Asilent tear beaded out of one eye and trickled to her dressing gown. Dropping the brush, Evelina gazed at herself in the dressing table mirror. She did not recognize the person staring back at her.
This person looked hopeless, lost, confused, and utterly despondent. She did not like that Dorian was keeping the truth from her. She didn’t feel that he was lying, but he was certainly giving her halves of the truths.
A lie of omission is as bad as a lie of commission.
Her aunt’s words slipped into her ear as she wiped the tear away.
What was so damning that he could not tell her? He’d told her his past with Carrington and his troubles with his missing uncle. Surely nothing could be as ugly as those were?
Heavy-handed, she resumed brushing her hair as her maid entered the room with a cup of tea and a sweet bun on a tray. Setting it down, she asked, “Is there anything more I can do for you, Your Grace?”
“No, Aggie, thank you,” Ellie forced a smile. “You may go now.”
“Good night, Your Grace,” Agnes curtsied and left the room.
Dorian had walked away, his eyes impenetrable as smoked glass. Despite everything they had shared, he was steadily drawing away from her, and her heart ached because of that. No man liked to be taken to task by his wife. Even she, as a novice, understood that. If her goal was to win her husband’s heart, she needed to tread carefully.
That still did not help her sleep that night, and she did not drift off until the early hours of the morning. True to his word, Dorian was gone long before she’d risen, and she went to breakfast alone.
“What would you prefer for breakfast this morning, Your Grace?” Agnes asked while setting her tea before her.
“The usual.”
That day’sTimesarrived, and momentarily, all woes were forgotten to Ellie. With a twinge of apprehension, she turned to the scandal pages.
The ton is still reeling from Lady Tresman’s ball last night. The enigmatic Duke Wolfthorne, a still unknown in London’s upper echelon, attended with his wife, and for most, the scandal of the night was the scintillating kiss the two shared on the balcony, but it is the riveting impasse between the Duke and Lord Eastbrook that has all the ton twittering.
No one knows what happened between the two, but from the small snippets the onlookers heard and could piece together, the two had a shared past as children.
We have also pieced together that someone in the baron’s house betrayed His Grace, leading to a hefty loss. We are nay sure what that was, but a document was signed and something critical was lost. Our investigation has led to nothing as neither party has deigned to say what the misunderstanding—or possible sabotage—was in regards to.
We do know that there is no love lost between the two.
Sighing, Ellie dropped the paper to the side and picked up her tea. She did not know what to do, and there was equally no one she could turn to for advice. She had no older woman who was seasoned in marriage to ask, nor was there a friend close by whom she could pour her heart out to.
“Should I confide in Aggie? If only Harriet, or even Victoria was here…” she dipped her butter knife into the marmalade. “I know she is not married or has ever had a lasting relationship, but she still seems older than her years. A penny for her thoughts.”
Ellie needed answers. Real, tangible answers. But truthfully, neither Harriet, nor Victoria nor her lady’s maid could ever give them. And Ellie knew the one person who could.
Benedict.
But Dorian would fall into a fit of apoplexy if he ever learned she went to speak with him, especially in light of the scandal now swirling around town. It would widen the rift between them even further, but if she learned anything useful, perhaps she could make up for it somehow?
Something had to give. Dorian was not willing to tell the full story, but Benedict was. Maybe… just maybe she could get one answer and find a single thread that would pull the full yarn.
Pushing away from the table, she rang for her maid; it was time to get some answers, trouble and meekness be damned.
In the next forty minutes, she was walking through the door to Victoria’s home and found her friend meandering through her vast library. Victoria dropped the book as the two embraced tightly.
“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you anytime soon,” Victoria murmured as she steered Ellie to a couch. “Especially not after last night.”
Ellie pinked. “Why?”
Crossing her legs, Victoria tutted. “Have you read any of the papers today?”
“One,” she huffed. “Which I wanted to fling into the fire.”
“I’d ask if your husband knows you are here, but I think I already know the answer to that,” Victoria sighed. “And I think I know why you are here as well, which, again, I do not think your husband would approve of.”
