Page 12

Chapter Twelve

H e agreed, she thought bitterly. He agreed to let me live my own life. That was what I wanted. Wasn’t it?

Then why did it feel like some invisible thread had snapped between them, leaving a hollow space behind?

Evelyn was still burning with indignation and something far more dangerous that she refused to name as she rounded the corner at too sharp a pace and collided hard with another figure.

Evelyn recoiled instantly. Her heart slammed against her ribs.

And then she saw her .

Matilda.

Her sister.

The sister who had stolen a man, a future, a world Evelyn had once allowed herself to believe in. For a moment, Evelyn could only stare.

Matilda looked thinner than she remembered. Also, tired. But her eyes were wide and soft, just as they used to be when they were girls, whispering secrets in bed long after the candles were snuffed out.

“Evelyn,” Matilda breathed, reaching for her hand. “Please, just a moment. Let me explain. I never meant for things to happen the way they did?—”

Evelyn stepped back so quickly she nearly tripped on her own hem.

“No.” Her voice came out low and sharp, the kind of tone she had trained herself to master, the kind that masked everything trembling underneath.

“I just… please,” Matilda tried again, her hand trembling now. “I’ve written. I’ve tried?—”

“I burned your letters,” Evelyn snapped, her chin lifting. “Unopened.”

Matilda flinched. “I know I don’t deserve forgiveness, but I’ve missed you every day.”

Evelyn’s throat burned, and her eyes stung suddenly, traitorously.

She had missed her. Desperately so. And not just the way one missed a childhood companion but with that deep, ragged ache that came from being betrayed by the one person she’d trusted without question.

“You don’t get to say that,” Evelyn said, her voice barely steady. “You lost the right to miss me the day you ran off to Gretna Green with him . You knew how I felt. You knew .”

Matilda’s eyes filled with tears. “He chose me. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never?—”

“But you did.” Evelyn’s voice cracked, but she didn’t let it show. “You destroyed what we had of our sisterhood. And now, you think you can come back and simply explain it all away?”

She turned, stiffening her spine like steel.

“You should consider yourselves fortunate,” she said coldly, her voice rising to the precise tone of a lady hosting guests she despised, “that His Grace and I have permitted your presence here for the ceremony. But once it concludes, you and Lord Ashworth are no longer welcome in this house.”

“Evelyn, please?—”

But Evelyn was already gone, storming down the corridor with a forced calmness that shattered the moment she reached her chamber.

She shoved the door closed behind herself and bolted it fast, pressing her back to the wood as if expecting Matilda, or worse yet, her own feelings, to come bursting through.

She stood there, trembling, jaw clenched, the pain she’d swallowed for two years threatening to rise up and drown her.

What hurt the most wasn’t just the betrayal. It was that after all this time, there was a part of her still wanting to forgive.

And she didn’t know if that made her foolish… or simply still human.

About an hour later, Evelyn sat before her vanity, not touching the tea or the lemon biscuits Cordelia had tried to tempt her with.

Hazel stood near the fireplace with her arms crossed in that calm but ever-watchful manner of hers.

Cordelia paced, nervously twisting her fingers in the silk ribbon of her sleeve.

“We shouldn’t have said anything,” Cordelia finally burst out, her voice thick with remorse. “We only meant to help him understand. You were so angry, Evelyn, and he looked… well, like a man who didn’t know which way was up.”

Hazel didn’t speak right away. She just watched Evelyn with that quiet, measured gaze of hers, the kind that always saw more than it should.

“We were wrong to speak on your behalf,” Hazel said at last. “Even if we meant well. I am sorry.”

Evelyn blinked then looked up at them both in the mirror. Her eyes, though tired, were clear.

“I’m not angry with you,” she said simply.

Cordelia blinked. “You’re not?”

“No.” Evelyn turned on the cushioned stool to face them directly. “You acted out of loyalty. That much I know. And truthfully, there’s little you said that he could not have eventually discovered for himself.”

Cordelia’s brows knit. “Then who are you angry with?”

Evelyn’s gaze darkened, her lips pressing into a thin line.

“My mother.”

The words came out with a weight that seemed to fill the room. She stood, walking slowly to the window, her hands brushing the delicate curtain aside as she looked down at the side gardens. Her voice was even but cold.

“She knew. She’s always known. And instead of standing with me, she begged him to invite them . Invited them under the pretense that I missed them.” Her fingers curled into the drapery. “As if she could rewrite the past by shoving it back into my face and calling it reconciliation.”

“She always cared about appearances more than people,” Hazel said quietly.

Cordelia looked stricken. “What will you do?”

Evelyn was silent for a moment. The scent of lavender and warmed sugar from the tea tray drifted through the air, nauseatingly sweet.

“Nothing,” she said at last, turning back to them.

“Nothing?” Cordelia echoed, as if she’d misheard.

“I will walk down that aisle tomorrow,” Evelyn said.

“I will smile. I will play my part to perfection. And then, once the vows are spoken and the doors are closed, I will be alone. With him .” She hesitated only briefly before continuing, “And far away from the people who were supposed to protect me but instead sold me off, lied to me, and betrayed me.”

Cordelia’s eyes shone with unshed tears. Hazel seemed apprehensive.

“I used to think that family was a kind of shield,” Evelyn murmured. “A refuge. But now I know better. Family can be a cage too. A very polite finely decorated one.”

She moved back to her vanity and picked up her brush with careful precision, drawing it through her curls with slow, methodical strokes.

“I may not trust the Duke,” she added, “but at least with him, I know where I stand. He never pretends to be anything but what he is.”

Hazel spoke gently. “And what is he to you?”

Evelyn paused, staring into her own reflection.

“A man I’ll have to learn to survive.”

There was a silence after that. Even Cordelia didn’t have a quip to lighten the air.

Hazel stepped forward and rested a hand lightly on Evelyn’s shoulder.

“You’re not alone,” she said.

Evelyn gave a faint smile in the mirror. “I know. But thank you for saying it anyway.”

And then, with the grace of a woman raised to be unshakable, she set the brush down, straightened her spine, and looked ahead.

“Tomorrow, I will marry a stranger,” she told them, “but at least I will no longer belong to people who wore love like a mask for convenience.”

Her friends were both silent for a while, but then Cordelia decided it was high time they stopped being focused on the negative.

“You know,” Cordelia said, perching herself dramatically on the edge of Evelyn’s bed, “being married to the Duke of Aberon might not be as dreadful as you think.”

Hazel gave a dry little hum of agreement, folding her hands over her waist. “He may not smile often, but at least he doesn’t drool or ogle footmen like Lord Wexley.”

Cordelia shuddered. “Or reek of onions like Sir Prattlington. The man once proposed to me over a bowl of stewed parsnips.”

Evelyn snorted before she could stop herself. “You two are impossible.”

“But you’re smiling,” Cordelia pointed out triumphantly.

“I’m trying not to scream,” Evelyn muttered, standing to walk to her wardrobe under the pretense of adjusting a gown that didn’t need adjusting.

“Oh, come now,” Cordelia said with a sly grin. “Surely it hasn’t escaped your notice how the Duke looks at you.”

Hazel raised a brow. “It’s very… intense.”

Evelyn paused, her hand hovering over a pale blue hem.

“That is simply how he looks at everyone,” she said too quickly and a little too precisely. “Like he’s trying to decide whether they are a threat or a nuisance.”

Cordelia giggled. “Perhaps. But he stares at you like he’s found both. And likes it.”

“I think he just likes to brood,” Evelyn argued primly. “Brooding is a requirement for dukes, isn’t it?”

Hazel’s lips twitched. “Be honest. Does it not unsettle you at least a little… how he sees you?”

Evelyn turned back to them with a carefully schooled expression. “I don’t concern myself with how he sees me. This marriage isn’t about feelings or… or chemistry. It’s a convenience. An arrangement.”

Cordelia tilted her head, unconvinced. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“I’m not avoiding anything.”

“You do flush when he’s near,” Hazel remarked gently.

“I do not.”

“You do,” Cordelia echoed cheerfully. “And it’s very charming.”

“I also flush when I’m angry. Or too warm,” Evelyn countered, crossing her arms.

“Is that what it was when he leaned close to whisper in your ear?” Cordelia asked with faux innocence. “A bout of sudden heatstroke?”

Evelyn threw a pillow at her.

Cordelia caught it mid-air and laughed as Hazel shook her head fondly.

“I cannot pretend,” Evelyn admitted at last, her voice quieter now, “that I’m entirely unaffected.”

She hated saying it aloud. The fact that his gaze lingered longer than it should and that she felt it like a brand on her skin. That when he teased her, which was a rare but devastating occasion, it left her completely disarmed. That he seemed to look through her, not just at her.

It was maddening. Unfair. Most of all, dangerous.

“But it doesn’t matter,” she said, more firmly now, “because this isn’t a real marriage, and I intend to keep it that way.”

Hazel nodded slowly. “Even if it starts to feel real?”

Evelyn gave a tight smile. “Then I’ll remind myself that it’s not. That I chose this. That I need the distance more than the dream.”

The room fell quiet again, but it wasn’t heavy now. It was full of understanding. It was the kind of silence shared only by those who had seen her heart cracked open and loved her anyway.

Cordelia walked over and squeezed her hand. “Well, if nothing else, at least he’s very nice to look at.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “You’re both incorrigible.”

But her fingers cured faintly around Cordelia’s.

And she didn’t deny it.