“And Nathaniel?” Evelyn asked softly.
“I don’t know. But you must speak to him. You must ask him. There may have been a misunderstanding.”
“Or maybe he just regrets getting caught,” Evelyn muttered. Yet her conviction faltered. At the time, she’d been so sure. She had heard what she heard—of that she was certain. He hadn’t wanted her. He felt trapped.
And yet… She remembered the way he touched her when they fenced, the way they still sparred when fencing nearly every week with rigor and joy. The way he looked at her, like she was a mystery he wanted to solve. When she entered the breakfast room, he smiled as if seeing her for the first time.
He had not seemed like a man who felt trapped.
“Then what am I to do?” she asked.
“Talk to him. And confront your father,” her aunt said firmly.
“No,” Evelyn replied, falling back onto the pillow. She pulled another pillow over her head. “No. No. No.”
“Evelyn,” her aunt said gently, removing the pillow. “This isn’t like you. You don’t run from things. Even when your father arranged to marry you off to someone old enough to be your grandfather, you faced it with strength.”
“On the outside,” Evelyn said. “Inside, I was crumbling. If that blessed date hadn’t intervened, I don’t know what would have happened. And now? Even if this is a misunderstanding… if I was so easily swayed, why would he ever want me back? I look like a fool. Maybe I am a fool. Or maybe he really is treacherous. I feel like I’m trapped in one of those wretched Gothic novels, fleeing imaginary demons through the countryside.”
“Well, I haven’t read many Gothic novels, but they do sound thrilling. Still, this is not fiction. This is your life. You need to pull yourself together and wash your face. You look dreadful. Like one of those pantomimes left to melt in the sun.”
Evelyn finally swung her legs over the side of the bed and walked to her mirror.
She gasped.
She hadn’t removed her makeup the night before—white pearl powder, dark charcoal around her eyes and lashes, a soft red balm on her lips and cheeks. Normally, she wore very little makeup. But it had been a special occasion.
Now, she looked like a ghost. The powder had smeared, the charcoal had run like rivers down her cheeks, and the balm had smeared into a grotesque slash at one corner of her mouth.
“Goodness gracious,” she said.
“I’ll say,” her aunt replied. “Shall I ring for water?”
“Please.”
Her aunt went to the door and pulled the bell rope. Evelyn sat down again, but this time she felt something stir in her.
“When you’re clean and dressed,” Eugenia said, “you must speak to your father.”
Evelyn nodded, though the thought of speaking to anyone was overwhelming. Still, she couldn’t keep hiding. What would her mother say? She’d click her tongue and call her foolish—but with love and conviction.
Evelyn took a deep breath and stepped back to the mirror. She removed her earrings, took off her necklace, and let her aunt help unwind her hair. By the time the washbasin arrived, she had begun to feel like herself again.
As she scrubbed away the traces of her misery, she found her strength once more.
Whatever Nathaniel had said—whether he meant it or not—she would rise again.
Because that, after all, was what duchesses did.
CHAPTER 39
Nathaniel arrived outside Evelyn’s home almost exactly twenty-four hours after he had last been sent away by her aunt. He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eaten. He hadn’t done anything but pace around the house, which, of course, had achieved nothing other than letting him know exactly where the floorboards sloped. He supposed that was worth knowing, but right now, it was utterly beside the point.
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her. Imagining what it must’ve been like for her to hear him say such things about Lady Charmaine, but think they were about her. As he’d replayed everything, he realized he could understand why she would have mistaken it, especially if she hadn’t heard all of it.
He had to explain it to her. He’d considered writing a letter, but knowing how hotheaded Evelyn could be, he already saw the letter crumpled up and flying toward the roaring fireplace in his mind’s eye.
No. He had to do this in person. There was no other way.
