Page 29

Milly’s gaze landed on Gwen with surgical precision. Her narrow eyes gleamed with satisfaction as her mouth curved in a sneer sharpened by memory.

“Well, well. Gwen, Gwen …”

She let the name dangle in the air like a noose. Gwen, Gwen, the Spotted Giraffe. The old insult echoed in Gwen’s ears, as vivid as ink upon white muslin.

Gwen stood straighter, her spine stiffening like a ramrod, though no answer came to her lips. Always, with Milly, she was caught defenseless, ensnared by the echo of long-past humiliations that still clung to her skin like soot.

“Milly …” she managed, her voice a croak that tasted of old shame.

Milly’s painted lips parted in mock innocence. “Is it true, Gwen-Gwen? Are you to join our ranks as a viscountess?”

Gwen swallowed hard, her throat dry. Words, usually her allies, abandoned her the instant she locked eyes with the past. With her.

It was always like this with the old schoolgirls, the original guard of her torment. Their memory had claws. Though a decade might have passed, the echo of their laughter was sharp and fresh as if carved into her skin only yesterday.

Those two years at Miss Hedgerow’s Academy for Young Ladies had been a daily gauntlet. The other girls had despised her from the first. Her awkward height, her reserve, her grief for a mother lost to illness, and her head forever buried in Greek or philosophy rather than court gossip. They had given her a name, the Spotted Giraffe, a reference to the freckles that marred her skin and her gangly figure, and they had wielded it like a cudgel. Her father, distracted by his own mourning and by the demands of his estate, had only intervened once it was too late. He had withdrawn her at last, but by then, her confidence was rubble.

Books had been her only solace. They never mocked or sneered. They listened. They made her feel clever. Safe.

Society, on the other hand, was a minefield laced with traps like Milly.

As Gwen floundered, Octavia appeared at her side like an avenging angel in stout woollen attire. She stepped slightly ahead, her broad shoulders forming a bulwark of protection.

“That is correct,” Octavia said in a firm tone. “Miss Smythe is betrothed to Lord Abbott.”

Milly’s gaze did not shift to acknowledge the servant. Her cold eyes swept over Gwen like a critic inspecting a flawed painting. She was the picture of high-society perfection, clothed in a seafoam pelisse embroidered in pale ivory thread. At least six inches shorter than Gwen, she had the full figure that fashion idealized. Generous bosom, nipped waist, glossy golden curls, a porcelain complexion without freckle or flaw. Her nose was sculpted and narrow, her lips a perfect rosebud. It was well-known she had received several offers her first Season and had married a viscount twice her age with a healthy estate and a voice in Parliament. She had not let Gwen forget it.

Milly arched a finely plucked brow, voice silky. “Lord Abbott is quite the catch. Although I had not heard he was blind.”

The barb landed. Gwen felt the heat rise along her throat, and her vision narrowed at the edges. She barely registered the low sound of displeasure at her side.

Ouch!

Gwen winced, whipping her head toward Octavia, only to find her companion smiling sweetly at a bolt of champagne silk, her eyes bright with mischief. The lady’s maid tilted her head just so, an unmistakable signal.

Stand up. Push back.

Gwen cleared her throat. Her fingers tightened on the glove she still held in her left hand.

“Lord Abbott and I are to wed,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt.

Another rumbling growl from her side, more insistent now. Octavia’s version of a battle drum.

Gwen lifted her chin. “He is … quite taken with me.”

Milly’s laughter rang out through the salon, brittle and theatrical. It jarred with the gentle rustling of fabrics and the murmur of shop girls in the back rooms. The sound cracked open the vault Gwen had tried to seal. Memories of awkward dancing lessons, the smell of chalk, and girls sniggering behind gloved hands. The ache of wanting her mother. The guilt of troubling her grieving father.

“Is he?”

Octavia squared her shoulders, inhaling sharply through her nose as if preparing to launch a volley at the polished predator before them. Her stance was protective, coiled energy beneath plain muslin and a modest fichu. But before she could speak, Gwen felt herself detach. For a breathless instant, it was as though she rose above her body, observing the scene as one might a diorama in a shop window.

And from that vantage point, something shifted.

The fear, the remembered taunts, the years of silent endurance all looked smaller from a distance. Faded. Like ink washed thin by time.

She was no longer that girl.

Lord Abbott had seen her. Truly seen her. He had drawn her into his arms and kissed her with conviction beneath moonlight softened by spring haze. He had whispered poetry, tender and sensual, and called her Botticelli’s Venus. He had sought her company with purpose, with intention. No man as admired as he was would do such things unless he wished to.