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The carriage stopped in front of Lady Abernathy’s terrace house. A light drizzle was falling as Thea peered past the window

shade.

She thought about what she’d endured with Kellum and how he’d made her feel worthless and lose sight of who she was. Even

though her experiences hadn’t been anywhere near the horrors that Jasper had suffered, she could see the similarities in the

ways abusive men liked to isolate their victims. To make them feel separate and alone.

It was fortunate that things had ended when they did. She could see that now.

But what about a child who was forced to live beneath the roof of a monster, day in and day out? A child who had known that

there was no one who could protect him?

The trials he must have endured broke her heart and made her furious. She wished she could travel back in time and protect

him from that horrible man.

Turning back to Jasper, she slipped her hand into his. “What will Redcliffe do, now that he knows that both Lady Abernathy

and I have gone? Will he come after you for intervening?”

“He wouldn’t have seen me.”

“Not see... you?” she asked with a dubious arch of her brow.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “I have a secret path in and out of the maze. Only the groundskeeper knows about it and he keeps the hedge gate concealed. He is one of the few servants loyal to me, who’ve been there long enough to have witnessed the truth.

And by the time Redcliffe returned to the house after not locating you in the maze, a groomsman would have informed him that Lady Abernathy had become unexpectedly ill and asked for a carriage to take her and Miss Hartley home.

Then, to keep Redcliffe’s temper in check, the groomsman and a parlor maid would also relay her ladyship’s regret at being unable to linger long enough to thank him for his generous hospitality. ”

Seeing a muscle tick along Jasper’s jaw, she knew he must have hated always keeping the ego of man like Redcliffe pampered

and petted and well fed. But after he’d told her about the circumstances of his aunt and cousins, she also knew that he did

what he had to do for those he cared about.

“And this will placate him?” she asked. “What I mean is, he’ll leave Lady Abernathy to recover on her own without paying a

call?”

He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. “I’ll ensure that you are safe by keeping watch close

by. However, I don’t think he’ll come here at all. He believes he’s infallible and that no one is as clever as he is. So,

he will accept the fiction and start to plot again.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Redcliffe sees any evasion as a game of sorts.”

“Cat and mouse,” she said on a shiver. “He said that in the maze.”

“I heard him.” Jasper pulled her close one more time, his hand skimming down her back in soothing passes. “You should know

that he may attempt to court you.”

“ Court me?”

“He is looking for a new wife. An heir. While he typically marries to increase his wealth, he may decide that your hand would

be the greater triumph, especially after the Leighton Ball.”

“Because you danced with me?”

His shoulders lifted. “In part, but also because—”

“Lady Broadbent gave him the cut direct, didn’t she?” Thea interjected in shock, only now realizing that the earl had been

the man the countess had turned her back on. Seeing Jasper nod only confirmed it. “I wish I could tell her about you. No,

don’t think I would ever betray your trust. But I do wish that she wasn’t quite so determined to guard me against you.”

“I wonder if she might have the right of it after all.” When she tensed, he pressed his lips to her temple. “But it’s too

late for that now.”

Drawing back, she searched his gaze, unsure of what he actually meant. Was she just one more person he decided to protect

out of obligation? Or did she mean more to him?

Since past experience hadn’t been overly kind to her, she decided for him. “You are correct, St. James. It is too late because

I’m never going to let you go.”

Stalling any argument he might utter, Thea pressed her lips to his one more time, then dashed out of the carriage and up to

Lady Abernathy’s door.

***

Early that evening, Thea sat with Lady Broadbent in her bedchamber. The countess was feeling better and had moved from her

bed to the chaise longue by the fire, her gaze staring unreadably at the flames as Thea recounted the events of the afternoon.

She didn’t tell the truth about the maze and what part Jasper had played. Instead, she kept to the fiction that the servant

had relayed to Redcliffe—that Lady Abernathy had taken ill and they’d left, borrowing a carriage from the stables.

“And where was Redcliffe?”

“I believe he was in his gardens. There was no time to wait upon his return.” Not a single second to spare , Thea thought.

Lady Broadbent’s gaze drifted to Thea’s hem and slippers, but she’d changed since returning from Lady Abernathy’s.

“And Beatrice?”

“Much better now. In fact, she said she would rather forget the entire afternoon.”

That statement was unfortunately true. Thea had attempted to tell Lady Abernathy that Redcliffe had orchestrated events for

some ungentlemanly purpose, but the dowager viscountess only glared at her.

“Poppycock. The very idea is a slander to a fine man’s character. You will speak to no one of this.” Color had blotched her

papery cheeks. “For if there is even a whisper, you would be ruined and I doubt the earl would marry you in order to save

your reputation.”

“I would never marry that—”

“We will forget this entire afternoon. Do you understand, Miss Hartley?”

Until that moment, she hadn’t been convinced that Jasper was right about being unable to expose Redcliffe. But the earl was

highly respected among his peers. He wielded his influence as easily as Kellum wielded a pen to entertain and enthrall.

Lady Broadbent coughed into her handkerchief and Thea stood to bring her a glass of water. When she held it out, the countess

put her own hand around Thea’s, staying her. A pair of dove gray brows knitted. “And you are unharmed?”

Thea swallowed. Apparently, her chaperone was able to read between the lines of the fiction she’d created. “I am unharmed.”

“And you will never be in his company again.”

It wasn’t a question, but she nodded.

After the countess drank her fill, Thea returned the glass to the table. Without turning around, she asked, “Why did you give Redcliffe the cut direct at the Leighton Ball?”

A moment passed before the countess expelled a breath, the sound merging with the crackle of the fire. But when she finally

spoke, it wasn’t in answer to her question.

“One of my dearest friends, whom I had known since girlhood, married during one of the Seasons she and I shared together.

She had a daughter and named her after me. Olympia and my daughter, Geraldine, grew up together. I was blessed to watch both

of them blossom into bright and beautiful women.”

Thea listened as she returned to her chair, watching the flicker of firelight over the countess’s features.

“When my dear friend passed away, Olympia came to live with me for a time,” she continued. “That was when I learned she had

a special gift for writing poetry. Beautiful passages. Evocative images you could become lost in.” A soft smile rested on

her lips, but it vanished in the next moment. “Then she was courted by a man who pretended to admire her gift, her passion.

Yet, as soon as they married, he made her feel less for wanting to waste her time on such frivolity .

“This man began demanding more and more of her attention. He even went so far as to keep her from reading in the parlor, unless

it was to entertain him. He began inspecting all her correspondence, but made a show of doing so in order to admire her penmanship

and her cleverness with words. Then he said that it was only necessary for her to write to his family. That her friends surely

didn’t want her to prattle on and on, wasting paper and ink. A wife, after all, had duties to her husband. She should obey

him in all things.”

A chill prickled over Thea’s skin and she chafed her hands against her arms to warm them.

“When she was enceinte, she asked to have a ledger to write down her thoughts to give her child, his future heir. But he refused, telling her that sons do not grow into men who want to read the silly thoughts of their mothers. When she lost the child, her husband claimed she’d gone mad from grief.

That she was hurting herself.” Lady Broadbent swallowed, incipient tears shining in her eyes.

“She died in an asylum. No one will ever know how brilliant she was, and it breaks my heart every single day.”

Thea recalled Jasper’s words.

I know that he sent his first wife to an asylum because he’d wanted to marry another.

“Was she Lady Redcliffe?”

The countess’s mouth flattened into a grim line as she dashed away her tears. “She was. And I hate that I did not see the

man he was until it was too late. I couldn’t save her. But I will be damned if I’ll let him near you.”

Thea didn’t know what shocked her more—the unbridled contempt in every syllable or the fact that the countess cursed in front

of her. Either way, she had even more respect for her than before.

“Go to the top drawer of my bureau,” Lady Broadbent said, gesturing with a flick of her handkerchief, and Thea stood, crossing

the room. “Inside you’ll find an old ledger wrapped in cambric. Take it out. I would like you to have it.”

She did as instructed, carefully unwrapping the tome before closing the drawer again. Curious, she opened the worn cloth cover.

Inside were rows of figures, payments to the draper, the milliner, the stationer and so on. But in between this household’s

list of accounts were lines written in a small, tidy script. And not just words... poetry.

“It’s my belief that she found a discarded accounting ledger and secretly recorded her thoughts,” the countess explained when

Thea sank down onto the foot of the chaise longue.

“How did you come by this?” she asked.

The countess held out her hand for it, pressing her palm against the cover. “She begged her maid to send it to me after she

lost the child.”

“Then she must have known what the earl intended to do.”

“Perhaps.”

As she handed back the book, something occurred to Thea. “I haven’t thanked you for never making me feel like I was engaging

in a silly pastime with my plays, and for giving me the freedom to write whenever and wherever I needed to.”

“I still don’t agree that ball gowns should have pockets.”

Thea smiled. “But you’ve indulged me in my dream of becoming a playwright, nonetheless. Aside from my parents, I cannot think

of anyone else who would have done the same. So, I thank you”—her voice broke on emotion—“for your unflagging support. I adore

you, Lady Broadbent.”

“Do not make me weep,” she ordered, her own voice cracking. “I can hardly breathe through my nose as it is.”

“Then I shall leave you to rest.” She stood and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

When she reached the door, the countess left her with one parting thought. “You have a gift that not all of us have. You have

talent and a voice that deserves to be heard, no matter what some peewit little playwright might have told you.”

Sometimes, Thea thought as she sat at her desk later that night, it only took one person to believe in you that made all the

difference.