“Lady Stapleton. Welcome.” Hugo bowed and turned to the younger woman emerging from the carriage behind her. “Miss Stapleton. I trust the journey was not too tiresome.”
Beatrice smiled. It was a careful smile, practiced and warm, the expression that made men feel seen without ever revealing what the woman behind it was thinking. She was pretty in a soft, conventional way that Hugo suspected had been cultivated with the same precision her mother brought to everything.
“Not at all, Your Grace. The countryside is lovely.”
“Do come in. Your rooms are ready.”
Lady Stapleton swept past him with Miss Stapleton in tow. At the door, she paused and turned back.
“I understand Lord Wilfrey is among your guests?”
“He is.”
“How delightful.” The smile she offered was pleasant and utterly opaque. “Beatrice so enjoyed their conversation at the Whitmore ball.”
She disappeared into the house. Hugo filed the comment away and turned back to the drive.
The last carriage rounded the bend.
Hugo recognized the Brimsey crest on the door, and something shifted in his chest, a tightening that had nothing to do with nervousness and everything to do with anticipation. He squared his shoulders and clasped his hands behind his back and reminded himself, for the hundredth time that day, that this was a performance and she was his partner in it and nothing more.
The carriage door opened. Lady Oldbarrow emerged first, surveying Thornwaite Hall through narrowed eyes with the critical assessment of a woman who had visited finer houses and intended everyone to know it.
“Adequate,” she pronounced.
Then Lily stepped down.
Hugo’s hands tightened behind his back. His lungs forgot their purpose.
She wore a sapphire muslin. The gown he had selected, the one with the neckline that dipped below her collarbone and the fabric that moved like water against her body. Her hair was pulled back in a loose arrangement that left two honey-gold curls free at her temples, exactly as he had instructed in the note. The afternoon light caught the freckles across her nose, the green of her eyes, and the elegant line of her throat above those collarbones he had spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about.
She looked up. Their eyes met across the gravel drive, and for one unguarded second, everything he felt was written on his face.
He knew it. He could not stop it.
He recovered. The mask slid back into place, and by the time she reached him, he was smiling with the warm, easy charm of a doting fiancé welcoming his betrothed to his country home.
“Lady Oldbarrow.” He bowed over Margaret’s hand. “Welcome to Thornwaite Hall. I have put you in the blue room. It hasthe best view of the gardens and, more importantly, the closest proximity to the wine cellar.”
Margaret’s mouth twitched. “You are learning, Your Grace.”
Hugo turned to Lily. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, letting the contact linger a fraction longer than propriety demanded.
“My betrothed.” His voice came out steadier than he felt. “You look extraordinary.”
Color bloomed across her cheeks. “You chose the gown.”
“I chose the fabric. You are the reason it looks the way it does.”
Her fingers curled against his, a small squeeze, and then she withdrew her hand and smoothed her skirts with the composure of a woman who had been caught off balance and was determined not to show it.
Hugo offered her his arm and led her toward the entrance. As they crossed the threshold, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Lord Wilfrey stood in the drawing room doorway, a glass of sherry in one hand, his gaze fixed on Lily with an attention Hugo had never seen from the man before.
Wilfrey’s eyes traveled the length of the ivory gown. They lingered on the neckline, the fitted waist, the way the fabric skimmed her hips. His lips parted a fraction, and the glass ofsherry paused halfway to his mouth, suspended in the air by a man who had momentarily forgotten he was holding it.
Good.
That was the entire point of the gown. That was the entire point of the house party. Wilfrey was supposed to look at her like that. Lord Wilfrey was supposed to notice the collarbones, the curls, and the way the muslin moved when she walked.
