They Mocked Her When Her Groom Arrived In A Farmer's Cart — He Was The Duke In Disguise
Chapter 18
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She had stood before the small mirror in their bedroom that evening, smoothing the plain fabric with hands that trembled slightly, and had very nearly asked Callum whether they might send their regrets instead. He had come to stand behind her in the mirror's reflection, resting his hands on her shoulders, and told her simply that she looked precisely like a woman who had nothing left to prove to anyone in that ballroom. She had not entirely believed him, but she had walked through the doors regardless, chin lifted, and found some borrowed measure of his calm settling over her own nerves as they crossed the threshold together.It did not take long for Violet to find her."The farmer's duchess graces us with her presence," Violet announced, loud enough for the surrounding cluster of guests to turn and look, her voice pitched with theatrical delight. "Tell me, sister, did you arrive tonight in the cart, or has your husband finally scraped together the coin for a proper carriage?"The ballroom laughed. It was not unkind laughter to the ears that produced it, merely the easy, thoughtless cruelty of people who had never once gone hungry, never once been looked at as though they did not matter, and could not imagine the weight of what they tossed around so lightly.Matilda felt the old, familiar heat rise in her throat, but Callum's hand found the small of her back before the shame could fully take hold, steady and warm, and she found she did not need to answer at all. His silence beside hers felt like an anchor rather than an absence.Victor arrived at his wife's side with his usual polished smirk, sliding an arm around Violet's waist. "Robinson," he said, extending a hand with the careless condescension of a man greeting an inferior he found mildly amusing. "Tell me, do you find London society much changed from tending your fields?""Considerably louder," Callum said, shaking the offered hand with perfect composure. "Though the crops back home require considerably less flattery to grow."A ripple of surprised laughter followed, this time not entirely at Callum's expense, and Victor's smile thinned at the edges.It was then, amid the swirl of silk and candlelight, that Matilda noticed the elderly Earl of Hallomere standing near the refreshment table go suddenly and completely still. The old man's eyes had fixed on Callum's hand as he withdrew it from Victor's grip—on the worn gold signet ring that Matilda now wore around her own neck on a fine chain, having taken to keeping it close since the night she found it, unable to explain even to herself why she felt it belonged near her heart rather than locked away in a drawer.