Hidden away for a scarred hand, Beatrice Holley spent her season in dark rooms counting trade routes — until the most ruthless duke in England found her reading maps, and refused to leave her hidden. “I owe your stepmother a call,” he said. He kept his word.

PART 4

Morning in the Holley townhouse was a masterclass in controlled hysteria.

The drawing room smelled faintly of stale lavender and impending debt. Beatrice sat in the furthest, darkest corner, head bowed over the ruins of Cesily’s pink silk bodice — her unscarred right hand working a needle with brutal efficiency, her gloved left holding the fabric taut. She had slept perhaps two hours, her mind violently replaying the encounter in the Earl’s library until her head pounded.

I owe your stepmother a call.

He wouldn’t come. Dukes did not call on minor, impoverished gentry — let alone the hidden, scarred daughters of such families. It had been a threat, a sharp display of power meant to terrify her before he returned to his untouchable world.

“Sit up straight, Cesily.” Agatha paced across the faded carpet. “Lord Davenport’s carriage was seen in the square. If he knocks, I want you entirely breathless with surprise. But not so breathless that your chest heaves. It looks vulgar.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“And, Beatrice — if the knocker sounds, you will take your sewing into the hall. I will not have Lord Davenport’s first impression marred by the sight of a scullery maid in my drawing room.”

“Of course.”

The heavy brass knocker slammed against the wood — sharp, authoritative. Agatha froze, her face morphing from a snarl into a mask of maternal sweetness. Beatrice calmly set the silk down and stood, sewing box in hand.

The drawing room door opened. Their aging butler, Hodges, stepped inside. He looked distinctly pale.

“His grace — ” His voice cracked on the title. “The Duke of Calverton.”

All the blood drained from Agatha’s face, only to rush back in a violent mottled red. She spun toward Beatrice, eyes wild.

“Hide. Get behind the screen. Now.”

Beatrice didn’t argue. She slipped behind the painted silk screen in the corner just as heavy, measured footsteps crossed the threshold.

Through a narrow gap between the panels, she watched Henry enter. He wore a perfectly tailored dark blue morning coat, devoid of the fussy embroidery currently fashionable among the dandies. He looked hard, uncompromising, and deeply bored.

“Your grace!” Agatha gasped, dropping into a curtsy so deep she nearly toppled over. “We — we are profoundly honored. To what do we owe this extraordinary pleasure?”

Henry did not smile. He did not offer customary platitudes about the weather or the previous night’s ball. He simply stood, his dark eyes sweeping the room — bypassing Cesily entirely, sliding right over Agatha, and landing with terrifying precision on the painted screen in the corner.

“I’m here to call upon Miss Holley,” he said.

Agatha beamed, shoving Cesily forward by the elbow.

“Cesily is absolutely delighted, your grace. We were just discussing how splendid the music was — ”

“Not that Miss Holley.” The brutal finality in his tone made Agatha’s mouth snap shut. “I am here for the elder Miss Holley. Beatrice.”

Silence slammed into the room like a physical weight.

“I — I beg your pardon, your grace.” A frantic, hysterical edge bled into Agatha’s voice. “There must be some mistake. Beatrice does not receive callers. She is unwell. Prone to absolute fits of melancholy, I am afraid.”

“Is she?” Henry took three deliberate steps toward the corner of the room. “How tragic. Yet I find my constitution is remarkably resilient to melancholy.”

He stopped directly in front of the screen.

“Miss Holley. Come out.”

Not a request — a command wrapped in velvet.

Behind the screen, Beatrice closed her eyes. She wanted to sink through the floorboards. She wanted to hurl her sewing box at his head. He was exposing her — dragging her out of the safe, miserable obscurity she had carefully built to survive this household.

But you did not defy a duke in front of an audience.

She stepped out. Washed-out gray day dress. Hair pulled tight against her skull. Left hand firmly gloved. Chin level, refusing to cower.

“Your grace.”

Agatha looked like she was going to have a stroke. “Beatrice, what is the meaning of this? Why is his grace — ”

“Miss Holley and I made the acquaintance of a fascinating map last night.” Henry turned his head just enough to silence Agatha with a look that could have stripped paint from a carriage. “It seems we had a disagreement regarding the route through the Brenner Pass. I have brought a secondary cartographer’s chart to prove my point. My carriage is waiting outside.”

“You want me to look at a map in your carriage?”

“I want you to accompany me for a drive through Hyde Park. It is a beautiful morning, and you need the air.”

“A drive?” Agatha shrieked, abandoning her pretensions entirely. “Absolutely not. It is utterly improper. Beatrice has no chaperone. She has no proper bonnet, and she is certainly not — ”

“I am bringing our riders and an open carriage. The entire city of London will be our chaperone.” His voice dropped until the words felt like cracked ice. “As for the bonnet — I find I am entirely unconcerned with millinery. If you are refusing my request, you had best state that plainly now. But I assure you, my memory for insults is exceptionally long.”

The threat hung in the air, heavy and lethal. To refuse the Duke of Calverton meant social execution. Agatha’s invitations would dry up by tomorrow afternoon. Cesily’s prospects would evaporate.

Agatha swallowed hard.

“Of course, your grace,” she choked out, looking at Beatrice with a gaze so steeped in venom it almost burned. “Beatrice would be delighted.”

“Go get your cloak, Miss Holley.”

She wanted to refuse. She wanted to scream at him for detonating her fragile reality. But the carriage was waiting, and Agatha’s fury was already a guaranteed nightmare. Getting out of the house was temporarily the safer option.

She marched past him without a word, grabbed her dark woolen cloak from the hall stand — refusing the wide-eyed Hodges’s assistance — and walked out the front door, down the stone steps, toward the massive black carriage waiting at the curb.

The crest on the door was pure gold. The horses were terrifyingly massive black beasts. She climbed into leather so soft it felt indecent, and Henry climbed in after her, signaling the driver with a sharp rap on the roof.

For three blocks, neither of them spoke.

“You’re angry,” Henry finally observed. He looked entirely relaxed, one arm slung carelessly over the window ledge.