Marianne began as she stepped into the room, but her words faltered.
Her gaze landed on Cecilia, and at that moment, Cecilia forgot how to breathe. Her dress was half-fastened, hair slightly askew, cheeks flushed. Then Marianne shifted to the duke, standing far too near for decency.
Marianne's mouth parted, but no sound emerged. Cecilia half expected a shriek to have filled the room already. It was miraculous. For once in her life, Marianne had been rendered utterly speechless. Cecilia might have savored the moment, had she not been half-undressed and on the verge of social ruin.
Please, heavens, open the floor beneath me now.
Cecilia lowered her gaze to the ground, begging it to split open and swallow her whole. She stared at the wooden floor, as though it might show her mercy and grant her swift escape from the chaos that was surely about to erupt. Surely there was no–
Wait…
“Your Grace?” she echoed, the words leaving her lips before she could think. Her gaze snapped to the man she had just smacked, bickered with, practically undressed in front of.
There was only one duke attending this gathering. Only one man in the entire house who bore that title.
Lucy’s intended.
Lucy’s duke.
“Oh no,” she breathed, eyes widening as she staggered back a step. The torn dress clung miserably to her frame.
Aunt Marianne gasped sharply, one gloved hand flying to her chest.“Heavens above!”
Cecilia winced and immediately opened her mouth to speak, but only a squeak came out. Her mind raced, trying to string together words that made sense, but all she could manage were fragments. “Aunt Marianne, this isn’t…I assure you, whatever it is that you think or – He just – We just–”
“Tell me that my eyes are deceiving me!” Her voice rose with each syllable, eyes wild and brimming with horror as she turned on Cecilia. “Do you even understand what you’ve done?”
“I did nothing!” Cecilia burst out, finally finding her voice. “I promise, I didn’t know this was his chambers! I thought this was my room, I must have miscounted the doors...my dress ripped, and Lucy sent me to–”
But Aunt Marianne was no longer listening. She had launched into a whole symphony of gasps and tuts, pacing two dramaticsteps into the room and throwing a sharp look between them. Cecilia glanced at the man who merely stood there, staring, his expression unreadable. He looked far too relaxed for a man caught in the middle of such chaos.
“Aunt Marianne, please,” she began, her voice shaking more from mortification than fear. “It was an accident. I–”
Marianne threw up her hand, silencing her. “Save it, Cecilia. Save it.” Her eyes were wide with a fury Cecilia hadn’t seen in a while. “Do you even fathom what this looks like? My heavens!”
“I know how it looks, but it’s not what you think.”
“Save it, Cecilia,” she said again and paused to straighten her back. “Your father will hear of this immediately.” She spun toward the door, muttering under her breath as she exited.
For a long moment after the door slammed, silence settled over the room like a heavy velvet curtain. Cecilia stared at the space where Aunt Marianne had just been, every muscle in her body rigid with shock and humiliation. The air felt too still, as though even it was unsure of what to do next.
She was painfully aware of the man still in the room, standing just a few paces away. The silence between them stretched unbearably, awkward and taut, broken only by the faint rustle of her ruined dress as she shifted her grip on the fabric.
At last, he moved. Slowly, and without any urgency, he turned to her, his gaze still unreadable, as it rested on her face for a beat longer than necessary.
“Take your time,” he said to her without sparing her a glance. “I shall leave you to compose yourself.”
With that, he turned on his heel and, with the same frustrating calm he had displayed all along, walked out the door, pulling it closed behind him with a soft click.
Surely this cannot be real.
She blinked at the empty room, her pulse still thundering in her ears. This had to be a dream. A very elaborate, very mortifying dream.
There was no way reality unfolded that fast.
“Cecilia Lockhart! In your underthings?”
It was, in fact, not a dream.
