CHAPTER 118: CHAPTER HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN

Rowan lowered the newspaper slowly. The rustle of the paper was the only sound in the large, sunlit dining room, but to Ines, it sounded like thunder.

He looked at her. His eyes, usually warm when he looked at his sister, were now narrowed and sharp.

"Ines," Rowan said, his voice calm but demanding. "Are you alright?"

Ines froze. She tried to pick up her teacup, but her hand was shaking too much. She set it back down.

"I am fine, Rowan," she said, her voice thin.

"You do not look fine," Rowan countered. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table. "You look... terrified. What did that letter say? What news could Miss Gladys possibly have sent that made the color drain from your face so quickly?"

Ines’s mind raced. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t say, ’My publisher told me there’s trouble.’ She couldn’t say, ’The scandalous book you were reading about in the paper was written by me.’

She needed a lie. A boring, mundane, uninteresting lie.

She forced the corners of her mouth up. It was a weak, trembling smile, but it was the best she could do.

"Oh," she said, trying to make her voice sound light and sad at the same time. "It is... it is sad news, actually."

Rowan waited.

"Gladys," Ines lied, the words tasting like ash on her tongue. "She said she won’t be coming for tutorials for a while. Her mother... her mother isn’t well. She is very sick, it seems. So Gladys has to go and take care of her."

It was a classic excuse. Servants and tutors always had sick relatives. It was the perfect cover for a disappearance.

Rowan’s expression softened instantly. The suspicion vanished, replaced by genuine sympathy. He nodded slowly.

"I see," he said gently. "That is unfortunate. Miss Gladys is a good woman. She has been with us for a long time."

He picked up his napkin and dabbed his mouth.

"Okay," Rowan said, his voice practical and kind. "Illness can be expensive. I will have Mrs. Briggs send her some money. A basket of food, perhaps. We should support her during this time."

Ines felt a sharp stab of guilt. Her brother was a good man. He was generous. And she was lying to his face, using his kindness to cover her tracks.

"That... that would be very kind of you, Rowan," she murmured, looking down at her plate.

She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t sit here and eat toast and pretend that her world wasn’t crumbling. She needed to read the rest of the letter. She needed to know how bad it was.

She stood up abruptly.

Scrrrraaaape.

Her heavy wooden chair dragged against the floorboards, making a harsh, jarring sound that echoed in the high-ceilinged room.

Rowan looked up at her, surprised by her sudden movement.

"Ines?"

"I don’t have an appetite anymore," Ines said quickly. She pressed a hand to her stomach, feigning illness. "The news... it upset me. And besides... I just remembered I haven’t had my medicines yet. The heart tonic."

It was the ultimate trump card. Her health. Rowan never argued with her health.

Rowan looked at her with concern. He thought she was devastated by the news of her friend’s tragedy. He thought she was fragile.

"Very well then," he said softly. "Go. Take your medicine. Rest. Do not worry about the lessons. We have the wedding to plan, anyway."

He picked up his newspaper again, snapping it open, dismissing her to her rest.

Ines didn’t wait. She bobbed a quick, jerky curtsy and turned around. She walked out of the dining room, her steps measured and slow until she was out of his sight.

As soon as she reached the hallway, she sped up. She didn’t run—running attracted attention—but she walked with a fast, desperate urgency. She passed a housemaid dusting a vase and didn’t even nod. She climbed the stairs, her hand gripping the banister, pulling herself up.

She reached her bedroom door. She opened it, stepped inside, and closed it firmly behind her.

Click.

She leaned against the door for a moment, breathing hard. Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

She reached into her pocket. Her fingers brushed against the thick, folded paper. It felt hot to the touch, as if the words inside were burning.

She pulled it out.

She walked to her small writing desk—the desk where she had written so many scenes, where she had created The Duke’s Nightly Routine. She sat down, her hands trembling.

She unfolded the letter.

Gladys’s handwriting was usually neat, precise, and teacherly. This letter was scrawled. The ink was blotched in places, as if she had written it in a carriage, or in a hurry.

Ines took a deep breath and began to read.

"My Dearest Arthur,"

The salutation made Ines flinch. It was her name. Her secret name.

"Do not send the next bundle. Do not send anything. Burn this letter immediately after reading. We are being watched."

The words seemed to jump off the page.

"A man came to the print shop yesterday," the letter continued. "He was not a customer. He was not a bookseller. He was a broker. A fixer."

Ines could imagine him. A man in a dark coat, quiet and dangerous.

"He bought every copy of ’The Duke’s Midnight Lesson’ that was on the shelves,"

Gladys wrote. "Every single one. He didn’t care about the price. And then... he asked for the original manuscript."

Ines’s hand flew to her mouth. The original manuscript. The one written in her own hand. The one with her loops and her distinct way of crossing her ’t’s.

"He offered triple the price," the letter said. "Triple. Just for a sample of the author’s handwriting. He said he had a client who was a ’great admirer’ and wanted to verify the authenticity."

A lie, Ines thought. It is a trap.

If they had her handwriting... if they compared it to a letter she had written, or an invitation, or a note to a dressmaker... they would know.

Arthur Pendleton was Lady Ines Hamilton.

"I managed to put him off," Gladys wrote. "I told him Mr. Pendleton sends his work via courier and I never see the originals. I lied. But Ines... I was followed home."

Ines felt a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the drafty window. Followed.

"I shook the tail near the docks. I lost him in the market crowd. But I fear they are closing in. They know the print shop. They know me."

The next paragraph was even worse.

"This buyer isn’t looking for a story. He isn’t a fan. He is looking for a scandal. He asked questions about the author’s gender. He asked if the author was... ’connected.’"

Ines gripped the paper. Connected. That meant nobility. They suspected.

"I suspect," Gladys wrote, her pen pressing hard into the paper, "he was hired by a woman. A woman of high standing."

Ines frowned. A woman?

"He smelled," the letter described, "of expensive lavender water and impatience. Not the cheap stuff. The kind that comes from Paris. And he carried a handkerchief embroidered with a crest I couldn’t quite see, but it looked noble."

Lavender water.

Ines’s mind raced. Who smelled of lavender?

Carcel had sent her lavender. But Carcel loved her. Carcel knew her secret. He wouldn’t hire a broker to expose her. He was protecting her.

Who else?

Lady Priscilla smelled of lilies. Cold, white lilies.

Amelia smelled of jasmine and roses.

Most of the older matrons smelled of rosewater or violet.

Lavender...

It was a common scent. But expensive lavender? Parisian lavender?

"Stay safe," the letter ended abruptly. "I am going underground for a while. Do not write to me. Do not come to my house. I will signal you when it is safe. Burn this letter immediately. Until then, Arthur Pendleton must disappear."

"— G"

Ines stared at the letter. The paper was trembling in her hand because her whole body was shaking.

They are hunting me, she thought. Not Ines. They are hunting Arthur.

And if they found Arthur... they found Ines. And if they found Ines... they found the scandal.

They would find out that the Duke in the book—the Duke with the dark eyes and the specific habits—was Carcel. They would realize that the "fiction" was a diary.

Rowan would be destroyed by rumors of his sister. Carcel would be ruined. Their marriage would be a farce before it even began.

She looked at the last line again. Burn this letter immediately.

She stood up.

She picked up the small brass lantern that sat on her writing table. She fumbled in the drawer for a match. Her hands were shaking so badly it took her three tries to strike it.

The flame flared to life, small and yellow. She lit the wick inside the lantern.

She held the letter.

She held the corner of the paper to the flame.

It caught instantly. The fire curled the edge of the paper, turning it black. The flame ate the words.

Ines watched it burn. She held it until the heat stung her fingertips, until the fire was dangerously close to her skin. She dropped the burning paper onto the metal tray on her desk.

She watched it curl and twist, turning into gray ash. The smoke rose in a thin, dark spiral, smelling of burnt ink and fear.

She picked up a metal letter opener and crushed the ashes, grinding them into dust, making sure not a single word survived.