“I know you’re lying to me,” Opal said, ignoring the questions.
Adelaide had been reaching for the teapot and her hands froze midway. She swallowed hard, past her fear and slowly turned to her aunt.
“About the cakes?” she said, as breezy as Lydia delivering a line. “I assure you, I’m not. Come see for yourself.”
Her aunt slammed her hand back against the door. “Not about the cakes, you stupid girl. I know you’re lying to me. I recognize the signs fromlast time.”
She hissed out the last two words, and Adelaide flinched at the wretched sound. At the memories her words evoked.
“You’re imagining things,” she whispered.
Both her aunt’s eyebrows lifted at once and she moved toward Adelaide like a snake, coiled and ready to strike with poison dripping from its fangs.
Only Opal’s poison would be with her words, her cruelty.
Adelaide briefly wished it would be real venom rather than the kind that scarred the soul forever.
“You danced with that duke,” her aunt ground out. “Went out with him on the terrace to do I don’t know what horrid thing. And then you were mincing around him in the park two days ago. I know your whore ways.”
Adelaide shut her eyes briefly. Opal was always so poised to find fault in her behavior, she was often shocked that her aunt hadn’t figured out that she snuck out of the house three times a week to do something far more scandalous than merely dance with a duke.
But Opal looked for other kinds of sin in Adelaide, because of her past. She was blind to anything else, a fact Adelaide had used against her during her time as Lydia. All it took were a few sympathetic servants like her maid and some careful balancing acts when it came to entering and exiting the house.
“I assure you, aunt, Northfield and I are…” She hesitated as she thought of Graham’s hands on her. Of his whispered secrets. Of the depth with which she was beginning to care for him. “I’mnothingto him,” she finished. “Just a wallflower who is a friend to his best friend’s wife. He is polite to me, nothing more.”
“I know when a man has interest in a woman!” her aunt all but screeched. “I saw him leering at you in the park. And I see that look in your eyes when you talk about him.”
Opal came forward in three long steps, and Adelaide braced herself. But she was in no way ready for what her aunt did next. Opal’s hand shot out, and suddenly her fingers curled hard around Adelaide’s throat.
“Don’t play with me, you dirty girl,” Opal hissed. Her eyes had gone almost bleary, like she was no longer with Adelaide. “Don’t you dare.”
Adelaide clawed at her aunt’s hands, sucking for breath as she fought the surprising strength of Opal’s grip. And Opal was squeezing, squeezing, almost like she wished to end Adelaide. Her vision began to blur and she slapped at her aunt’s hands now, fighting for air and her life.
“Stop!”
Opal released Adelaide as they both turned toward the door. Adelaide bent over, and as her vision cleared she found Emma standing in the entryway, with a shocked and horrified Smith at her side.
“What in the world are you doing?” Emma cried, crossing the room in three long strides and clasping an arm around Adelaide. “Darling, are you all right?”
Adelaide stood, sucking in long breaths. “Y-yes,” she stammered as the reality of what had just happened became clear. “Yes, I’m—I’m fine.”
Emma looked her up and down, uncertainty clear on her face. Then her expression hardened. Emma became a person Adelaide had never seen before. Long gone was the wallflower Adelaide had called a friend for years. In her place was a duchess, a woman of power. Of confidence. Of fire.
And Emma turned all of that on Opal as she arched one fine brow. “How dare you, madam,” she said, her voice cold as ice.
“You come to my home, telling me how to handlemyward?” Opal cried, folding her arms. Adelaide could tell, though, that she was tentative in the face of Emma’s new strength.
It seemed Emma could see it too, for she lifted her chin. “Adelaide will come join me for supper,” Emma declared. “And she will stay with Abernathe and me at our home tonight.”
Opal jolted. “No,” she said firmly.
Emma moved toward Adelaide’s aunt. “I wasnotasking. Adelaide is going with me.Now. And I will expect that her maid will be sent after her with her things for a night away. Do I make myself clear?”
Opal swayed slightly, and Adelaide braced herself for a verbal attack. She didn’t think her aunt would try anything physical with Emma. She wouldn’t dare face off with the power that was Abernathe. Even her aunt would not be so foolish.
“Fine,” Opal said at last, her shoulders rolling. “Whatever you’d like.”
Then she turned on her heel and stomped from the room without another word. Emma watched her go, then turned her attention on Smith. “Are my instructions clear, Smith?”
