their eyes had met.
He’d seen betrayal before. He’d seen it on Vivienne’s face when she’d looked at his scar, seen it curdle into disgust and then pity. But that had been different. Vivienne had betrayed him. She’d looked at the man who had nearly died for his country and found him wanting. Tonight, he’d been the one doing the betraying.
She is nothing of consequence.
He’d said it to protect her. That was the lie he told himself. He’d said it to kill the gossip before it could spread, to make SirRichard and Mrs. Pemberton lose interest, and to spare her the slow poison of village scandal.
But that was not the whole truth. He’d said it because it was easy. He’d chosen the mask because it was familiar and comfortable, the path of least resistance. For one craven moment, it had been simpler to play the cold aristocrat than to stand up and declare that the baker with flour on her sleeve and fire in her eyes mattered more to him than the opinion of every titled fool in Hampshire.
He’d taken her trust, the story of the pianoforte, and the softness that had crept into her expression, and he’d ground it under his heel. And she’d seen him do it.
Dominic reached for the decanter on his desk and poured whiskey into a glass. He didn’t drink it. He simply watched the amber liquid catching the candlelight. He didn’t know how to fix this, or if it could be fixed at all.
But he knew one thing with absolute certainty. Eleanor Ashford was not nothing. She was everything. And he’d just proven himself utterly unworthy of her.
The candle guttered and died, plunging the study into darkness. Dominic sat alone in the black and hated himself more than he’d hated anything in his ruined life.
Seven
Two weeks later.
Dominic stood at the window of the study at Bramwell Park, watching rain streak the glass in jagged lines. He tried to remember the last time he’d slept through the night, for the answer was the night before the festival. It was before he’d seen her in green silk. It was before he’d asked her for something true and she’d given it to him. He remembered the pianoforte, the softness in her eyes, and the brief, unguarded moment when she’d looked at him like he might be worth knowing.
He’d destroyed it all with three words.
