She was not fast enough.
The man reached Frederica first. His hand closed around her elbow — not roughly, not in any way that would appear improper to a casual observer — but Nora saw the way Frederica’s body went rigid, the way her chin dipped toward her chest as if she were trying to make herself smaller. He leaned close and spoke, his lips near to her ear, and whatever he said made the colour drain from Frederica’s face like water running from a basin.
“Miss Longleat.” Nora pitched her voice to carry, modulating it to the bright, social register of a woman greeting an acquaintance in the park — nothing urgent, nothing alarming. “What a pleasure. I was just saying to my sister that I hoped we might encounter you today.”
The man’s head turned. His eyes — dark, quick, assessing — swept over Nora with the efficiency of someone cataloguing a potential obstacle. She met them directly. She did not smile.
He released Frederica’s elbow. The motion was slow, deliberate — a statement rather than a concession. I am releasing her because I choose to, not because you have forced me.
“Thank you, Lady Nora.” Frederica’s voice was a thread, thin and colourless. She stepped toward Nora, and when their arms linked, Nora felt the rigidity of Frederica’s body — a stiffness so complete it spoke of terror held in check by will alone.
The man said nothing. He touched the brim of his hat — a mockery of courtesy — and turned on his heel, walking back the way he had come with that same weighted, unhurried stride.
Nora waited until he was twenty paces distant before she turned her head to look at Frederica. The lady’s eyes were fixed forward, unblinking, and where the man had gripped her elbow, the fabric of her pelisse was creased, the threads disturbed.
“Come,” Nora said, pressing Frederica’s arm against her side. “Walk with me.”
They walked. Frederica said nothing. Her breathing was shallow and quick, and twice she flinched at shadows that were only the branches of the horse chestnuts overhead, their leaves shivering in a breeze that should have been pleasant but felt instead like something watching.
They parted at the edge of the Serpentine, Frederica’s hand slipping from Nora’s arm with a reluctance that spoke of how little she wanted to be alone. Nora watched her walk toward her waiting carriage, noting the careful way she held herself — spine rigid, chin high, as if daring the world to see how close she was to breaking.
A gentleman stepped forward — tall, sandy-haired, with an open, unhurried manner that was nothing like the stocky man’s predatory calm. He bowed to Frederica and spoke, and whatever he said made her pause. The rigidity in her shoulders softened by the smallest degree. She said something in return — brief, almost certainly a polite dismissal — but when she turned to climb into the carriage, Nora saw her glance back at him once, quickly, as if she could not quite help herself.
Nora filed the observation away. She had more pressing concerns.
“Should I tell Hampshire?” she murmured, beginning to walk back toward her mother and sister. The question turned in her mind like a key in a difficult lock. He might already know of the stocky man, might already understand the nature of the threat. Or he might not — and if he did not, then every hour of silence was an hour Frederica remained unprotected.
Her decision made before she had finished forming the thought, Nora lifted her chin and quickened her pace. Yes, she would speak with him. Not for her own sake, not for the pleasure of his company — though she could not pretend that did notexist — but because Frederica was in danger, and conscience would not permit her to look away.
9
Two days had passed since the incident in the park. She stopped two paces inside the door.
It was not a conscious decision — her feet simply ceased their forward motion as if the air between them had thickened into something she had to push through. The study was small, close-quartered, with bookshelves crowding the walls and a single window behind the desk that admitted a column of late-afternoon light. The light caught the dust that their movements had stirred, turning it to gold, and Hampshire stood within it as if it had been arranged for him.
He had risen from his chair the moment she entered — instinct, not courtesy, she could see it in the abrupt way he pushed back from the desk, the way the chair scraped against the floor, the quill in his hand dropped and forgotten. His eyes fixed on hers with that intensity she remembered: not a look but a hold, a gravity that drew her forward even as the propriety she had been raised to insisted she remain exactly where she was.
The door was still open behind her. The maid would be standing in the corridor, a nominal chaperone, close enough to hear but not to see. Nora was acutely aware of the distancebetween herself and David — six feet, perhaps seven — and of how little that distance was.
“Lady Nora.” He spoke formally because the door was open and the maid was near, but his voice was not formal. It had that roughened quality, that catch at the back of the throat, that she heard only when they were close enough for propriety to become a conscious effort.
“Hampshire.” She laced her fingers together, the pressure whitening the skin across her knuckles of her right hand — hard, deliberate, as if she could squeeze out the impulse to cross those remaining six feet and take his hands in hers. “I have come to speak with you about Frederica.”
He nodded. His gaze dropped for a moment to her hands — to the white-knuckled clasp of her fingers — and his expression changed. He understood. He could read the restraint in her body as clearly as she could read the wanting in his.
“Please,” he said, and gestured to the chair before his desk. “Sit.”
She sat. The desk between them was a mercy and a cruelty in equal measure.
“Nora.”He looked away, angry at his own foolishness. He should not return to the same intimacy they had shared – even recently. She had to be ‘Lady Nora’ to him now, despite the tenderness that still wrapped all around his heart.
“Forgive me.” Opening his eyes, he gestured for her to sit down. “Can I bring you some refreshment?”
Lady Nora shook her head. “No, I cannot linger for long. It is only because I have sworn my sister to secrecy that I was ableto attend at all. She is in the waiting carriage, and I promised I would not be more than a few minutes.”
Forcing steadiness, David nodded. “Then what is it you came to speak to me about, might I ask?”
Her fingers twisted, her cheeks flushed. “Yesterday, my sister and I took a walk through the park. My mother was also present, and as we walked, my sister was greeted by Miss Henderson. The three of us walked together until Miss Henderson saw Miss Longleat sitting alone on a bench, some distance from us.”
