Page 26 of My Lord Rogue (Wicked Widows’ League #34)

Theo sat frozen, unable to parse the sensations battling for primacy in her chest. Shame, certainly—her own duplicity laid out in the open, like a bloodstain on white linen—but also something else, colder and more volatile, relief.

The worst had come, and yet she was not alone in it.

Verity’s voice was the only thing anchoring her to the present.

Lady Amelia’s cheeks had gone a high, dangerous color.

She folded her fan, snapped it open, then folded it again.

“I have no wish to belabor the point,” she said, though nothing could be less true.

“But I am not alone in my suspicions. If Lady Pattishall is, as you say, innocent of all ambition, why did she invite the baron into this charade? Why did she not simply say no?”

Verity glanced back, just once, at Theo. There was no pity in the look—only a steady, unwavering confidence that bordered on command. She turned to face the room, her hands folded over the back of a chair, knuckles white in the candlelight.

“Lady Pattishall’s husband is dead barely more than a year,” Verity said, her voice lowering to a register meant for secrets and sermons. “She has endured more loss than most of us could stomach in a lifetime. She owes no explanation to you, or to me, or to the world at large.”

The room shifted, the women drawing in, the men drawing away. Even Teddy, who had kept his eyes averted, looked up. In the lamplight his face was unreadable—almost a blank, except for the pulse that hammered at his temple.

Lady Amelia, sensing the loss of momentum, tried one last time to reassert control. “If Lady Pattishall has nothing to hide, she will not object to the company’s knowing the truth. It is only fair, after so much deception.”

It was the captain, of all people, who spoke next. “This is a country house, not a court of law,” he said, the words blunt and unpolished. “I see no harm in a little story, if it means the lady may be left in peace.”

A ripple of agreement from the male contingent, the women, sensing a shift in the wind, began to murmur in a new key—one of speculative forgiveness, of the kind that could be retracted at a moment’s notice.

Verity stepped back, placing one hand on Theo’s shoulder. The gesture was gentle, but in it was the full weight of the house’s authority. “You have my permission to ignore Lady Amelia entirely.”

Theo’s hands, which had been clenched so tight the nails left marks in her palm, loosened fractionally.

Her face, she knew, was blotched and uneven, the heat of mortification still burning beneath the skin.

But for the first time since the accusation, she could feel herself breathing.

The locket at her neck was slick with sweat, but she pressed it to her chest, as if by sheer force she could make herself solid again.

Lady Amelia, defeated but not destroyed, lifted her chin. “You are all very magnanimous,” she said, the sarcasm thick as clotted cream. “But I would urge the company to remember that reputation, once lost, is not so easily reclaimed.”

Her voice, at last, failed her. She sat and turned her face toward the hearth.

Verity, satisfied, returned to her chair and resumed work on the lace, as if nothing had happened. The tension in the room dissipated, replaced by the murmur of reconstituted conversation—now colored by the prospect of a new and even more delicious scandal.

Theo sat motionless, her thoughts a flicker of shame, gratitude, and something too raw to name. She could feel every nerve in her hands, every beat of her pulse. She knew the cost of what had just transpired, and she understood that nothing would ever be quite the same.

She closed her eyes, just for a moment, and let herself imagine a world in which she was not the object of everyone’s entertainment. In that world, she and Verity would be alone, perhaps by the lake, talking of nothing more consequential than the weather. In that world, she would be free.

But this was not that world.

She opened her eyes and found Verity watching her, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

“You are not ruined,” Verity said, so low that only Theo could hear.

Theo nodded, and for the first time in days, she believed it.

Around them, the house party lurched back to life, the candles guttering, the servants resuming their silent waltz. But beneath it all, a new order had taken hold.

It was not the world Theo had wanted, but it was one she might, in time, learn to survive.

The relief, as always, was short-lived.

It began with the metallic chime of a glass against wood—a single, deliberate note.

Teddy had left his corner and crossed the rug, the hush of his steps audible even over the resumed chatter.

He stopped, not beside Theo, but squarely before the assembled company, his back straight, hands at his sides.

His cravat had lost its architectural perfection, a single dark curl clung to his forehead, and the line of his jaw was marred by a bruise—likely earned in the course of last night’s brawl over the dice table.

The room recalibrated around him, attention snapping to the point of greatest danger.

He waited, perfectly still, until the ambient noise drained away. Only then did he speak.

“I hope,” he said, and the voice—husked with whiskey and fatigue—was so steady it might have been carved from stone, “that I do not offend by intruding further on this—” he paused, as if searching for the precise word “—accusation.”

A ripple of uncertain laughter, quickly suppressed.

“It is true,” Teddy continued, “that Lady Pattishall and I have not known each other long. It is also true that our acquaintance began as a convenience, perhaps even as a fiction.” His eyes, flickering in the gaslight, found Theo and held her.

“But in that brief span, I have come to admire her more than any other woman in this room. More, in fact, than any woman I have ever met.”

The words were so raw, so unvarnished, that the company recoiled. Even Lady Amelia, seasoned in the dark arts of the drawing room, faltered, her fan drooped.

Teddy pressed on. “She has endured a loss none of us can imagine, and has done so with a courage that should shame every person here who has whispered against her. If you judge her harshly for wishing a moment’s peace, then I suggest the fault lies not with her, but with the world that will not let her grieve in her own way. ”

A hush filled the space. Even the fire, until now a boisterous participant in the evening, seemed to dampen its applause.

Teddy’s left hand trembled, only slightly, but enough to betray the cost of this performance. The blue vein at his temple stood out, vivid as a river on a map. He turned, slow and deliberate, to face Lady Amelia directly.

“Lady Amelia, you accuse her of invention. I say, thank God for it. If the world offers you only pain, why not create something finer? If only in your own mind.”

A few gasps—some affronted, some astonished, none more than the one that escaped Theo’s own lips.

He pivoted, then, so that every eye could see the sincerity in his face. “I do not care what stories are told about me. But if you question Lady Pattishall’s character, you must answer to me. Now, or at your convenience.”

The threat, unadorned, hung in the air. No one doubted its seriousness.

He let the silence ferment. “That is all I have to say,” he finished, and inclined his head with the practiced grace of a man who had once lived for such moments.

Then, quietly, he resumed his place at the edge of the room.

The company reeled, each guest recalculating their alliances, their alibis, the odds of being next. Lady Amelia, drained of all color, attempted to regroup—but the fan would not snap shut.

Verity, who had remained quietly by Theo throughout, now placed her hand atop Theo’s with a firmness that brooked no argument. The gesture was at once a shield and a summons.

Theo could barely move. Every inch of her skin registered the aftershock of Teddy’s words.

The locket at her neck felt lighter, her grip on it loosened, then fell away entirely.

She was aware, with alarming clarity, of the flush spreading across her chest, the tingling at the base of her spine, the singular point of heat at the center of her ribs.

She looked up, found Teddy’s gaze fixed on her. He did not smile. He only waited, as if her answer were the only one that mattered.

The room began to buzz again—whispers, shuffles, the hurried reconstitution of conversation.

But beneath it, a current persisted, something deeper than gossip, more dangerous than scandal.

The rules had shifted, the old world was gone, replaced by one in which Theo was no longer merely the object of scrutiny, but the axis around which the evening revolved.

Lady Amelia, her campaign in ruins, retreated to the window, her feathers a flag of defeat.

Verity squeezed Theo’s hand, once, hard enough to hurt. “You’re not ruined,” she whispered, and for the first time, the words felt like a benediction.

Theo found herself smiling—weak, unsteady, but real. She turned, then, to face the room. She met each gaze, not with the brittle defensiveness of before, but with something new, something almost like defiance.

She found Teddy again. This time, she did not look away.

Their eyes locked. In the moment, every scandal, every lie, every desperate fiction melted to nothing. There was only the truth of the thing, that in defending her, he had given her the only freedom she had ever wanted—the freedom to choose.

She did not yet know what she would choose.

But she knew, for the first time, that the choice was hers.