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“W e must leave” Chrissy said to her sister.

“Are you unwell?” Dinah asked.

“I’m tired. I wish to go home now.”

“I’ll send a footman to find Abingdon. Sis you have a nice time?”

Chrissy sighed. “The best.”

As they walked through the crowded room, she noticed heads leaning close together, words being whispered. Eyes followed her. Had she been recognized? She’d hoped cowering behind Nomansland would have hidden her identity, but entering the ballroom on his arm would have confirmed any suspicions.

She must tell Dinah, but not until they were somewhere they wouldn’t be overheard.

The entry hall where they awaited Abingdon was colder than Chrissy expected. She pressed her back to the wall, breath fluttering in her chest, hands locked around the wrist of her gloves as though they might anchor her to the marble floor.

Other guests were leaving, too, and more than one group exchanged whispers and denigrating looks when they saw Chrissy.

Dinah hovered nearby, and Chrissy saw the moment realization struck her.

“It was nothing,” Chrissy said, voice thin. “Truly, Dinah, it was hardly?—”

Dinah’s hand shot out, gripping Chrissy’s elbow so hard it pinched.

“You are flushed to your ears, and your hair is—” She plucked a curl free from Chrissy’s temple, her own composure fraying as she spoke.

“This isn’t from dancing too much. Never mind.

Tell me exactly what happened, from the beginning. ”

Chrissy cast her gaze over Dinah’s shoulder, desperate to escape, but there was nowhere to run. Laughter rang softly down the staircase from the ballroom above. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Tried again.

“We were in an anteroom. Alone.” She regretted the honesty even before Dinah’s eyes widened in horror. “Only for a moment! We thought?—”

“You thought what?” Dinah snapped. “That no one would notice the Duke of Nomansland absconding with my little sister?”

Chrissy jerked her arm away. “It wasn’t like that! We only—” She bit down on the memory of his mouth, the way his hands had cupped her face as if she were breakable. “We were talking, and then?—”

“Someone saw,” Dinah finished for her. “Who?”

Chrissy’s mind raced, the moments a blur, the door opening, the flash of servant’s livery, the footman’s eyes round as shillings before he ducked away with a strangled noise. “I didn’t recognize him, and I never saw her. But they ran off straightaway.”

Dinah inhaled, pinching the bridge of her nose. “God save us. That’s all it takes. In ten minutes, the entire ballroom will know.”

Chrissy risked a glance at Dinah, whose jaw was so tight she seemed on the verge of shattering a molar. “I’m sorry,” Chrissy whispered.

Dinah turned, eyes fierce. “No, you are not. Not yet. But you will be if Abingdon makes a scene.” Her voice softened by a fraction. “We will get you home. Then we will figure out what comes next.”

They waited in stiff silence until the echo of heels sounded on the marble. Abingdon appeared, cutting a swath through the onlookers with the gravity of a man used to being obeyed. He wore authority like armor, and even the most persistent gossipers melted away at his approach.

His gaze fixed on Dinah first, searching her for signs of injury or upset. Then he looked to Chrissy, and the expression in his eyes—shock, disbelief, anger—made her wish she could dissolve into the floor.

He offered his arm to Dinah, but his other hand fell on Chrissy’s shoulder, firm and inescapable. “We go,” he said, voice low but steely. “Now.”

He propelled them out the door and down the steps, where their carriage already waited at the curb, lamps aglow.

Chrissy climbed in first, collapsing onto the velvet seat as Dinah followed, smoothing her skirts with trembling hands.

Abingdon entered last, the door slamming shut with a finality that left no doubt, they were prisoners of their own folly, hurtling through the dark toward judgment.

Inside the carriage, the silence was absolute.

Dinah stared out the window, her fingers white-knuckled on the edge of the seat.

Abingdon sat opposite them, chin tucked, eyes glittering in the lantern light.

Chrissy folded herself as small as possible, feeling the shame and the fear settle in her stomach like stones.

As the carriage jolted into motion, Abingdon spoke—once, cold and final. “Not a word. Until we are home.”

No one dared contradict him. The only sound was the rolling thunder of wheels over cobblestone, and the knowledge that, for the first time, Chrissy was uncertain what the morning would bring.

The carriage shuddered over a rut, pitching Chrissy against the velvet cushion hard enough to knock the breath from her. She gripped the strap above her window, knuckles pale and aching, and stared out at the black night.

Across from her, Abingdon’s profile was a statue’s, all hard planes and shadows.

His hands rested on his knees, fingers splayed, but the rest of him didn’t move.

Even when the carriage slewed sharply to the right, rounding a corner at a pace better suited to fire brigades, Abingdon merely flexed his jaw and stared straight ahead.

Dinah’s skirts rustled with every jostle.

Her own hands, usually so steady, now fidgeted with the clasp of her reticule, opening and shutting it with mechanical regularity.

She kept sneaking glances at Chrissy, but never for long—Abingdon’s silence was a force field, repelling any attempt at comfort.

The only sound was the horse’s hooves, counting out the minutes to their doom. Even the city seemed subdued, with shops shuttered and pedestrians already home for the night. Chrissy tried to measure her breaths, counting heartbeats instead of lampposts, but it did nothing to steady her.

At last, Dinah broke. She reached across and squeezed Chrissy’s hand, her grip fierce and cold. “It will be all right,” she whispered, so low the words barely existed.

Abingdon’s head snapped up. He didn’t look at either of them, but raised his hand in a sharp, silencing gesture. “Not here.” The words were soft, but they killed all hope of further speech. “We’ll discuss it at home.”

Chrissy shrank back, the weight of his disappointment heavier than the damp November night. She gazed again through the glass, and for the first time realized they hadn’t turned toward Grandmama’s but were instead careening west, toward Abingdon House.

Her stomach clenched. She wanted—suddenly and with the clarity of panic—to go home. But it was too late for that. She was hurtling toward a reckoning, and she was entirely unprepared.

When the carriage finally lurched to a halt, the lamps outside threw monstrous shadows across the street.

The footman yanked open the door before the wheels had even ceased turning, and Abingdon was out first. He offered an arm to Dinah but not to Chrissy, who managed to clamber down on her own, nearly tripping over the hem of her gown.

Inside, the entrance hall was bright, the chandelier ablaze in anticipation of their return. The necessary servants hovered in the periphery, their faces professionally blank but their eyes flicking, always, to Abingdon, awaiting instruction.

Dinah’s maid stepped forward to take Dinah’s and Chrissy’s wraps, but Chrissy barely registered her presence. The world had collapsed to the sound of Abingdon’s shoes on marble, and the echo of Dinah’s voice as she tried, again, to whisper a reassurance,

“It will be all right. He just needs time.”

Chrissy doubted it very much.

As Abingdon led them up the stairs, his anger radiating ahead like a heat wave, Chrissy wondered if she might vomit from nerves alone.

Dinah placed a hand on Chrissy’s arm, her voice pitched low enough that it would not echo to the staff below. “Go to the guest room, Chrissy. We’ll talk in the morning after Abingdon has calmed down. It’s been a night.”

Chrissy stopped short. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected—maybe a tongue-lashing, maybe Dinah’s arms thrown around her in messy, weeping solidarity—but this gentle dismissal galled her.

She squared her shoulders, chin lifted high.

“I’m not a child.” The words came out too loud, bouncing off the banister and the velvet drapes, and even Dinah flinched at the force of them.

Dinah’s lips pressed into a line, but she said nothing.

From behind, Abingdon’s steps thundered as he mounted the last stair.

He reached the landing, gaze sweeping from one woman to the other.

For a moment, he simply looked at them, the cogs of his mind visibly grinding as he debated what flavor of rebuke to mete out.

“I’m not a child,” Chrissy repeated, softer now, but steady. “And I’m not sorry, not really. I was caught kissing a man I care for. I’m not the first woman in London to do so, and I won’t be the last.”

Abingdon’s brows shot up, but something in his jaw loosened, just a fraction. “You care for him,” he repeated, as though testing the words for poison.

Chrissy felt the tears threatening, but she clamped down on them with everything she had. “Yes.”

“Are you certain he cares for you?” The question, gentle and brutal at once, struck her harder than any invective could. For a moment, the entire world narrowed to that query. Was she certain? Was she anything but a na?ve fool who’d mistaken attention for affection?

She said nothing, because the answer was not as simple as she wished.

Abingdon stared at her, all the heat gone from his expression. When he spoke next, it was not with the voice of a lord or a brother-in-law, but of a man who had once been young and reckless himself. “You’re too inexperienced to be caught kissing any man like that. Especially not Nomansland.”

Chrissy flinched as though struck.

Dinah moved, stepping between them with a flash of silk. “Don’t you dare scold her. If you must be angry, be angry at the rules that made her so vulnerable. Or at yourself, for not protecting her better.”

For a heartbeat, all three were silent, the words hanging in the air like smoke. Then Abingdon’s face darkened again—not with anger, but with something older and deeper, the kind of disappointment that leaves scars.

He turned on his heel, shoes tapping on marble, and strode away without a backward glance. A door slammed somewhere down the hall, rattling the sconces.

Dinah sagged, the fight gone out of her. She put an arm around Chrissy’s shoulders, pulling her close despite the difference in their heights.

“You did nothing wrong,” Dinah murmured, stroking Chrissy’s hair. “He’ll see it in the morning, once the rage has burned out.”

Chrissy shook in her sister’s arms, equal parts relief and devastation. “What if he’s right? What if I was only… a game?”

Dinah pressed a kiss to her temple. “Then you’ll survive it, because you’re a Westfall.”

They stood together at the foot of the staircase, two women against a world that measured their worth by the delicacy of their virtue and the weight of their dowry. Around them, the staff whispered and tiptoed.

Dinah’s hand squeezed hers, a lifeline in the darkness. “Come. Let’s wash the night off and go to sleep.”

Chrissy nodded, letting herself be led down the corridor. A bit of doubt was creeping into her thoughts, and she fought to push it away. Was Nomansland such a skilled actor to make her believe he cared for her? Was she truly that naive?

She prayed for morning to come with a note from him declaring his eternal love. Please, let his feelings be true .