Mary’s mouth curved on command. Evander offered his arm, and she took it, and together they climbed the steps of the Heathcote townhouse for an afternoon garden tea that neither of them wanted to attend and neither of them could refuse.
Lady Heathcote had sent the invitation three weeks ago, before Charlotte’s return, before Richard, before the pleasurehouse and the carriage and the bedroom and every unresolved catastrophe that now hung between Evander and his wife. Declining would have invited speculation. Attending required performance.
They performed.
The garden was immaculate, the guests select, the refreshments arranged on linen-draped tables beneath a striped canopy. Perhaps thirty people occupied the lawn, clustered in groups of three and four, their conversations carried on in the modulated tones of a class trained to discuss scandal without appearing to enjoy it.
Evander and Mary circulated. She kept her hand on his arm and her smile in place, and they moved from group to group with the seamless coordination of a couple who had learned to read each other’s cues. When Lord Parker asked about the duchy, Evander answered while Mary turned to Lady Parker and complimented her roses. When Lady Atherton inquired about the household, Mary deflected while Evander scanned the garden for threats.
They did not look at each other. They did not need to. The choreography had its own intelligence, practiced over weeks of avoidance, and it translated into public fluency. To the guests, the Duke and Duchess of Blackholm appeared composed, united, comfortable. No one could see that the arm Mary held was rigid beneath her glove, or that Evander’s jaw ached from the effort of keeping his expression neutral while her lavender scent drifted up from her hair.
Viscountess Thornton found them near the rose arch.
She was a thin, sharp-faced woman with a reputation for knowing things before they happened and saying them after they did. She approached with a teacup balanced on her saucer and an expression of studied sympathy that Evander recognized immediately as a prelude to an attack.
“Your Grace. What a pleasure.” She curtsied to Mary, then turned to Evander with the precision of a woman selecting her angle. “We have been so concerned for your family. Such a difficult season. And now I hear whispers that Lady Charlotte has been seen in London. Is it true she has returned?”
Mary’s hand tightened on Evander’s arm. The pressure was slight, controlled, a signal between partners.I can handle this.Evander placed his hand over hers.I know. But let me.
“Lady Charlotte is well,” Evander said. His voice carried the pleasant authority of a man discussing the weather while making it clear the forecast was none of your concern. “She has been visiting family. She will be traveling abroad shortly with her fiancé, a scholar of some distinction. We are very happy for her.”
“Her fiancé.” Lady Thornton’s eyebrows climbed. “How unexpected. And the rumors about a child?—”
“Lady Thornton.” Evander tilted his head. The smile remained. The temperature dropped. “I wonder if you have had a chance to admire Lady Heathcote’s new hedge roses. I am told they wereimported from France at considerable expense. Perhaps you might inspect them before the afternoon grows too warm.”
The dismissal was wrapped in silk, but the steel beneath it was unmistakable. Lady Thornton’s teacup rattled against her saucer. She curtsied, murmured something about roses, and retreated across the lawn at a pace that suggested she understood the conversation was over.
Mary exhaled. Her grip on Evander’s arm loosened.
“Hedge roses,” she said.
“It was the first thing I saw.”
“You sent her to inspect shrubbery.”
“I sent her away. The method was secondary.”
The corner of Mary’s mouth twitched. Not a full smile. The ghost of one, passing through on its way to somewhere else. Evander caught it and felt the impact in his chest, because even now, even in the middle of the worst silence of their marriage, her almost-smile could reach him across the distance they had built.
They continued their circuit of the garden. Lady Heathcote served cake. Lord Parker told an interminable story about a horse. Mary accepted a glass of lemonade and held it without drinking, and Evander stood beside her and watched thecondensation run down the glass and thought about her fingers and hated himself for thinking about her fingers at a garden tea.
Isabella appeared from behind the rose arch, her gold dress bright against the greenery. She kissed Mary’s cheek and squeezed her hand with the easy intimacy of a friendship that required no translation.
“You look tired,” Isabella said to Mary, keeping her voice low. “Both of you.”
“We are fine.”
“You are performing. There is a difference.” Isabella glanced at Evander, and the look she gave him was not hostile, but it carried a weight of assessment that reminded him uncomfortably of Quentin. She turned back to Mary. “Come to the refreshment table with me. I need to tell you about Lord Pruitt’s latest humiliation.”
Mary released Evander’s arm. The absence of her hand registered as a physical loss, and Evander watched the two women walk across the lawn, their heads bent together, and he stood alone beside the rose arch and felt the full absurdity of his position. A duke at a garden party, surrounded by people who envied his title and his fortune and his beautiful wife, and all he could think about was the fact that she had let go of his arm and the place where her hand had been was cold.
Mary laughed at something Isabella said. The sound carried across the garden, and Evander’s chest constricted because hehad not made her laugh in days, and the absence of that sound in his own house was louder than any silence.
The afternoon wore on, sunlit and civilized, and Evander played the duke and ached.
In the carriage home, Mary sat on the opposite seat and looked out the window. The silence between them was vast and familiar, and Evander watched her profile in the passing light and searched for something to say that was not the thing he needed to say.
He found nothing.
