“Are they talking?” Evelyn asked. The words came out sharper than intended, echoing her memory of the whispers at Almack’s—the Widow Sinclair, they had called her—the one-day Duchess.
Sarah shifted uncomfortably. Her blue eyes narrowed slightly. “I’ve heard some things. At the market.”
Evelyn’s heart pounded. “About me and His Grace?”
The maid fidgeted with the hem of the gown. “Just gossip, Your Grace. Fishwives and market-mongers.”
“Tell me exactly what they said.”
Sarah bit her lip. “Very well. They say… they say you and His Grace were lovers before the late Duke died. That it was all a scheme—to place you in his house, to make you the Duchess. That you’ve been living here, not as a guest, but as…”
“A mistress,” Evelyn finished coldly.
The maid’s eyes widened, but she didn’t deny it.
“And some,” she added hesitantly, “some say the two of you conspired to hasten the late Duke’s death.”
Evelyn gasped. “That’s madness!”
“I know, Your Grace! I know! I don’t believe it—not for a second.”
“But others do,” Evelyn whispered. “I am accused, whether I like it or not.”
Sarah helped fasten the last of the buttons. “It is only gossip. It will fade.”
“Or it will fester,” Evelyn said. “Unless…”
“Unless you marry,” Sarah finished gently. “Someone respectable. Someone that people trust.”
Evelyn sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “So the only way to silence scandal is… another union. One I do not want.”
She leaned back and stared at the canopy above her bed, her mind racing.
Was Nathaniel right? Were her ambitions to reclaim her independence, her dreams of living freely in the dower house, all slipping away?
Would people stop whispering if she found a suitable husband? Would her father back down? Would Nathaniel finally stop this campaign to remove her from his life?
And if all of this was inevitable—if she must marry to secure her freedom—then wouldn’t it be better to let Nathaniel choose someone for her? Someone decent?
Someone who, perhaps, wasn’t so dreadful?
Perhaps her plan to take control of her life was already unraveling.
And perhaps the only way forward… was to let go.
At least a little.
CHAPTER 16
The clock in Westcott’s gentlemen’s club struck the quarter hour past eleven when Nathaniel entered the less-than-reputable back rooms. He’d dined outside, in the respectable part of the club, but he knew he had to take his mind off his troubles, and in London, there was no better place to do that than Westcott’s back rooms.
Unlike the upper-class clubs such as White’s, Brooke’s, or even Bootles’, this club had one of the notorious back rooms. And like all such rooms, this one reeked of stale tobacco and secrets, where gentlemen of questionable morals came to drink brandy that tasted perpetually of smoke and speak of things that would never see the light of drawing room conversation. He knew places like this well, as he had spent many hours in them both in London and in Edinburgh.
“Over here,” Julian called, and he slipped into an upholstered chair across from his friend.
“You look as out of place as a nun in St. Giles, my friend,” Julian chuckled and regarded him with the languid amusement of a cat who had cornered a particularly interesting mouse. The man possessed an infuriating ability to appear utterly at ease while delivering the most pointed of observations, and tonight was no exception.
“It has been a while since I frequented this place,” he admitted.
