“You are kind, Lord Whitley,” she said. “But I am not receiving callers.”
He inclined his head and moved on. Within minutes, two more gentlemen approached. One praised her spectacles with calculated charm. The other asked about her interest in science with strained enthusiasm.
She was polite to both. She smiled, thanked them, and declined. And with each, the hollow in her chest widened. They were not here for her. They came because a duke had once chosen her, and the echo of that attention made her visible.
Before the engagement, they would not have looked twice. After the novelty faded, they would not again.
Annabelle watched the third suitor retreat and turned to Elinor, sympathy sharpened by anger.
“Vultures,” she said.
Elinor almost laughed. “They are being polite.”
“They are circling.” Annabelle squeezed her arm. “None of them deserves you. Not one.”
Your brother did,Elinor thought, and the thought cut so deep she had to look away, pretending to watch Newton investigate a bench leg.
They walked the rest of the path in silence. At the park gate, Annabelle embraced her with the fierce, uncomplicated affection that had been there from the first moment they met.
“I am still your friend,” Annabelle said against her shoulder. “Whatever happens. Whatever happened. That does not change.”
Elinor held on. She held on because Annabelle’s friendship was the one thing the ruse had produced that was wholly, unambiguously good, and she could not bear to lose it alongside everything else.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For being here.”
Annabelle pulled back and looked at her. “Always.”
Elinor watched her climb into her carriage and disappear into the traffic. Newton sat at her feet, his tail curled around his paws, his gaze turned upward as though checking on her.
She picked him up and held him against her chest and walked home through streets that felt emptier than they had any right to.
“You look like hell.” Dominic stood in the study doorway, coat still on, his expression caught between concern and thinning patience.
Lucien sat where he had for three days. The brandy decanter had been emptied and replaced more than once. Georgie’s drawing lay on the desk, its edges worn. The fire had gone cold.
“Dominic.” His voice was rough, scraped thin by drink and sleeplessness. “I did not hear you arrive.”
“Your butler let me in. He is worried. So is your sister. So am I.” Dominic crossed the room and took the chair Annabelle had occupied. “You promised that when it was over, you would tell me everything.”
“I did.”
“It is over. I am here. Talk to me.”
Lucien looked at him. Dominic had always waited, always offered what he could without pressing. He was still here.
And Lucien could not speak.
The words pressed at his throat, heavy and immovable, and would not come.
“I cannot,” he said. “Not yet. I am sorry.”
Dominic studied him for a long moment. The frustration in his expression did not leave, but it made room for something else. Acceptance, perhaps. Or the understanding that some walls could only be dismantled by the person who built them.
“All right,” Dominic said. He rose. “But I will keep coming back, Lucien. Every day if I must. You do not get to disappear into this room and pretend the rest of the world does not exist.”
“I am not pretending.”
“You have been pretending for eleven years.” Dominic’s voice held no accusation. It held the sadness of a man who had watched his friend build a prison and call it a home. “At some point, you will have to stop.”
