April tilted her head. “Is it? I find it a rather straightforward one.”
The silence stretched before Loretta answered, “Within the first year of our marriage. He was a delightful babe.”
She had avoided the question. Cleanly. But not convincingly.
April said nothing. She only walked, thinking.
Then Loretta said, “It’s unlike Theo to dance only with one woman. Has London softened him?”
April followed her gaze and found Theo still speaking with Gregory. She was not sure what to make of what Loretta had just said—whether or not it was true.
“Perhaps you’ve simply been away too long,” April replied. “He may be a different man now.”
Loretta laughed again. “How charming. You believe in change. Such girlish fantasies. Men do not change. I know. I’ve lived in this world longer than you.”
April smiled, but the edges were sharp. “Then perhaps it’s time you tried another world. This one clearly doesn’t suit you.”
Loretta blinked, and for the faintest second, her eye twitched.
“I remember how Theo once looked at me,” she said suddenly. “As if I were the most precious thing alive. But he looks at allwomen that way, doesn’t he? You’ll see. In time, you’ll be left behind like the rest of us.”
The words struck deep, but April didn’t flinch. She remembered the terrace at the theatre, the way he had kissed the top of her head. The way he’d fastened the necklace with trembling fingers.
She looked Loretta full in the face. “Whatever romantic dreams you still harbor, put them to rest. Theo choseme,Loretta. He mademehis duchess. No one else.”
April pulled her arm free. “And you may stop pretending we are friends. I do not befriend hypocrites.” She walked away without another word, leaving Loretta to gape behind her.
Instead of returning to Theo, she turned toward the ballroom doors, needing air, distance—anything.
The doubt had already begun to seep in, soft and insidious.
She doesn’t know him. But what if she’s right? What if I’m just a moment of novelty, a season of affection he’ll one day forget?
Before she could reach the doors, someone caught her gently by the elbow.She turned toTheo, and her heart gave a kick in her chest.
“Are you well?” he asked, his dark brows drawing over his eyes.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came. Her thoughts twisted too quickly to untangle.
Then she remembered who she was.
I am April. I do not crumble.
She smiled faintly. “I only need a moment to visit the retiring room.”
He nodded but didn’t let go. His eyes held hers, searching as though trying to see every thought she would not say.
Then, slowly, he released her.
April turned and walked away, keeping her shoulders high and her gait confident. But inside, she felt her heart breaking apart, piece by piece.
Thirty-Four
“Checkmate,” her father, Albert, declared with clear satisfaction, leaning back against the garden bench beneath the yew tree.
April blinked down at the board. “You moved the bishop.”
“I did.”
