Lord Thomas Reed slapped the Duchess of Summerton in a velvet alcove, certain no one would ever know — until the door behind her opened. Her husband had heard what Thomas said. But when the Duke saw the red mark on her cheek, it was not the anger in his eyes that chilled her. It was the question he asked Thomas: “How long do you think I was standing outside that door?”

PART 7

On the fourteenth day, Beatrice sat before her vanity mirror, and the bruise was gone. Only a faint shadow remained beneath her left eye, easily hidden by a light dusting of pearl powder. The split in her lip had closed into a small pale scar.

Henry appeared in the doorway, watching her reflection, fully dressed for society.

“It is gone,” she said.

“Yes.”

She turned to face him. A cold knot of dread pulled tight in her stomach. “Lady Jersey’s ball is tonight.”

“We do not have to go. I can send our regrets.”

“No. If we hide, they will smell blood.” She steadied her voice. “Society demands an appearance.”

Henry came closer and drew a long, flat velvet box from his pocket.

“I did not buy these for the Duchess of Summerton,” he said, quiet and private. “I bought them for my wife.”

Inside lay a necklace of deep-water sapphires set in plain, heavy gold — not the massive Summerton emeralds that belonged to the title and ten dead men, but newly cut, intimately chosen.

He stepped behind her and fastened it himself, his fingers brushing her nape. He rested his hands on her shoulders and looked at her in the mirror.

“You are not walking into that room alone, Beatrice. You will never walk into a room alone again.”

“I understand,” she said.

Lady Jersey’s ballroom was a theatre of war disguised with silk bunting and champagne. When the majordomo struck his staff against the marble, the room quieted.

“Their graces, the Duke and Duchess of Summerton.”

Beatrice descended with her hand on Henry’s arm, chin level, and felt the eyes crawl up the staircase like insects, hunting for the phantom bruise, for the reason Lord Thomas Reed had vanished into the night.

Lady Jersey descended on them instantly.

“Two weeks locked away. We feared the chill had taken a permanent hold.”

“The Duchess required rest,” Henry said, in a tone that carried the finality of an iron gate closing. “The damp air on the Carmichael terrace was particularly vicious.”

“So I hear. She looks radiant now. Though the Season has been dreadfully dull. We lost one of our most entertaining fixtures only days after you fell ill. Lord Thomas Reed — gone to the Continent without a word.”

There it was. The trap, set in front of two hundred witnesses.

Beatrice did not blink.

“Lord Thomas,” she mused, as though recalling the name of an unremarkable servant. “Ah. Yes. Someone mentioned he had developed a sudden passion for French arithmetic. Or was it French debt? I confess I do not retain the affairs of lesser men. They occupy so very little.”

A glass broke somewhere behind her. Nobody turned to look.

“My wife has very little patience for mediocrity, Sally,” Henry added, using her given name with a soft, patronising edge only a duke could survive. “And neither do I. If you will excuse us — I believe the Duchess has promised me this dance.”

He led her to the floor as the orchestra struck up a waltz.

“French arithmetic,” he murmured.

“It felt appropriate. You forged the ledgers, after all.”

“You were magnificent.”

“I was terrified.”

“They are afraid of you now.”

“No, Henry. They are afraid of you.”

“Let them be. It will keep them at a distance.”

They danced, and the ballroom blurred at the edges. They paid their required respects and were gone before midnight. Stepping into the cool London air, Beatrice took her first real breath in two weeks. It tasted like freedom.