The pale morning light did little to warm Ines's bedroom. She sat stiffly at her vanity, a silent statue, while Edith fussed with a silver-backed brush. The events of the previous night played over and over in her mind: the moonlight, Westhaven's cruel words, the sickening crack of bone, and the cold, dismissive bow from Carcel Anderson.
His jacket was still in her room, folded neatly on a chair where she had placed it before collapsing into bed. She could not bring herself to look at it, yet she was intensely aware of its presence.
"My lady?"
Ines blinked, her reflection snapping into focus. Her hazel eyes were shadowed, her small lips pale. "Yes, Edith. I am sorry," She murmured.
"Will you be having your hair pinned up, my lady?" Edith asked, moving to the collection of pins.
"No," Ines said, too tired to argue. "Just... brush it. Leave it unbound."
Edith looked surprised. A lady of Ines's station, even in her own home, did not typically leave her hair unbound past breakfast. But she said nothing and continued the long, rhythmic strokes through Ines's thick, reddish-brown curls.
Ines closed her eyes. She was supposed to be thinking about Doris and Stefan. She had left them in the middle of a sentence. But she couldn't. She couldn't feel the thrill.
"There, my lady," Edith said, her voice soft and cheerful. "All done."
Ines looked at her reflection. Edith had finished her work. Her reddish-brown curls, unbound, fell loosely around her shoulders, a sign that she would be staying in, that she would not be receiving guests.
"Will you be going down for breakfast, my lady?" Edith asked, gathering the pins and brushes.
"No, Edith. I am not hungry."
"But you barely touched your dinner last night, and…"
Knock, knock, knock.
The sharp rap on the door made Ines jump. For a wild second, she thought it was Rowan, coming to demand answers about the night before.
"Who is it?" Ines called, her voice tight.
A familiar, warm voice answered, muffled by the oak door. "It's me, Gladys."
Relief washed over Ines so powerfully she felt her shoulders slump. A genuine smile, the first she had felt all morning, touched her lips. Gladys. Her tutor. Her friend. Her co-conspirator.
"Come in!" Ines beamed.
The door opened and Gladys entered, carrying a leather satchel full of books. She was a woman of about twenty eight, with kind, intelligent eyes and plain brown hair pulled back in a severe bun that did nothing to soften her gentle face. She was not beautiful by the standards of the ton, but to Ines, she was the most beautiful.
"Good morning, Lady Ines," Gladys said, her smile reaching her eyes. She curtsied perfectly.
Ines stood. "Gladys. I am so glad to see you."
She turned to her maid. "Edith, you may leave us. I believe my tutorial is about to start."
Edith bobbed a curtsy. "Of course, my lady. Shall I bring pastry and tea to the library for you and Miss Gladys?"
"That would be lovely, thank you," Ines nodded.
As soon as Edith closed the door, the formal atmosphere vanished. Gladys dropped her satchel onto a chaise lounge and her posture relaxed. She walked over to Ines, her expression shifting from polite tutor to concerned friend. Her voice dropped to a low, urgent whisper.
"Have you finished it? The new manuscript?"
Ines's smile faltered. She looked away, toward the window.
Gladys pressed on, her whisper laced with anxiety. "The other ladies are getting impatient, Ines. The mailbox we set up is overflowing with letters. They are asking where the author has gone, why 'Mr. Pendelton' has fallen silent. The book was due last month."
Ines's mind went blank. The book. Doris and Stefan. The world she had created felt a million miles away, a silly, childish fantasy.
Ines replied, "Ummmm… "
She looked at Gladys, the woman who knew her greatest secret. It had started five years ago, when Ines was just sixteen. She had been lonely, bored, and filled with a restless energy that society had no place for. So, she wrote. She wrote a steamy, forbidden novel about a duke and his maid.
Gladys, her new tutor at the time, had found the pages hidden beneath her mattress. Ines had been braced for ruin, for lectures on piety and modesty.
Instead, Gladys had read the entire thing, her spectacles perched on her nose. She had looked up at Ines, her cheeks slightly flushed, and said, "My goodness. This is… quite compelling. Although, realistically, a man of that size could not possibly hide in a potted fern."
Writing a novel like that was something a lady should never be caught doing. But, as Ines had confessed, it seemed so sad that no one would ever read it after she had worked so long.
Gladys, a practical woman with a sick mother and very little income, had encouraged her to put it into business.
And so, "Mr. Arthur Pendelton" was born.
Ines would write during the week, her mind a secret, swirling world of passion and drama. Gladys would come on the weekends for "tutoring." She would collect the finished manuscript pages and take them to a small, discreet printing shop under the pseudonym.
The system was brilliant. The small, paper-bound books were sold, not in public shops, but through Gladys's connections with other tutors. Governesses would buy them for their lonely madams. Tutors would slip them to the noble young ladies they taught. It even became wildly popular among the maids who could read a little, passed from hand to hand in the servants' quarters.
It was their secret. Their business. And it was dangerous.
"We can't let anyone find out, Ines," Gladys said, stopping her pacing to fix Ines with a serious look. "You know that. It's not something a noble lady should do."
It is, in fact, the very worst thing a noble lady could do, Ines thought, her stomach twisting.
"We need to keep this secret between ourselves," Gladys said, lowering her voice again, though they were perfectly alone. "And I mean it, Ines. If we eventually get caught—if your brother finds a book, or if that fool at the printing shop talks—I will take the blame. I have no reputation to lose. I am just a poor spinster. But you… it would destroy you. Do you understand me?"
"I understand, Gladys," Ines whispered. She understood it all too well.
"Good." Gladys became the business partner again. "Now, the printer is waiting. Lady Harnesby's daughter apparently feigned illness just to stay home and wait for the new installment. We cannot disappoint her. Did you finish the stable scene last night after the ball?"
Ines looked away. She walked to her reading table, her fingers tracing the smooth, cool wood. Beneath it, in the locked drawer, lay the manuscript. It was still there, the page stained with that single, black droplet of ink.
"I… I haven't finished it," Ines confessed, her voice low. "I haven't written a single word since last night."