Chapter Text
Dearest readers,
Bedford Square, 1817. At long last, the social season has officially begun. Today is a most important day. Terrifying for some, triumphant for others, for it is the day London’s young debutants are presented to Her Majesty the Queen. It is not lineage, not dowry, not even beauty that holds sway today: only the Queen’s eye. A flicker of displeasure, and a young lady’s reputation plummets to unthinkable depths.
Outside St. James’s Palace, the square is already jammed with carriages and corsets. Mothers fan themselves in anticipation, eyes narrowed in calculated assessment of the competition. Young men with polished boots and practiced boredom pretend not to care, though each keeps one eye on the doors, and the other on the season’s fresh offerings.
This year marks the return of House Walsh to London society, with the long-absent (and recently widowed) Viscountess Emery Walsh, once Diamond herself, now escorting her younger sister, Miss Elizabeth Walsh, a debutante already whispered to be following in her sister’s shimmering footsteps. But tell us, dear reader: will lightning strike twice for the House of Walsh?
Meanwhile, the ever-entertaining Miss Trinity Santos returns for her second season, having allegedly shed both a hair ribbon and a fiance in last year’s infamous rose hedge incident. Whether she’ll fare better this time remains to be seen. Better odds, perhaps, lie with House Javadi. The Duke’s daughter, Miss Victoria Javadi, makes her debut under the exacting gaze of her mother, who believes breeding and bankbooks are all one needs to secure a title. We shall see if the gentlemen agree.
And finally, dearest reader, this author finds herself compelled to bear the most curious of news: Miss Samira Mohan, once buried in books and the company of the royal physician, has emerged from academic obscurity at Oxford. Her return to the ballroom suggests a change of heart, or perhaps a change of fortune? Ladies, do take notes. Gentlemen… do be warned. As always, we at the London Post shall be watching and whispering. Let the season begin.
London Society Papers, 23 April, 1817
***
The room still smelled faintly of sweat, and the remnants of last night’s bottle of wine. Gossamer curtains fluttered from a cracked window, filtering pale sunlight across a tumble of silk sheets and bare limbs.
Emery Walsh lay on her back, one arm lazily draped over her forehead, the other tracing absentminded circles on the mattress. Somewhere beneath the sheets, a very pretty woman snored faintly. Elegant, blonde, and gloriously distracting. Emery shifted, sighing as she sat up. A headache pressed behind her eyes and she rubbed at her temples, glancing around the room: plush and private, even in its decor.
Beside her the woman stirred. “Leaving already?”
Emery reached for her corset and her skirts, which lay half-slumped on a nearby chair, and gave a small smile. “Afraid so, darling. Obligations.” She stood, stretching with ease. “You understand.”
The woman– what was her name? –propped herself on one elbow, the sheet slipping dangerously down her chest. “Will you call on me again?”
“Of course.” Emery fumbled for her gloves. “Beatrice, wasn’t it?”
The woman’s smile faltered. “It’s Bernadette.”
Emery paused, then gave an apologetic tilt of the head. “Well, thank you for the wine. And the company as usual.”
Before Bernadette could say another word, Emery swept out the door. The morning air bit at her cheeks as she climbed into the waiting carriage. She gave the driver her family’s London townhouse address with a sigh. “Lizzy’s going to murder me with her hairpins.”
The carriage swayed gently through the streets of Mayfair. Emery sat back against the velvet seat, fingers slightly loosening the top fastenings of her gown. Her corset pinched in places, her stockings were askew, and one of her earrings had gone missing. The left , she imagined, tangled in the bedsheets beside a woman whose name Emery had already pushed to the back of her mind. The taste of last night still lingered– wine and lipstick, the too-sweet perfume clinging to her collarbone.
Outside, the city stirred to life. Postboys were rushing around the square, servants swept stoops, and the first signs of the Season’s grand machinery clanked into motion. Emery pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, but the pressure did little to stop the ache. Her mouth was dry. Her stomach, sour. But worse than all that was the way her body still hummed from the night before, a shallow echo of pleasure that failed to cut deep enough to distract. It never did.
She hadn’t expected the return to London to claw at her like this. Emery had imagined, perhaps foolishly, that time had worn smooth the edges of memory. That ten years away might have softened the bite of the past. But already, the city felt too loud, too close, like it was waiting for her to misstep again. The last time she had ridden these streets in daylight, she was barely seventeen. She could still remember the smell of the violets pinned in her hair, the feeling of her mother’s grip on her wrist. The frantic rush of footsteps down around the townhouse.
She leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the carriage window and exhaled. The Season had barely begun, and already the ghosts of the past were right at her heels. At least Elizabeth would be spared. Emery would make certain of that. There would be no locked doors. No secrets. No shame. If Emery had to face down every matron and gossip in London to keep Elizabeth safe, she would do so without hesitation.
The carriage turned, wheels clicking over uneven stones. Ahead, the Walsh townhouse began to take shape, its familiar silhouette waiting like an anchor. Emery squared her shoulders and fixed the buttons of her gown. She adjusted her skirts, smoothing away any sign of where she'd been. There was no time to linger in regret. No space for fragility. By the time the carriage rolled to a stop, she was once again the Viscountess Walsh.
When she stepped into the house, the foyer was already filled with movement. Maids fluttered past with boxes of ribbons and slippers, a footman shouted for tea, and somewhere upstairs, Elizabeth’s voice was rising in a flurry of nerves.
She took the stairs two at a time.
The drawing room’s windows were flung open to let in what little breeze the morning offered, especially in early summer, but the room was still stuffy and smelled of starch and lavender powder. Elizabeth Walsh stood stiffly before a gilded mirror, her shoulders bare in a gown of pale buttercream silk. Her hair had been coiled and twisted with precision, her mother’s pearls gleaming at the nape of her neck. She looked every bit the debutante.
She also looked ready to faint.
“I feel like I’m going to be ill,” she muttered, her voice tight.
“Maybe wait until after the ceremony?” Emery responded as she stepped into the room.
“Where have you been?” Elizabeth exclaimed the moment she caught sight of her sister. “We’re going to be late!”
“We’re not going to be late,” Emery insisted, already stepping in to adjust a drooping shoulder seam. ”I just had some things to take care of.”
Across the room, Emmett Walsh, well respected and feared Marquess to many, save for his sisters, glanced over the top of his newspaper. “Well, look who’s decided to join the living.”
“Good morning to you too, brother,” Emery replied sweetly. “You’ll be pleased to know I’m fully corseted and mostly sober.”
He smirked. “A miracle.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at them in the mirror. “You both could at least pretend to be nervous for me.”
“Oh, I’m absolutely terrified,” Emery said, deadpan. “Just on the inside. And mostly for your posture.”
Emmett chuckled. “Mother is entirely convinced we’ll scandalize the family before breakfast. Let’s at least try to prove her wrong.”
“Mother,” Emery began, “is thankfully too ill to witness any of it firsthand.”
“She would’ve insisted Elizabeth wear velvet in this weather,” Emmett added.
“I like velvet,” Elizabeth offered meekly.
“You’re allowed to be wrong,” Emery said. She gently tugged a pearl pin loose from her sister’s updo, only to tuck it back in again– more for comfort than correction. “It’s just nerves. You’ll walk, you’ll curtsy, the Queen will nod imperceptibly, and soon every man in London will be dreaming of you and your… passionate opinions on fabrics.”
Elizabeth gave her a half-hearted smile. “I expect Mother to still want a letter detailing whatever happens today. Do you think she will be well enough to read it?”
“If she isn’t, Genevieve will surely read it to her.”
Emmett perked up at the mention of his wife, “She wrote this morning. Said Mother managed a full bowl of broth last night. She didn’t even complain about the herbs.”
“I think Mother prefers Genevieve’s company to ours,” Elizabeth said with a giggle.
“She likes that Genevive doesn’t talk back,” Emery corrected dryly. “A true Diamond in Mother’s eyes.”
"You were Diamond too, weren’t you?”
Emery’s expression cooled, and something shifted behind her eyes. She smoothed the line of Elizabeth’s gown, her hands suddenly too careful. “Briefly.”
Emmett folded his paper with deliberate slowness, his eyes lingering on her in the way older brothers often do: cautious, waiting for her to speak first. But Emery said nothing. Instead, she offered him a look both pointed and familiar, the kind that passed between siblings who shared too many secrets and not quite enough words.
Elizabeth looked between them, a crease forming between her brows. “I only meant… you set a high standard. I’m not sure I’ll meet it.”
“You won’t,” Emery said lightly, brushing a bit of lint from her sister’s shoulder. “You’ll exceed it. Because you’re not me.”
“Come now,” Emmett broke in, adjusting his cravat with theatrical flair. “You’ll be brilliant, Lizzy. You have the Walsh family’s exquisite charm and good looks.”
Elizabeth laughed then, the tension breaking like sunlight through clouds. She turned and stared at her reflection in the mirror last time, and for a moment, all Emery saw was Elizabeth at seven years old, gripping her skirts, chattering about frogs and French pastries, her cheeks sticky with honey. Now here she was, a debutante. Ready to face the Queen. Ready to be judged and adored and pursued. Ready to be seen.
Emery gave her hand a squeeze. “Let them see you exactly as you are.”
“And if I trip?” Elizabeth asked, only half in jest.
“Then do it with style.”
A knock at the door signaled the carriage was ready. As they gathered their belongings, Emery’s smile faltered just a moment. She remembered another morning. Another gown. Her mother’s sharp eyes. The sting of perfume and pressure. She tucked the memory away as she watched Elizabeth waltz out the room.
Emmett stayed behind just a moment, walking over to Emery and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder before she could leave. “Are you certain you’re up for this? I know it’s been a while since you’ve made an appearance.”
Emery didn’t answer right away. Her eyes lingered on the spot where Elizabeth had just stood. “I don’t particularly care what the ton thinks of my arrival,” she said at last. “I only worry for Lizzy.”
“She’ll be perfectly fine,” Emmett replied with quiet certainty. “She has us. To hell with what the Queen thinks.”
That earned him a small smile. “Don’t let the Post hear you say that.”
“To hell with what they think too,” Emmett said, with a shrug and a grin that momentarily softened the sharp lines of his face. For a second, he looked just like the boy she remembered from their childhood, all wind-ruffled hair and impish defiance.
Emery let out a breath before nodding, looping her arm through his as they followed the rustle of skirts and murmuring maids out of the room.
This time would be different, she told herself. It had to be.
***
The room was already too warm. Layers upon layers of fabric lay waiting across the chaise lounge. Two maids flitted around the bedchamber, their arms full of satin gloves and beaded shoes, but Samira Mohan sat very still at the edge of the vanity stool, her spine straight, her hands clenched in her lap. Her mother stood behind her, lips pursed, watching as the ladies’ maid worked pins into Samira’s dark hair.
“It’s still too loose at the crown,” Lady Mohan murmured, folding her arms. “It must be severe. Regal. She is not some country girl plucked from the fields.”
“I am present, you know,” Samira said, her voice mild.
“That is precisely why I am speaking.”
Samira met her reflection in the mirror. Her face looked like a stranger’s, powdered and painted, her hair sculpted into unfamiliar elegance. The maid tugged another section of hair taut, and Samira closed her eyes briefly against the sting.
If her father had been here, he would’ve told her she looked radiant. He would’ve told her to take deep breaths, that no Queen could ever frighten his daughter. He would’ve brought her tea laced with cardamom, would’ve adjusted her gloves himself, fumbling with the buttons. But he wasn’t here, and this was no longer her life of quiet studies and late-night lessons beside Dr. Robinovitch’s fireplace. This was London.
“Sit up straighter,” her mother snapped. “And stop fidgeting.”
“I’m not fidgeting.”
“You are trembling.”
“I’m cold.”
“That’s absurd. The room is boiling.”
Samira’s jaw tightened. She stared at herself again. A debut in front of the Queen. A room full of hopeful girls. A thousand eyes, and behind them, a thousand more judgments. She was already too old, too different from the rest of the debutants.
She was also all that was left of House Mohan.
The thought clenched tight around her ribs, a hollow pressure that never fully released. When her father died, the world seemed to tilt on its axis– abrupt and brutal. He had been her fiercest champion, the one who believed in her ambitions with a quiet, steadfast pride. It was his signature that opened the gates to Oxford, his connections that allowed for the royal physician to take Samira under his wing. He fought for her right to learn, to become something other than what society had neatly prepared for her. But grief had barely begun to settle when the vultures arrived.
Within weeks of the mourning period’s end, uncles and cousins emerged like smoke from forgotten corners of the family, bringing with them grim expressions and ledgers filled with numbers she was never permitted to read. They spoke in hushed voices and decisive tones, always behind closed doors. Words like inheritance , debt , and obligation were tossed like cards at a table Samira was not invited to sit at.
Then came her mother, cold and far too composed for a woman who had just lost her husband, delivering the final decree as though it were scripture. Samira would return to society. She would secure a match, one both respectable and advantageous. She would marry, not for love or desire, but for wealth, for name, for the continued survival of House Mohan.
It didn’t matter that her hands still smelled faintly of ink and crushed herbs, or that she dreamed of strolling down the streets of Oxford instead of promenading down a crowded path with some unimpressive suitor. The girl who had once walked lecture halls and copied down medical theories was gone. What remained was a daughter of a vulnerable house, dressed in silk, trained to smile, and placed gently back into the mouth of the beast.
“Appa wouldn’t have wanted this,” Samira whispered.
Lady Mohan’s gaze met hers in the mirror. “Your father wanted you safe.”
“He wanted me happy.”
”He gave you liberties . A dangerous amount of them.” Lady Mohan said, voice irritated now. “But with him gone, we no longer have the luxury of indulgence.”
Samira’s hands clenched tighter in her lap.
“This season is not a game. If you fail to secure a match, you do not only disgrace yourself. You disgrace his name. His legacy. Do you understand me?”
A beat. Then Samira stood, slow and composed. “Perfectly.”
The silence that followed rang louder than the bustle of the maids, louder than the clinking of hairpins in the dish or the soft rustle of gown fabric. Samira looked down at her hands, at the faint ink-stain on her finger she hadn’t quite scrubbed away.
There had been a life before this one. A world of study, of scholarly routines of university, of dreams built on knowledge. But now she had only this day. Only this dress. Only this chance.
A maid approached with a small satin box. “The tiara, miss.”
Samira took it with steady hands. It was an heirloom: silver and sapphire, her grandmother’s. She placed it atop her head herself, fingers careful and deliberate.
Her mother gave a small nod. “At least you’ll look the part.”
“That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”
The room fell quiet as they watched her go. And if Samira’s throat ached with the weight of grief, if her palms sweated with the ghosts of all she might have been, she did not let it show.
Not today.
***
The marble floors of the long corridor inside St. James’ Palace gleamed like ice beneath the flickering candelabras, and the air, despite the sheer size of the space, felt tight with perfume and nervous bodies. Debutantes lined the corridor like porcelain dolls, dozens of girls wrapped in creams and pastels, their gowns whispering as they shifted in place. Mothers hovered like shadows behind them, correcting posture and fretting over invisible wrinkles.
Emery stood slightly apart from the line with Elizabeth, her gloved hand resting lightly on her sister’s back, a small, steady weight between her shoulder blades. Elizabeth was trembling, not visibly, not to anyone else, but Emery felt it in the twitch of her breath, in the way she hadn’t spoken in several minutes.
“You’re going to be fine,” Emery murmured, low enough not to draw notice.
Elizabeth gave a weak smile. “Easy for you to say.”
Her fingers lingered at the back of Elizabeth’s dress. It was beautiful: cream colored with gold embroidery along the bodice and hem. Emery had sewn it in herself during her quiet hours at her family’s country estate. Their mother would have hated it. She would have insisted on something paler, something more easily ignored. But their mother wasn’t here. She remained tucked away in the country, too ill to travel, with Emmett’s ever competent wife tending to her day and night. Emery didn’t miss her presence, not really, but she felt its shadow all the same. Felt it now, pressing in around them like the fitted corset of Elizabeth’s gown. Every instruction, every correction, every memory of her own debut.
She still remembered when she stood in this very hallway, corset laced so tight she couldn’t breathe, her mother’s voice in her ear like steel: “Smile demurely. Do not tremble. Remember whose daughter you are.”
Emery’s smile faltered. She had remembered. And when she forgot, just once, it had ruined everything.
Elizabeth shifted nervously. Emery caught her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “It’s not a trial,” she said, her voice warming. “The Queen’s attention is but one moment. Just one. And if she likes your curtsey, you’ll be the toast of the ton before you’ve even had your first waltz.”
Elizabeth nodded once. Then her eyes drifted past Emery, to the other end of the corridor, and widened.
“What?” Emery turned, and paused.
A young woman had just entered the waiting hall, escorted by a familiar face. She was dressed not in the traditional snowy white, but a deeper ivory, almost silver, her dark curls twisted into a high bun with sapphires glinting along her temples. Her deep skin glowed against the pale satin of her bodice. Unlike the others, she did not shrink under the weight of so many eyes. She smiled radiantly, all warmth and poise, the picture of a young woman basking in the greatest day of her life. And yet, to Emery, there was something practiced in it. Not false, perhaps, but carefully constructed. Beautiful, yes. But deliberate.
Miss Samira Mohan.
Emery remembered the name from the Post, and vaguely from years ago when she still lived in London, though they had never properly crossed paths. Lady Dana Evans was at her side, a woman of considerable respect and influence, and also a close friend of the Walsh family. It made sense that Miss Mohan would appear under her patronage. Still, it was unusual. A debut at twenty-two? A woman known for her academic pursuits suddenly thrust into society?
Miss Mohan’s gaze swept the corridor with cool precision, her chin lifted just enough to convey poise without arrogance. But then her eyes moved slowly, scanning the assembled onlookers, and for one fleeting second, they landed on Emery.
It was nothing. A glance. Less than that, really. A brush of attention. But it struck Emery like a pin pressed to the nerve. Her breath caught. Her lips parted, though no words came, and Emery’s heart gave a single, treacherous thud against her ribs. Then it was gone. Miss Mohan had already turned her attention elsewhere, her smiling expression still unreadable, already folding into the posture of the moment. For a second, Emery doubted it had even happened before–
"Miss Elizabeth Walsh, presented by the right honorable Viscountess Emery Walsh." the herald bellowed.
Emery blinked, pulled sharply back into her role, her grip tightening on her sister’s gloved hand. The double doors opened with a grand sweep, and Elizabeth stepped forward. But Emery’s mind, just for a beat too long, remained in that corridor.
The queen sat at the far end of the grand space, flanked by ladies-in-waiting and dressed in rich silks that shimmered in the light. Her expression was unreadable, carved from years of duty and discretion, but her gaze was keen and unrelenting. It swept across the pair with all the weight of tradition. Elizabeth, to her credit, curtsied with grace. Her form was good, elegant, practiced, a touch low for propriety but forgivable in a debutante so youthful. The queen’s eyes rested on her a moment longer than most, but there was no indulgent smile. Only a silent appraisal.
Emery felt her shoulders rise with a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She glanced quickly to the side and caught the faintest nod of approval from one of the ladies-in-waiting. Not exceptional, perhaps, but solid. A fine beginning. They stepped aside to the left, joining the small cluster of girls who had already made their presentations, and watched as others were ushered forward.
Emery remained alert, eyes flickering to Elizabeth every few seconds. The girl was trying not to fidget, but Emery could feel the tension in her arm. She offered her sister a slight nudge with her elbow and murmured, “You did well.”
Elizabeth’s lips twitched. “Should I have swooned more dramatically?”
“Perhaps,” Emery replied. “You might’ve gained points for style.”
But the jest died in her throat as the herald announced, “Miss Victoria Javadi, presented by the Duchess Eileen Javadi.”
A collective ripple passed through the room. The Javadis were wealthy and highly ranked. Emery tilted her head as Victoria swept in. She was pretty in a brittle sort of way. Her gown was dazzling and weighted with diamonds. A statement piece, calculated. It spoke of ambition more than charm. Victoria executed her curtsy with almost mechanical perfection, but as she rose and the queen’s eyes locked on hers, something faltered. A wobble. A twitch.
Then, silence shattered– Victoria collapsed.
A gasp traveled through the room. The Duchess let out a strangled cry and darted forward, but before any footman or lady-in-waiting could move, another figure did. A woman stepped swiftly from the waiting line, skirts lifting just enough to allow her hurried stride.
Emery's eyes widened as she watched Miss Samira Mohan kneel beside Victoria without hesitation, one gloved hand checking her pulse, the other gently turning her head. She moved not with dainty concern, but with experience. Certainty.
A murmur rolled through the court. Gentle gasps and whispers followed Miss Mohan’s form.
Victoria stirred, blinking in confusion as Miss Mohan steadied her with quiet instructions. By the time a footman reached her, the crisis had passed. It became more obvious then that the queen’s gaze never left Miss Mohan.
“Miss Samira Mohan,” Her Majesty said at last, her voice calm but commanding. “Approach.”
Emery felt Elizabeth stiffen beside her.
Miss Mohan rose slowly, gracefully, as if aware that the entire room had narrowed to this single point. She stepped forward and sank into a flawless curtsy, deeper than any that morning. When she lifted her gaze, it met the queen’s without a tremble.
A beat. Then–
The queen smiled.
There it was: that rare, decisive lift of Her Majesty’s brow. Approval, clear as a summer’s day. The moment lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough. Gasps whispered through the crowd. Emery didn’t need to hear the words to know what would be printed in the Post by morning. Not Victoria Javadi. Not Elizabeth Walsh . Samira Mohan .
A diamond.
***
The garden at Lord Weston’s estate was overflowing with color. Poppies and foxglove spilling out of manicured beds, decorative hedges trimmed within an inch of their lives, and silk-draped canopies shading clusters of nobles sipping chilled lemonade.
“Try not to look so stiff,” Emery murmured, keeping her voice low as they strolled toward the main lawn. “You’re not the one being hunted today.”
Elizabeth, sandwiched between her siblings, offered a nervous little smile. “I rather think I am, actually.”
“Not to worry,” Emmett said brightly. “I shall ensure no stray dukes come within ten feet of you.”
“Oh good,” Elizabeth said. “You’ll personally destroy my marriage prospects.”
They reached the central pathway, where trays of drinks were being circulated and the music had shifted into something light and drifting. Emery squinted against the sunlight, once again feeling the ache behind her eyes. She didn’t mind the city air so much, but this many frills and sunshine was enough to drive any sensible person to a dark corner and a stiff drink.
Emmett touched her arm as if he could sense her discomfort. “Go on,” he said. “Take a moment for yourself. I’ll see Elizabeth safely delivered to a chaise lounge and personally intercept any man with questionable sideburns.”
Emery hesitated, then inclined her head. “Try not to scare all of them off.”
“No promises,” he said, already steering Elizabeth toward a decorative marble bench beneath an archway of flowering vines.
Emery exhaled slowly and turned, weaving her way around an eager flock of debutantes and down one of the quieter paths that skirted the edge of the garden. She passed a group of ladies cooing over the pastries, ignored an older countess who was already recounting the events of the presentation as if she’d been the queen, and finally reached a shaded clearing.
“Now there’s a face I haven’t seen since the prince had hair.”
Emery startled, turned and broke into a rare, crooked smile. “Lord Shen,” she said. “They let you out?”
He lounged against a stone balustrade like he’d been born to do it, one leg crossed over the other and a wine glass held between two fingers with far too much ease. His coat was unbuttoned just enough to suggest disinterest in formalities, and a sprig of mint tucked into his lapel hinted that he’d already raided the refreshment table’s garnish bowls.
“They did. Though only because my mother insists I must ‘observe the market,’” he replied, making air quotes with his free hand. “As if I were shopping for a horse and not a woman.”
“Have you found any mares to your liking?” Emery teased, stepping beside him.
He snorted. “None so far. But I did see Lord Fairfax trip over his own cane trying to approach Miss Mohan. A more glorious downfall I’ve not witnessed since the last time you broke someone’s heart.”
“That was entirely not my fault,” Emery said.
John gave her a disbelieving look and sipped his drink. “As I recall, you lured poor Lord Grafton into a hedge maze and left him there.”
“I warned him not to call me ‘petal .’”
“Which is exactly why I’ve never given you a nickname.” He grinned, then tilted his head. “Truly, though. I wasn’t sure you’d return.”
“I wasn’t either.”
His gaze softened. “But?”
“But I’m only doing this for my sister,” she replied, not quite meeting his eyes. “After that, I’d like to never step foot in this city again.”
John was quiet for a beat, his usual smirk fading into something gentler. “Then I hope Elizabeth finds herself a suitor with remarkable haste, so that you may flee as swiftly as you wish.”
She glanced up at him, surprised by the sincerity.
“But,” he added with a shrug, “selfishly, I must admit. It is nice to have you back, Emery. Even if only for a moment.”
“Careful, Shen. You’ll ruin your reputation for indifference.”
He tipped his glass toward her. “I’ve three older brothers. I’m free to be indifferent as I like.”
Emery shook her head, the smile lingering longer than usual. It was easy with John. Effortless, even. He never pressed too hard, never asked for explanations she wasn't ready to give. He simply… was. A welcome constant in a world that had changed far too quickly.
“If you’re here,” she said, “then Abbott mustn't be far behind.”
“Last I heard, he was brooding in Winchester,” John replied with a lopsided grin. “But I expect he’ll show his face soon enough. He does love a good entrance.”
“If he does, we ought to call on Ellis. A visit to her club might be just what we all need.”
“Now that is the best idea I’ve heard all week.” He extended his arm with mock gallantry. “Come, Walsh. Let’s make a show of pretending to be sociable. I believe we have several years to catch up on.”
***
Samira stood at the edge of the gravel path, the scent of roses clinging sweetly to the air. Lady Dana Evans had just looped her arm through Samira’s and was now offering a running commentary on the various peerage meandering about the garden.
“There, that’s Lord Fenwick’s eldest,” Dana murmured, nodding toward a tall, square-jawed young man who was already watching Samira with open interest. “Don’t bother with him. His family breeds hounds and nothing else, as far as I can tell.”
Samira gave a soft laugh, more out of politeness than agreement, her smile lingering just long enough to look convincing.
“You’re doing quite well,” Dana added. “But I imagine it’s all terribly overwhelming.”
Samira’s hands were clasped in front of her, white gloves folded over one another as if they might still themselves by sheer force of etiquette. “It’s not that I dislike the company,” she said carefully, “only that I feel… terribly out of place.”
Dana’s expression softened, eyes crinkling at the corners. “You exceeded their expectations, and the Queen saw it. That’s all anyone is talking about. Now– ah, there she is. Viscountess Walsh!”
Samira followed Lady Dana’s gaze to a tall, dark-haired woman just parting ways with a gentleman not too far away. She carried herself like someone who’d learned to do so with armor sewn into every seam: composed, careful, elegant. When Dana called her name, she turned, and her eyes met Samira’s for the second time that day.
There was something sharp in the look. Recognition. Interest. Apprehension.
Though Samira had never been properly acquainted with the Viscountess, she, like most of London society, knew well the importance that the Walsh name carried. Viscountess Emery Walsh had long been whispered about in the drawing rooms and parlors of the ton, though more for the mystery of her sudden disappearance than for the glittering promise of her debut. Some said she had married too young. Others claimed heartbreak, scandal, or illness. But whatever the truth, her return to London had stirred the pot anew, with more than one socialite craning their neck to catch a glimpse of the elusive widow.
“Come,” Dana said, drawing the woman in with a beckoning hand. “I believe the two of you ought to speak.”
Viscountess Walsh approached at a measured pace, the shade of the pergola catching along her cheekbones as she entered the space beside them. Lady Dana made introductions, though they were hardly necessary, and then, with the elegance only a practiced matron could manage, she made her excuses and slipped away.
Leaving the two of them– Diamond and former Diamond –alone beneath a lattice of white blooms.
Samira hesitated a breath, her composure fraying at the edges now that it was just the two of them. The Viscountess was even more striking up close, and Samira had the absurd thought that this woman, unlike many of the suitors who had already approached, some just to gawk, looked through her instead of simply at her.
“Viscountess.” Samira finally said, her voice steadier than she felt. In her mind, her mother’s reminders of tone and formalities echoed. “You honor me with your presence.”
The woman in front of her offered a wry smile, one corner of her mouth lifting. “Please, just Emery. I can hardly lay claim to any Viscountess-like duties these days.”
Samira hesitated, then recalled the column from that morning, and the quiet whispers threading through the garden. Her tone gentled. “Then allow me to offer my condolences. For your late husband.”
Emery inclined her head. “Yes. It was a good marriage. He was a kind man.”
There was a note in her voice, an undercurrent Samira couldn’t name, but felt down to the bone. She nodded, stepping slightly closer so no one could overhear them.
“My father passed just this year,” she offered. “Grief has a way of making everything feel unsteady, doesn’t it?”
Emery met her gaze. “It does.”
Silence settled between them again, companionable now. Samira felt herself exhale, for the first time all day. She looked over the garden, the polished silver trays, the gentle hum of gossip. All of it felt just a touch too loud.
“You must be exhausted from this morning,” Emery said at last. Her voice was lower than Samira had imagined. Smooth like velvet. Warm. “I recall being handed three dance cards and a promise of a marriage proposal within half an hour of my first garden party.”
“I’ve yet to be proposed to, though one gentleman did try to hand me a poem. It mentioned something about my skin reminding him of chestnuts?”
Emery huffed a laugh. “God help us.”
That coaxed a smile from Samira, something genuine and soft around the edges. “I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m doing,” she admitted. “Now I’m being paraded about in ivory silk, and everyone looks at me as if I’ve engaged in some horrible scandal.”
“And yet you carry yourself with more grace than those who’ve spent years preparing for it.” Emery said. “You belong here just as much as any of them.”
Samira blinked at her, the words digging beneath her skin. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”
“Did you expect me to be scandalized that you studied medicine?”
“I expected you to be like the rest of them.”
Emery looked at her for a moment, something unreadable passing behind her eyes. “I have never been like the rest of them.”
The air grew still between them. Samira’s heart beat too fast for the moment’s quiet.
“I could help you,” Emery said finally, breaking the silence but not the charge. “If you’d like. Navigating this whole circus, I mean. I’ve done it before. I can tell you which of these men are worth your time, and which ones still ask their mothers to pick out their cravats.”
Samira arched an eyebrow, amused despite herself. “And what would you know about cravats?”
“I know I’ve pulled off more than one,” Emery replied, her smile sly.
Samira flushed, her mouth parted slightly in surprise, then for the first time all day, she laughed. “All right,” she said, eyes glinting. “But what are you getting out of this?”
Emery tilted her head, clearly amused. “Oh, you think I wouldn’t offer my assistance without personal gain?”
Samira raised a brow. “I think you’re not the sort to do anything without thinking three steps ahead.”
“Flattering,” Emery murmured, as if she didn’t quite mean it. “But you’re not wrong.”
She didn’t look away when she added, “My sister is among the younger debutantes. And while she’s clever and charming and endlessly kind, she’s... fresh to it all. I’m afraid the season may devour her whole.”
Samira’s expression softened slightly. “And you think being close to the Diamond might help her?”
“I think,” Emery said, “that being seen as a friend to the Diamond might insulate her from the worst of it. And give me a clearer view of the men who think themselves entitled to her hand. My sister will not be any man’s second choice.”
“You plan to scare them off?”
“I plan to assess them thoroughly. And besides, the faster you find a suitor, the sooner the season can truly begin for the rest of the debutants.”
Samira laughed again, though this time more quietly. “So we are to enter a mutually beneficial alliance.”
“If that makes you feel better about accepting my help,” Emery said, the corner of her mouth lifting, “then yes.”
Samira considered her for a long moment. The sun, through roses and drifting parasols, lit the silver threads in Emery’s gown, making her dark eyes gleam like polished obsidian. There was something dangerous about her, yes, but not dangerous enough for Samira to want to stray.
Her lips twitched at the edges. “Very well,” she said. “But if I’m to be paraded about like a prize pheasant, I expect your commentary to be entertaining.”
“I’m told my wit is my most marketable quality,” Emery replied. “Well, second only to my tolerance for awful company.”
Samira laughed– light, unguarded, and entirely unexpected. They moved at the same time, an instinctive, quiet agreement, and began to walk together along the pebbled garden path, skirts brushing in rhythm. And suddenly, the rest of the season didn’t seem so impossible.
Chapter Text
Dearest readers,
What began as an orderly procession of powdered debutantes has ended in the most delicious spectacle. During the grand presentation to Her Majesty, few were surprised to see Miss Elizabeth Walsh carry herself with all the grace expected of a daughter of House Walsh. And yet, it was not the youngest Walsh who left tongues wagging by day’s end. No, it was none other than Miss Samira Mohan, daughter of the late Lord Mohan, who captured the Queen’s attention– and, dare we say, the coveted title of Diamond itself.
Following the unfortunate collapse of Miss Victoria Javadi (do blame the corset, not the nerves, darling), it was Miss Mohan who rose to the occasion. Trained under the tutelage of Her Majesty's own physician, she proved herself more than society’s newest ornament. And what did Her Majesty do in response? She smiled . Is this the first time the Queen’s favor has gone to a woman of such… unconventional background? Perhaps not, but never has it been quite so thrilling. One thing is certain: the season belongs to her now, and heaven help the gentlemen trying to keep pace.
Of newer and more intriguing note is Miss Mohan’s sudden proximity to the Viscountess Emery Walsh. Though the widowed viscountess is no stranger to society’s more watchful eyes, her name has not graced the ton’s whispers quite so frequently, until now. The pair have been seen at several engagements, often tucked into quiet corners at soirees, or sharing long glances over teacups at mid-morning promenades in Hyde Park.
But speculation must pause, for the calendar overflows. Callers arrive by the dozen each morning, and dance cards fill faster than champagne flutes. Soirees abound, but none hold more weight than Lady Dana Evans’ annual ball: a crown jewel of early-season festivity. Attendance is not just expected, but essential. Lady Evans is known to favor bold statements, daring gowns, and even bolder matchmaking. Will our Diamond shine brightest on Lady Evans’ gilded floors? One can hardly wait to find out.
London Society Papers, 9 May, 1817
***
Oxford College, 14 December, 1814
The lamps in the infirmary corridor flickered under the pressure of the cold evening. Samira peeled off her gloves slowly, careful not to smudge the blood drying on her wrists. The patient, a stable hand who’d taken a fall trying to impress a girl on horseback, had taken seven stitches to the thigh. Sloppy with fear, the boy had trembled the entire time, but Samira's hands hadn’t wavered.
Dr. Robinavitch, arms crossed and brows lifted, had offered her a rare smile of approval. "Well done," he said simply, as she dropped the stained cotton into the basin. "Go warm yourself. I’ll finish the notes."
She didn’t argue. Her breath misted in front of her face as she stepped out into the courtyard. Even Oxford’s grand stone walls couldn’t hold back the chill tonight. Her scarf was stiff with frost by the time she reached the gates. She was debating whether to stop at the kitchens when a familiar voice called out from the dark.
"Is this what counts as Oxford hospitality these days? Leaving young women to freeze at the gates?"
Samira froze. For a second, she thought the cold had tricked her ears. But no, standing just beyond the gate, wrapped in a thick wool coat and brushing snow from his shoulders, was Lord Mohan.
"Appa!"
He grinned and stepped forward. "Were you expecting someone else?"
Samira let out a breath of disbelief and laughed, half-running to him. He opened his arms, and she tucked herself against his chest like she used to when she was little. He smelled like clove and leather, his coat dusted with snow.
"You came all this way just to check on me?"
"That, and the food in London has been abysmal lately. I thought perhaps you might take pity on an old man and buy him dinner."
"I’ve just stitched a man back together tonight. I think you owe me."
"Fair enough," he chuckled. "Someplace warm, then."
They ended up in a quiet pub near the edge of the college green, its windows steamed over, fire roaring in the hearth. The moment they stepped inside, the weight of the night eased from her shoulders. Her father found them a table, and Samira tugged off her gloves as a serving girl brought stew and cider.
For a long moment, they said nothing, only the clink of spoons, the fire’s crackle. Her father’s presence always had a way of grounding her, like tethering a kite.
"Tell me," he said finally. "Did the boy survive your stitching?"
She smiled. “He did. Dr. Robinavitch said I did well."
"Dr. Robinavitch doesn’t say that lightly."
"No."
He studied her face for a moment. "You look tired. You haven’t been overworking yourself, have you?”
"It’s tiring work at times, but it’s my work. And I quite enjoy it.”
“I’m proud of you,” he smiled. “I know she doesn’t show it well, but your mother is proud of you too.”
Samira looked down at the spoon in her hand, turning it over slowly in the dim tavern light. The silver glinted faintly, its curved surface catching the golden flicker of firelight. Her reflection warped in its bowl, blurred and uncertain.
"Amma thinks I’m ruining our family’s name."
“She only wants you to be safe and comfortable,” her father said gently. “She acts like this because she loves you.”
The words were familiar and well-worn, offered many times before: after sharp-tongued arguments, after carefully worded scoldings that left more bruises than raised voices ever could.
She remembered being nine, her dress muddied from an afternoon spent crawling through the garden hedge with a stolen anatomy book tucked beneath her arm. Her mother had found her in the drawing room, grass-stained and flushed with pride over identifying the bones in her own wrist. She’d been scolded immediately, too old to be ruining her gowns, too young to know what she wanted from life, and far too loud about either. She was sent to her room and refused to come down for supper.
And yet, that night, the maid brought a tray to her room: a bowl of steaming rasam, fragrant with tamarind and coriander, made exactly how she liked it. No words. No apology. Just the warmth of her favorite meal. That was always how her mother was. Her love wrapped in rules. The warmth was always there, but it came filtered through layers of duty and silence.
For a while, neither Samira or her father spoke. The snow pressed gently against the windows, muting the world outside.
“Sometimes,” she said, more quietly now, “I worry that I’m asking too much. That there isn’t space for someone like me in the life I want.”
Her father tilted his head. “And what life do you want?”
Samira hesitated, the words building like steam inside her chest. “One where I can think. Study. Work.”
Her father nodded, no trace of judgment on his face. “Then you carve that life for yourself, Samira. Bit by bit, day by day.” His hand settled gently over hers, solid and reassuring. “And you’ll never have to carve it alone. Not while I’m here.”
And in the glow of firelight, the future still seemed soft enough to shape. Not inevitable. Not a cage. Just something that might, one day, be hers.
The quiet hush of memory vanished with the soft but insistent sound of a teacup being placed on porcelain. Samira blinked, the warmth of her father’s presence slipping through her fingers like smoke. The buttery Oxford light and scent of cider gave way to the stiff, perfumed chill of her mother’s drawing room in London. In front of her sat a tower of etiquette manuals, posture guides, and a copy of Lady Oakley’s Conversational Strategies for the Well-Bred Debutante , all of which she had pointedly ignored for the last half hour.
“No, no– no , Samira, it’s the Duchess of Eastbourne who hosts the midsummer’s ball.” Her mother’s tone was all frost and impatience. She sat near the window in her silk dressing gown, dark hair pinned back, thumbing absently through a copy of Correct Forms of Address for the Court of St. James.
She sighed. “Why does it matter who hosts it?”
“Because, Samira. The wrong word, the wrong gesture, a stumble or misstep… any of them can be used against you. They will not pity a girl who smells of parchment, no matter how noble her intentions. So you will learn the rules. You will follow them.”
Samira felt a familiar weight settle over her shoulders “I’m trying,” she said. It came out softer than intended.
“I suppose this is why you spend so much time with Viscountess Walsh,” her mother said idly, though her gaze lingered far too long on the edge of her saucer. “I imagine she makes quite the example of how not to behave.”
Samira bristled. “She’s been kind.”
“I’m sure she has. And House Walsh has long enjoyed the freedom that status affords. No matter what scandals they find themselves in, their name still opens doors.”
“She’s helping me navigate this season.”
“I’m sure she is,” her mother said again, and that was all.
Samira shook her head and rose from where she sat, her chair grating against the marble tile. “I think I’ll take a walk. Feel free to have dinner without me.”
Her mother didn’t look at her. “Mind your dress, please,” she said coolly. “The new gowns haven’t arrived yet, and we’ve no room for stains.”
Samira closed the door with more force than necessary. The hallway outside was quiet. For a moment, she leaned her head back against the wall, breathing in deeply. Just a few weeks ago, she’d been reviewing medical texts by candlelight. Today, she was memorizing the names of the dukes' third sons. It all felt so painfully, stupidly hollow. But she had no choice.
The house was quiet when Samira returned from her walk. The air inside was warmer than the damp grey of the square, but no less stifling. Her slippers tapped lightly on the stairs as she climbed to her room, dreading the next round of etiquette instruction waiting for her.
Except it wasn’t.
Instead, someone had lit the small oil lamp beside her bed. Her desk had been cleared of society manuals and language guides, and sitting neatly on a tray beside it was a bowl of rice and rasam– steam curling gently upward, its scent unmistakable. Tumeric, mustard seeds, curry leaves. A sharp, comforting tang. Her throat tightened.
She hadn’t seen her mother since excusing herself from the drawing room. No sharp words had followed her, no stinging rebuke. Just this. Rasam, warm and waiting.
***
The Royal Society of Artists Exhibition was already well underway by the time the Walsh siblings arrived, their carriage drawing attention from the moment it halted in the square. Inside, the gallery buzzed with the hum of polite conversation. Viscountesses were peering over oil portraits, lords were pretending to understand brushwork, and debutantes blinked prettily at landscapes they couldn’t name.
Elizabeth stood between her older siblings, radiant in pale green silk, her eyes wide and alight with anticipation. Her arms were looped through theirs as they stepped through the grand foyer, and though she wore the expression of a confident young woman, her grip betrayed her nerves.
The walls were hung with oil masterpieces: landscapes of rolling countryside, portraits of long-dead dukes in tight breeches and too much powder. The lighting was gold-toned and flattering, designed more for viewing patrons than for the artwork itself. A string quartet played softly in the corner.
Elizabeth paused before a moody seascape, the horizon blurring into a storm-washed sky. “I like this one,” she murmured.
They stood in companionable silence for a beat longer, until the first voice interrupted them.
“Miss Walsh.”
A young gentleman in navy stepped forward, bowing gracefully. He looked polished and practiced. “I couldn’t help but notice you admiring the seascape. May I ask what draws you to it?”
Elizabeth offered a polite smile. “Its refusal to be tamed.”
The gentleman blinked. “Ah. Quite.” He cleared his throat. “Would you care to join me for a turn about the sculpture hall? I believe there is a Procaccini on loan–”
“I’m afraid my sister is admiring this gallery for now,” Emery said smoothly, stepping half in front of Elizabeth. “Perhaps another time.”
The gentleman blanched and quickly bowed again before retreating, nearly tripping over a low pedestal.
“Emery,” Elizabeth hissed. “You didn’t have to scare him off.”
“I didn’t,” Emery said sweetly. “That was just my resting expression.”
Before Elizabeth could reply, another suitor swooped in. This one was older, with prematurely grey hair and an eager smile. “It seems you enjoy the arts, Miss Walsh?”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to reply, but–
“She adores the arts,” came Emmett’s voice. “Especially paintings with dramatic weather. Such… stormy symbolism, don’t you think?”
The man paused. “Indeed.”
“And she reads constantly,” added Emery. “Fluent in Latin and French. You speak Latin, do you not?”
“Ah… no, I–”
“What a shame,” Emery murmured.
When the suitor left, Elizabeth turned redder than the roses on a nearby painting. “Must you both hover like vultures?”
“I prefer falcons,” Emmett offered.
Another young man approached. “Miss Walsh, may I–”
“Do you own property?” Emmett asked.
“Do you bathe?” Emery followed.
Elizabeth gave a strangled sound. “Enough! You’re both impossible.”
“And yet, we’re your family,” Emmett said proudly, glancing at her before adjusting the cuffs of his coat. “Now, what shall we do today? Make sure none of your suitors can string together a coherent sentence? Test their knowledge of geography?”
“I will happily quiz them on the British coastline,” Emery added, deadpan.
Elizabeth stopped in her tracks, planting her feet firmly on the marble tiles. “No. Absolutely not. I adore you both, truly, but if I’m ever to be taken seriously in this season, I cannot be seen flanked by my overbearing older siblings at every event.”
“You say that like we’re the ones getting in the way,” Emmett said, mock-wounded.
“You are. People keep calling me ‘ the little Walsh darling .’ Or worse, ‘the one with the retired Viscountess sister.’”
Emery snorted. “Retired?”
“Married. Widowed. Not remarried. That apparently counts.”
Emery raised a brow. “How charmingly efficient of them.”
Elizabeth sighed. “Please. Go be mysterious or dashing or whatever it is you do when I’m not around. I can manage an hour without you.”
There was a beat of silence before Emmett said, “Fifteen minutes.”
“Half an hour,” Elizabeth bargained.
“Twenty. But we will pretend we’re strangers if we pass you again,” Emery said, eyes twinkling.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, but smiled at her sister. “Fine. Thank you.”
With a final dramatic sigh, Emmett stepped away, muttering about locating the refreshments before they were swarmed by gossiping mothers. Emery lingered for just a second longer.
“You’ve got this,” she murmured. “And if you don’t, you still look better than half the gallery combined.”
“Flattery doesn’t suit you,” Elizabeth teased, but her posture straightened.
“I’m working on it,” Emery said, and with a wink, turned and disappeared into the deeper corridors of the exhibit.
***
Samira stood alone in the east wing of the gallery where the air felt stiller and the quartet's music only barely reached. The painting in front of her was not particularly large, nor especially famous. A quiet coastal landscape, rendered in hazy blues and pale morning gold. Gentle cliffs rose from misty waters, and a fishing boat rocked lazily in the tide. She studied the brushwork, the softness of the clouds against the jagged edges of the rock. Her eyes lingered on the boat. Small, but certain. A thing with purpose, even in open waters.
“Not the most popular piece in the room,” said a low, familiar voice behind her.
Samira glanced over her shoulder and found Emery standing a few paces away, gloved hands folded loosely in front of her, chin tilted toward the canvas.
“It’s a wonderful painting,” Samira said, after a moment. “It doesn’t ask anything of me. It simply… exists.”
Emery stepped closer, leaving only a hand’s breadth between them. For a heartbeat, they both stood in silence, shoulder to shoulder, neither daring to shift. The quiet hum of the gallery seemed to dull around them, softened by the thick carpets and the hush of contemplation that hung in the air like dust in sunlight.
Samira became acutely aware of the warmth radiating from Emery’s body, how near she was without touching. Emery’s perfume lingered faintly in the space between them, something dusky and clean, like bergamot and evening air after rain.
She didn’t look at Emery, not directly. Instead, she focused on the painting before them, though its details were quickly losing definition. Her awareness had narrowed to the quiet rhythm of Emery’s breath beside her, the faint brush of her sleeve as she moved to shift her weight, and the way the light from a nearby window caught the curve of her collarbone. There was no contact, no accidental brush of fingers, no shared glance, but the moment stretched and curled between them, taut with something unnamed.
“You look as though you’d rather be anywhere else,” Emery eventually said, her voice gentle. “Were the dance cards too much? Or the poetry?”
Samira laughed lightly, almost despite herself. “Definitely the poetry.”
“Soon they’ll start comparing you to fine art. You’ll be a Vermeer by next week.”
“I’d rather be a Rembrandt,” Samira said, tone wry.
Emery tilted her head. “Darker. Bolder.”
“Honest,” Samira answered. “No one in Rembrandt’s paintings pretends to be someone they’re not.”
Her words trailed off into the gallery air. She hadn’t meant for her words to come off so candidly, but for some reason, in Emery’s presence, they just did.
“I’m not very good at this,” Samira admitted. “At being stared at by all these people.”
“And yet,” Emery murmured, “here you are, being the most interesting person in the room.”
Samira chuckled. “You’re trying to flatter me.”
“I don’t flatter,” Emery said, a little smug. “I observe.”
They stood there for another moment, skirts brushing. Emery stood poised and radiant as ever, but now Samira saw the faint wear in her eyes, the way her mouth pressed together after a moment of stillness. Not just beautiful. Not just clever. Something else beneath it all.
Then Samira said, “Tell me honestly. Do I look like I belong here?”
Emery’s eyes scanned her face slowly. “You look like the only one who isn’t performing.”
Samira breathed out, surprised by the warmth that bloomed in her chest.
“You’re different,” Emery added. “I suspect that will terrify them.”
“Good,” Samira said. “They should be.”
A shared smile passed between them: genuine, bright, rare. And when Emery nodded toward the next room, Samira followed, without thinking.
The next gallery was busier, scattered with polite chatter and a few familiar faces. Samira recognized the sons of dukes and earls, all cut from the same bolt of cloth, postured and polished, each seemingly performing their own carefully rehearsed routine. She had barely crossed the threshold before Emery leaned in, her tone almost conspiratorial.
“Lord Harrington, three o’clock. Widowed aunt, three thousand a year, and a fondness for falconry.”
Samira blinked. “Are you scheming?”
Emery’s grin was wicked. “Hardly. Just...educating. Consider it part of your social survival kit.”
They walked slowly along the room’s perimeter, pausing before an oil portrait of some long-forgotten aristocrat. A group of gentlemen loitered nearby, discussing brushstroke technique with suspicious enthusiasm. Samira caught a few glances in her direction.
Emery tilted her head toward one of them. “That’s Lord Giles. Quiet as a church mouse, but his father owns half of Cornwall. He was caught proposing to three different girls last season.”
Samira chuckled, folding her arms as her gaze drifted to a nearby marble bust. “Do you enjoy this? The meddling?”
“No,” Emery said, her tone softening. “But I enjoy making sure the smart ones don’t get eaten alive.”
The weight of that lingered between them, something more than banter, something not quite protectiveness either. As they moved into a quieter wing, the air grew cooler and the galleries emptier. Here, the paintings leaned more abstract, light and color rather than form and portraiture.
“You’ll be at Lady Evans’ ball in a few nights, I presume?” Emery asked, her tone light, almost offhand.
Samira turned toward her, a faint frown forming. “Yes, actually. And I’ve been meaning to mention… I haven’t the slightest idea how to waltz.”
She half-expected Emery to laugh, or at least offer some teasing remark. But instead, Emery simply nodded, all ease and quiet assurance. “Then we’ll fix that.”
“Now?”
Emery gestured around them. “There’s no one in this wing but us. What better time?”
Samira opened her mouth to protest, but Emery was already stepping back and giving a little mock bow. “Come now, Miss Mohan. Surely you can suffer a few minutes of embarrassment.”
With a sigh and a half-smile, Samira allowed herself to be pulled forward. Emery took one of her hands, then the other, and adjusted their positions with an ease that was incredibly disarming.
“You’ll want to keep your chin up,” Emery said, gently tipping Samira’s face. “The trick is to look like you’re enjoying yourself even if your feet hurt.”
“I don’t have any idea what I’m doing,” Samira murmured.
“You’re in luck,” Emery replied. “I’m an excellent teacher.”
They began to move, slowly at first, no music, only the soft echo of their footsteps across the marble floor, muffled and rhythmic like the distant beat of a heart. The gallery around them stood silent and still, all carved cherubs and oil-painted nobility looking on like curious, silent witnesses. Emery led with practiced ease, her posture fluid, movements deliberate. Her hand rested lightly at Samira’s back, fingers spread just enough to steady but not command. There was nothing forceful in her hold, only confidence, quiet and certain, like the sea at low tide.
Samira tried to focus on the rhythm, on her steps, on the angle of her feet, but her breath was shallow, her pulse a fluttering thing behind her ribs. She was suddenly aware of everything, how warm Emery’s hand was through the thin silk of her gown, how close their faces were when they turned, how their skirts brushed with each subtle pivot.
The lesson was simple. Step, step, glide, turn, but Samira found it increasingly impossible to think clearly. Each time Emery’s fingers adjusted her arm or guided her waist, a flicker of heat raced up her spine. She was certain her cheeks were flushed, though she kept her expression carefully neutral, the way she had learned to do during anatomy lectures when the room was watching too closely.
Still, this was different.
This wasn’t theory. This was touch. This was proximity. This was the kind of closeness she’d only read about in books she was not meant to enjoy.
Emery glanced at her, just a brief look, and for a moment their eyes locked. Something in that gaze held Samira stiller than the steps ever could. It wasn’t teasing or amused, the way so many society ladies smiled. It was intent. Knowing. Kind. Samira looked away quickly, but not before something shifted inside her. Not a spark. A current . As if her entire body had tilted forward without moving at all.
“This is the part,” Emery said softly, “where you smile politely and pretend not to notice how dreadfully boring your partner is.”
Samira met her eyes. “But what if they aren’t boring?”
Emery’s smile faltered for half a second, just long enough to be noticed, before she replied, “Then you’re in trouble.”
The world seemed to fall away around them. No audience. No pressure. Just the two of them and the silence that crackled like heat. Samira couldn’t quite explain the feeling, this strange ache in her ribs, this desire to stay right here in the dim, quiet corridor, far from the noise and rules of the world. When Emery pulled back to release her, Samira’s fingers lingered just a breath longer than they should have. She let go quickly, hoping the warmth in her cheeks wasn’t visible.
“Well done,” Emery said, voice light again. “You’ll be the most graceful woman on the floor.”
Samira cleared her throat, grateful for the excuse to turn toward a nearby statue and compose herself. “Thank you. For this.”
Emery tilted her head, watching her with a look Samira couldn’t quite read. “It’s nothing.”
But it didn’t feel like nothing.
***
The evening after the exhibition, Emery tossed and turned in bed. She’d drifted off once, sometime after midnight, only to wake with the unmistakable pull of a dream still clinging to her skin. She lay there for a moment, the ceiling swimming above her. Her breath was too shallow. Her skin prickled with the chill of the night. Without thinking, her hand reached across the mattress to the other side–
Empty. Of course it was.
Her palm sank into the vacant pillow, still cool despite the season. She closed her eyes and inhaled, waiting for the ghost of his scent, the warm trace of cedar, something lingering. But as always, there was nothing left to breathe in anymore.
Her throat tightened. The walls felt too close, the stillness suffocating. She shoved the sheets back and sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. Bare feet on cold floorboards. Within minutes, Emery was out the door and down the back stairwell, slipping past the household servants still slumbering in their quarters. She had done this before, enough times to know where the boards creaked and which door hinges groaned. She moved like a shadow.
Outside, the air was thick with midsummer. Her carriage driver startled when he saw her, but she waved off his questions and climbed in with a sharp, practiced grace.
“Downtown,” she murmured. “You know where.”
It wasn’t a long drive, not at this hour. The streets of Mayfair gave way to the darker veins of the city, where the cobblestones gleamed wet and the windows wore secrets behind heavy curtains. Eventually, the carriage halted outside a quiet, respectable gentlemen’s club.
Inside, everything was lacquer and velvet, firelight and smoke. Gentlemen played cards and sipped from crystal tumblers. A pianist plinked away at something soft and indulgent in the corner, but Emery didn’t linger. She moved through the parlor like a wraith, past the murmurs and brandy, down a narrow hall lined with portraits too dusty to matter. At the end: a plain door, unmarked. She knocked once, paused, then knocked twice more.
A slit opened, eyes peering out, and then the latch clicked open. Beyond it: a stairwell. Dim. Flickering light. She descended.
At the bottom, the world changed. The private salon bloomed before her, sultry and pulsing, tucked beneath the respectable world like a secret heartbeat. The crowd was a different breed: looser, hungrier, clad in silk and sin. Women in trousers. Men in rouge. The sound of glasses clinking, laughter breaking, jazz rising and falling like waves on velvet.
And there, at the bar, exactly where she knew she’d be– Parker Ellis. Cigarette dangling from her lips, head tipped back in laughter like the world couldn’t touch her. Emery exhaled slowly. Then stepped into the haze.
She and Parker Ellis became friends during Emery’s season on the marriage market, a time when Emery had been equal parts dazzled and disillusioned by society’s glittering facade. At the time, Parker had already carved out a place for herself on the fringes of London’s social circles, a fixture of whispered intrigue and unapologetic irreverence.
Though she bore a noble title, Parker had never quite been welcomed into the ton with open arms. House Ellis, while newly ennobled, carried the lingering scent of trade. Her father had earned his wealth not through lineage or land, but by running one of London’s most popular and frequented gentleman’s clubs. When the crown had granted him a title and modest lands, it had done little to smooth his entry into polite society. The older families scoffed behind fans and brandy glasses, sneering at the Ellis name as a novelty, a curiosity.
Parker had been a teenager when her family rose in rank, and instead of chasing invitations to balls, she turned her attention inward, to the club her father refused to abandon, to the freedom that came with being underestimated. When the time came, there was no debut for her, no gowns or suitors or anxious season of prospects. She saw no reason to play a game that had never wanted her as a contender. Her father, to everyone’s surprise, supported her decision without hesitation.
Perhaps that’s what had drawn Emery to her in the first place: Parker didn’t pretend to belong. And in those early days, when Emery was still learning how to mask the fault lines in her own carefully curated life, Parker’s defiant honesty had been both refreshing and thrilling.
“I thought I felt the air change,” Parker said when she finally caught sight of her. “Must be the stench of poor decisions.”
Emery smirked, tossing her gloves onto a side table. “I missed you too.”
Parker sat up and gestured to the empty chair beside her. “Come. Sit. Tell me how the glittering elite have offended you this time.”
Emery sank into the seat with a sigh of deep, theatrical weariness. “Three men asked if Elizabeth would consider marrying within the next fortnight. One man asked if I’d consider marrying him instead, because he likes a woman with ‘experience.’”
Parker winced, then offered her glass. “You need this more than I do.”
Emery took a sip. “God, that’s awful.”
They took a corner booth eventually, one half-shadowed from the stage lights and just far enough from the piano that conversation didn’t need to fight with melody. Emery sank into the worn leather beside Parker and let her shoulders drop for the first time in days. They talked in the meandering way old friends do when the hours stretch long and unguarded. They traded small news, family gossip, the quiet shift of things since Emery left town.
It was easy like this. Dangerous, maybe, but easy. The kind of night that folded over itself in layers of old comfort, where nothing had to be decided just yet. Where Emery could forget, for just a few hours, how tightly wound her days had become. And how, even now, part of her still ached for warmth, and part of her still wanted to deserve it.
“So,” Parker said. “What is it this time? Woman troubles?”
“Something like that,” Emery replied. “The Diamond of the season wants to be a physician and doesn’t know how to waltz. And somehow, I said I’d help her.”
Parker tilted her head, observing. “And is she pretty?”
Emery smiled wryly. “Terribly.”
“Well then,” Parker said, raising her glass in salute. “Here’s to your inevitable downfall.”
They clinked glasses again, less like a toast and more like an inside joke. Emery had lost track of how many rounds they'd shared, but the warmth in her cheeks wasn’t just from the bourbon.
“Mentoring.” Parker chuckled. “You’ve gone soft.”
Emery scoffed. “I’ve gone strategic.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now? Strategic? You used to thrive on flustering members of the ton.”
“I still do. I just pick my targets more wisely.”
Parker grinned, wicked and slow. “So I’m the target tonight?”
“You’re always the target. But you’re far too smug to be satisfying.”
“I could behave,” Parker offered, leaning in slightly. “If it’s satisfaction you’re after.”
Emery rolled her eyes, but she didn’t move away. “You haven’t behaved a day in your life.”
“True. But I always knew when to make exceptions.” Her tone dipped, suggestive and low, like a secret passed between lips.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. Emery’s fingers brushed her glass, the condensation clinging to her skin. She looked up at Parker, her sharp smile, the glint of something familiar in her eyes, and felt that old tug in her chest again. The kind that made her reckless.
“You’re still insufferable,” Emery murmured.
There was no declaration, no warning. Just a touch of fingers against Emery’s wrist. The kiss, when it came, was familiar. Not gentle, but not rough. Bold. Hungry. A spark struck between them and caught, and neither had the good sense to pull away. They stumbled together into a shadowed back room, finding a narrow bed tucked behind velvet drapes. Parker’s shirt landed half-draped over a side table, and Emery’s hairpins scattered like stardust across the worn rug.
Afterward, Emery lay flat on her back on the bedsheets, one arm flung over her eyes. Parker sat beside her, still partially dressed, nursing what remained of her scotch.
“You’re a terrible influence,” Emery said lazily.
Parker smirked. “You kissed me first.”
A silence stretched between them, weightier than the one before. Emery’s gaze drifted up to the ceiling, her fingers twitching slightly against the fabric. She felt the old ache again, that sense of being close to something and yet never quite having it.
Parker broke the silence first. Her voice was quiet. “We probably shouldn’t have done that.”
Emery didn’t move. “No,” she agreed softly. “Probably not.”
Parker took another sip of her drink, then added, “There’s someone… I’m not sure about it yet. It’s new.”
Emery looked over at her to smile. “Good,” she said. “You deserve new.”
“You always make things too easy,” Parker said, setting the glass down with a soft clink.
“I’m selfish. I want the memories to be kind.”
A pause.
“They are,” Parker said, almost too gently.
Emery stood, smoothing her bodice back into place. Her hair was a bit mussed now, but her expression had returned to its usual composure: calm, practiced, with just the faintest flush beneath it all. She turned to Parker with a crooked smile. “I should probably slip out before the rest of the house stirs.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Parker said, already rising to follow.
***
The china hadn’t changed. That was the first thing Samira noticed when she sat down at Miss Santos’s carefully laid tea table. Still rimmed in rose gold, still faintly chipped along the handles from years of haphazard childhood “parties.” Trinity, for all her dramatics and reinventions, had kept that much the same.
The drawing room at the Santos’s family townhouse was bright and stylish, all high ceilings and golden light filtering through gauzy curtains. Samira perched on the edge of a velvet settee, glancing around with a sort of wistful amusement. She still remembered playing tag with Trinity down the corridors, both of them tumbling into scolding nannies’ arms.
Trinity breezed in five minutes late, of course, all satin ribbons and swagger, her cheeks flushed pink from the early summer air. “Look at you,” she sang, holding out her arms. “I thought academia would make you ghastly pale, but you’re positively glowing.”
Samira stood to return the hug. “And you haven’t changed at all.”
“Lies,” Trinity grinned, flopping into the seat across from her. “I’ve changed in every way that counts. Improved, even. I’m impossible to manage now.”
A maid entered, setting down a silver tray with warm scones and a teapot that smelled faintly of lavender and lemon peel. Trinity dismissed her with a wave and turned back to Samira with a glint in her eye.
“God, I’ve missed this. When you left for Oxford I had no one to keep me humble. You’ve no idea how tedious it’s been being the cleverest woman in the room.”
Samira laughed lightly, accepting a cup. “I’ve missed this too. I didn’t think I would, but it’s strange being back.”
“You’re telling me. You go to school for a few years, and now you’re being paraded through the Queen’s Court in ivory silk. I nearly dropped my fan.”
“That makes two of us,” Samira muttered.
Trinity raised a brow, clearly amused. “Oh come now. You’re doing marvelously. You curtsy like you were born for it, you have half the season’s eligible bachelors at your feet, and if the whispers are to be believed, you’ve made quite the impression on Viscountess Walsh.”
Samira blinked at her over the rim of her teacup. “I– what?”
“Don’t pretend to be shocked.” Trinity leaned in, lips twitching. “Everyone’s noticed it. The way she clings to your side, whispers in your ear.”
“She’s been helping,” Samira said slowly. “With etiquette. Dance. All the things I never learned.”
“And that’s wonderful,” Trinity said lightly, but her gaze sharpened. “She’s fascinating, isn’t she? Gorgeous. Poised. Bit of a recluse these days. Until now, of course.”
Samira hesitated. “Is there something you’re not saying?”
Trinity leaned back and stirred her tea with one long finger resting against the edge of the porcelain. “Only that you should be careful.”
The air shifted, just slightly. “Careful?” Samira echoed.
“Yes. Of getting too close.” Trinity met her gaze directly. “The Walsh family has a certain… influence. Their secrets don’t linger in parlors or ballrooms. Sometimes they just vanish.”
Samira sat a little straighter. “Are you warning me about the Viscountess?”
“I’m suggesting you be aware,” Trinity said, uncharacteristically gentle. “The papers call her tragic, a beautiful young widow, but that’s not where the real stories come from. Talk to the paper boys, the seamstresses, the footmen. They remember the season she debuted. They remember the scandal.”
A long pause. Samira could hear the faint ticking of the mantel clock.
“I don’t know the details,” Trinity continued. “No one does. That’s the point. Whatever happened was handled so quickly, so thoroughly, the ton was left with only rumor and sighs. But what I do know is this: Viscountess Emery Walsh may have a grieving widow’s smile, but she has the habits of a rake.”
Samira’s stomach turned. “She’s been nothing but kind to me.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Trinity said gently. “But your name doesn’t carry the same insulation hers does. You’re not scandal-proof. Not like she is. I just don’t want you to get tangled up with a woman who’ll vanish the moment things get messy.”
The words landed harder than Samira expected. “You’re not suggesting I… Trinity, we’re just friends.”
“I’m not trying to suggest anything,” Trinity said, holding her gaze. “I just want you to be careful. That’s all.”
Samira nodded slowly, her throat tight. The warning settled in her like stones dropped into a still pond. Gentle at first, then spreading, rippling outward in ways she couldn’t quite name. “I’ll be careful,” she said, though she wasn’t entirely sure she believed herself.
Trinity smiled, bright and easy again, as if she hadn’t just struck the quiet chord Samira hadn’t known was there. “Good. Now. Shall we absolutely ruin the cakes before your next dance partner shows up? You’ll need the sugar if he’s the dull type.”
***
The night air clung to Emery’s skin as she stepped onto the gravel path that curled around the side of the Evans estate. Music from the ballroom pulsed faintly through the walls: tuned strings, polite laughter, the occasional clink of a dropped glass. Out here, everything was quieter. Cooler.
She had only just taken a breath when a flicker of flame sparked ahead. Emery slowed. Lady Dana Evans stood near the edge of the garden wall, half-shielded by a tall urn of ivy. Her gown, dark plum, severe in its elegance, swept the gravel like smoke. Between her gloved fingers, a cigarette glowed.
“Thought I smelled trouble,” Emery murmured.
Dana didn’t look over. “And I thought I sensed you lurking about.”
Emery huffed a laugh and joined her, eyeing the cigarette. “You know the scandal that would erupt if someone saw you? At your own ball nonetheless.”
Dana finally turned to her, her dark eyes glinting with mischief. “Darling girl, the only thing more boring than scandal is pretending I’m afraid of it.”
With a shrug, she produced a second cigarette from her clutch and held it out. Emery hesitated, then took it. “Thank God.”
Dana lit it for her, one eyebrow raised. “And here I was, thinking you were above such things.”
“Not anymore,” Emery said, inhaling slowly. “Besides, I learned from the best.”
They stood in silence for a moment, both exhaling into the evening, the smoke curling between them like the unspoken thread of something long-established and enduring. A carriage rumbled faintly in the distance. Somewhere in the garden, a nightingale warbled. Emery closed her eyes, just for a moment.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come tonight,” Dana said at last.
Emery let the smoke escape from her nose. “Someone has to make sure Elizabeth doesn’t dance with a rake.”
“You’ve been avoiding the spotlight.”
“I’ve had enough spotlight for a lifetime.”
Dana glanced sidelong at her, amusement tugging at her mouth. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re more of a side-glow these days.”
Emery laughed then, quiet and genuine. “A soft glimmer, perhaps.”
“Twilight at best.”
They smoked in companionable silence. Dana's rings flashed faintly in the moonlight as she flicked ash to the gravel.
“I’m not here to be admired,” Emery said eventually. “I’m here for my sister.”
“Then why are you looking at someone else entirely?”
Emery didn’t answer. Dana reached up and plucked a stray leaf from her hair with idle precision. “I’ve known you far too long, Emery. There’s little you can hide from me.”
Another hush settled between them. From inside, the sounds of the ball drifted through the garden. The swell of a new waltz, distant laughter like ripples on glass. Emery let herself sway to the rhythm for just a moment.
The cool night air bit gently at her skin, and her fingers tightened around the cigarette. She hadn’t meant to slip out here, hadn’t meant to linger in the dark edges of the garden, but old habits were hard to break. She remembered doing the same during her own season, ducking behind hedgerows or slipping out onto balconies when the crush of the ballroom became too much. Back then, it had felt like defiance. Rebellion, even.
But it hadn’t been. Not really. Because even at her boldest, wearing dresses a touch too daring, speaking to the wrong people, entertaining flirtations with the wrong sort of women, she had always kept one eye on the door. Always calculated what could be hidden, what could be explained away. Because she was afraid. Afraid of the eyes that watched too closely, of whispers behind fans, of her family’s name being dragged through the same mud she dared to dance in.
“Miss Mohan is different from the rest,” Dana said quietly. “There’s no fear in her. Not of society. Not of its expectations.”
Emery blinked, then looked down at the cigarette between her fingers, watching it burn to a slow curl of ash. “Everyone’s so worried about me,” she murmured. “When really, they should be terrified of her.”
Samira Mohan walked through this world with a kind of conviction Emery had never possessed, not even in her wildest, youngest days. She spoke plainly, smiled when she meant it, and didn’t bother with the delicate web of performance society demanded. She hadn’t learned yet to fear it. Emery wasn’t sure whether that made her brave or naive. And worse still, Emery was beginning to wish, against her better judgment, that Samira never learned. That she stayed exactly as she was: radiant, unguarded, stubborn. It made Emery ache in a way she hadn’t in years.
The feelings were creeping in, quiet and undeniable. She had told herself it was nothing. Friendship, curiosity, responsibility. But that lie was unraveling faster than she could stitch it closed.
Dana tilted her head, a flicker of amusement in her eyes. Then she straightened her posture with familiar grace. “We should go back in,” she said. “They’ll expect you to at least show your face.”
“Wouldn’t want to disappoint,” Emery replied dryly.
“You never do.”
Emery smiled, and this time, it lingered.
Dana dropped her cigarette, crushed it under the toe of her shoe, and smoothed her skirts. “Come along, darling.”
They vanished into the light together, the scent of smoke still curling in their wake.
***
The ballroom glittered with light and movement. Crystal chandeliers raining gold upon coiffed heads, silks whispering secrets across the parquet floor, a quartet lilting a waltz that swirled with the scent of roses and champagne. Lady Dana Evans’s ball was the first true pinnacle of the season, and it gleamed with the polish of wealth and reputation.
Samira stood near the refreshment table, half-listening to Lady Campbell compare the velvet trimming on this year’s gloves to last season’s inferior lace. She nodded politely, eyes drifting past the woman, searching for something, or someone, before she could name what.
There. Across the room, just beside the line of waiting gentlemen, stood Viscountess Emery Walsh.
The candlelight softened her already striking features, catching on the glint of a pearl comb tucked into her upswept curls. Her gown was midnight blue, impossibly elegant, sharp in the way all her looks seemed to be: precise, restrained, just slightly untouchable. Samira’s breath caught.
Emery’s gaze lifted– met hers, and something inside Samira jolted. But a heartbeat later, Emery looked away.
She watched as Emery leaned into the ear of the gentleman beside her, Lord Ferrell, if Samira remembered correctly, and said something with an unreadable expression. Ferrell laughed, nodded, and within moments was making his way across the dance floor with an expectant glint in his eye.
“Miss Mohan,” he said, bowing. “Would you do me the honor of the next waltz?”
Samira blinked. Her feet responded before her thoughts did. “Of course.”
The music swelled, and they stepped into the rhythm. Ferrell was gracious enough, handsome in a sculpted sort of way. He danced competently and asked all the right questions: about the weather, about her favorite flower, about whether she preferred city walks to garden ones. She answered with a practiced ease, her face smiling as her thoughts drifted elsewhere.
Because across the room, Emery was speaking with another man. Another suitor. Another whispered instruction.
A half hour passed like this. Emery, never once meeting her gaze again. If she wasn’t busy chaperoning her sister, she was sending suitor after suitor in Samira’s direction. Lord Kendale. Mr. Dorsey. The younger Fairfax son, who looked too terrified to speak. Each one more eligible than the last. Each one more tolerable than interesting.
With every turn, every bow, Samira found herself aching for something she couldn’t name. Something she’d felt just once, briefly, when Emery had taken her hand beneath the gallery’s marble dome. When they’d moved together in a space that felt somehow more intimate than this entire glittering crowd. Between partners, she stepped aside to sip water from a crystal flute and tried not to look at Emery again. She failed.
Emery stood at the edge of the floor, one gloved hand resting lightly on her hip as she laughed at something her brother said. Her smile was easy and bright, but when her gaze flicked toward Samira, her face dropped.
Again, she turned away. Samira felt it like a cold draft beneath her ribs.
What had she done? Had she overstepped? Was their friendship nothing more than a curiosity to Emery? A brief amusement before returning to more proper pursuits?
“Miss Mohan,” came another voice. This one belonged to Lord Willoughby, who bowed with the dramatic flair of someone who’d practiced in front of a mirror.
Samira nodded again, numb. They moved into another dance. She couldn’t remember the steps this time. Her body moved through them on habit alone, her thoughts still caught on every glance Emery had refused to return. The feel of her hands in the gallery. The brush of breath against her cheek. When the music ended, she curtsied, murmured her thanks, and stepped aside, weaving toward a darker corner near the garden doors where the music dulled and the air grew cooler.
After nearly an hour of dancing, Samira felt the edges of her composure begin to fray. The crush of bodies, the constant conversation, the relentless suitors. It was all beginning to suffocate her. Emery had vanished from the ballroom some time ago, her absence growing more noticeable with each passing minute, and yet the attention on Samira never waned.
When an opportunity finally presented itself, Samira slipped out of the ballroom and into the cool night air, exhaling as though she hadn’t breathed in hours. Finding the terrace empty, she stepped off the stone steps and onto the manicured lawn, following the winding path that led into the estate’s garden.
The deeper she walked into the maze of hedges, the quieter everything became. At the far end of the property, half-hidden beneath a tangle of wisteria and wild rose, stood the old stone ruin. Here, the air smelled sweeter, tinged with earth and blossoms, and the only sound was the faint whisper of wind through overgrown leaves, and the soft trickle of water from a long-forgotten fountain.
Until she heard it: a breathless laugh, muffled and intimate.
She stepped closer, nearly silent, curiosity prickling under her skin, before she saw them.
Emery stood in the shadows, her face tilted toward a woman whose back was pressed to the crumbling stone wall. Their bodies were too close for modesty. Emery’s mouth moved slowly along the woman’s jaw, then to the slope of her throat, lips brushing lower, teasing, claiming. The other woman moaned softly. One of Emery’s hands tangled in the laces of her corset. The other had disappeared beneath the layers of the woman’s skirts.
Samira froze.
A wave of heat crashed through her. Desire, confusion, something else. She felt it curl low in her belly, raw and sudden and hot, and for the first time, Samira understood exactly how dangerous Emery Walsh could be. She tried to step back, but a dry twig snapped beneath her heel.
Emery lifted her head, eyes sharp and startled, still shadowed by lust. And saw her.
Samira didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe. The other woman was flushed and flustered, but Emery didn’t look at her. She was staring at Samira.
“Samira–”
But Samira had already turned, moving swiftly, silently, desperate to put distance between herself and what could not be unseen.
Chapter Text
Dearest readers,
Lady Evans’ ball has come and gone, and what a night it was! The music was divine, the refreshments impeccable, and the company? Positively sparkling. If you were not among the commotion, you have my deepest sympathies (and a firm reminder to secure your next invitation early).
Many sizzling pairings graced the dance floor this evening. Miss Victoria Javadi and Lord Mateo Diaz were seen enjoying each other’s company with a certain ease, Miss Javadi, in particular, seemed most taken with His Lordship, her admiration perhaps more apparent than one might expect from a young lady of such high standing. Still, who could fault her? Lord Diaz is, after all, a rather enviable prospect. Meanwhile, Miss Elizabeth Walsh was observed sharing not one but two dances with Mr. Dennis Whittaker. Though their interactions appeared perfectly cordial, friendly, even, we at the Post know better than to underestimate the winding paths of the social season. Stranger romances have bloomed under similar circumstances.
But let us turn our attention where it most rightly belongs: to Miss Samira Mohan, our dazzling Diamond of the Season. The young lady was scarcely without a partner for more than a breath. From the first waltz to the final quadrille, Miss Mohan danced with no fewer than eight eligible suitors, including Lord Willoughby, the ever-charming Lord Ferrell, and, most notably, His Grace, the Duke of Granleigh. We are told the pair shared a particularly spirited dance that drew a round of applause from the assembled guests. Yet it was not the Duke’s footwork that caused the greatest stir of the evening. Nearing midnight, Miss Mohan was seen emerging from the hedge maze, cheeks flushed, curls in a most uncharacteristic state of disarray. A concerned suitor rushed after her, but she waved him off. When pressed by a footman, she simply asked for her carriage. We leave you, as always, to draw your own conclusions.
But let it not be said that the Season is cooling. With rumors swirling faster than the waltz, and hearts tumbling like dice at Ellis’ gentleman’s club, we suggest keeping your dance cards close and your secrets closer.
London Society Papers, 20 May, 1817
***
Walsh London Townhouse, 3 June, 1807
The candlelight shimmered like fire across the marble floor. Emery sat on the edge of the drawing room chaise, a thin dressing gown clutched tight at her chest, her hands shaking too badly to tie the sash properly. Her hair was still unpinned, falling in curls that stuck to her flushed cheeks. She hadn’t stopped shaking since her mother had thrown open that door.
Across the room, voices murmured in frantic conversation, but they sounded as if from underwater. Her mother had retreated to her bedchamber. Furious, blistering, half-hysterical, and left others to fix what had been broken.
Lady Dana Evans, swathed in midnight blue silk, crouched before Emery, her voice calm but firm as she tucked a blanket around her shoulders.
“You must breathe, darling,” she said. “Long, even breaths. This isn’t the end.”
Emery blinked away tears. “She said I’ve ruined everything.”
Lady Dana’s expression barely flickered. “Mothers say dreadful things in times of distress. But your life is not over, Emery. We’ll find a way.”
“Find a way?” Emery whispered. “There is no way.”
The door creaked again and in walked Lord Jack Abbott, his boots muddy, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his greying hair slightly windblown as if he’d ridden there in a rush. He had the air of a man too used to arriving in the middle of disasters.
“Well,” Jack drawled, tossing his gloves to the side table. “It’s quite the night to make one’s entrance, isn’t it?”
Emery managed a broken laugh, too high and sharp, but Jack only gave her a reassuring smile.
Emmett stood off to the side of the room, his arms crossed so tight across his chest it looked like he might snap in half. His eyes flicked between Dana and Jack. “We can’t delay. Word will get out by morning if it hasn’t already.”
Jack shrugged. “Which is why I’ve come with a solution.”
Emery looked up, her voice hollow. “A solution?”
Jack crossed to the hearth, poured himself a glass of brandy, and spoke as if discussing weather patterns. “You remember Viscount Aldridge, don’t you? Pale fellow, nervous as a rabbit, polite to a fault. He was at your second garden party this year. Very gallant.”
Emery frowned. “I barely spoke to him.”
“Well,” Jack said, taking a sip, “he’s mad for music, very discreet, and– I say this with affection, is in desperate need of protection. His father suspects, but hasn’t proof. A marriage would be... beneficial. For both of you.”
It took Emery a moment to understand. Then the meaning hit her like ice water.
“Oh.” Her voice was small. “You mean he’s–”
Jack nodded once.
She stared at him, the floor swaying a little under her slippers. “So I marry a man I hardly know. Just like that.”
Dana pressed a steadying hand to her knee. “You wouldn’t be the first. He’s kind, Emery. And more importantly, he understands. There would be no expectations. You could still… live.”
“But Miss Garcia–” she began, voice cracking.
Emmett stepped forward at that. “Miss Garcia will be handled. Quietly. Her family will send her north, perhaps to live with cousins or take orders. They haven’t the sway we do.”
“She won’t have this protection,” Emery said, anger lighting in her chest for the first time that night. “She’ll be punished and I won’t.”
“No,” Emmett said, voice low. “But if you burn too, it helps no one. Not her. Not you.”
There was silence then, except the clink of Jack’s brandy glass against the mantel.
Dana stood slowly, brushed off her skirts, and gave Emery a long look. “You don’t have to love him, dear. You don’t even have to like him. You only have to survive. And that’s what we’re offering you now. A future. A life.”
A life. One carefully stitched together from broken threads. Emery pressed a hand to her mouth, swallowing back the lump in her throat. “Can I speak to my brother, please? Alone?”
Jack and Dana exchanged a glance, then nodded and quietly left the room. When the door creaked open a smaller figure was standing just outside: Elizabeth, seven years old, still in her nightdress, dragging a toy fox by the leg.
“Why was Mama yelling?” Elizabeth asked sleepily.
“Go back to bed, Lizzy,” Emmett said gently. “Nanny’s waiting.”
“I want Emmy.”
“She needs to rest.”
Elizabeth frowned but obeyed, offering Emery a half-hearted wave before disappearing down the hall, hand in hand with Lady Dana. The door clicked shut, leaving only Emery and her brother behind.
It was quiet before Emery spoke up. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Emmett said quickly. “It only matters what mother and the other servants saw.”
That stung. Emery’s chest tightened. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
“I think you’re not understanding the scale of what’s happened.”
“All I did was kiss someone.” she snapped.
“That someone,” Emmett said more gently, “was another debutant. In your bedchambers. During your season.”
Emery’s hands curled into fists. “I don’t want to marry a stranger.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
That broke something in her.
“I’m not asking for choices, Emmett,” she said, voice trembling. “I’m asking for you. I’m asking for my brother to look at me and say I’m not some disgrace you’re sending away.”
That silenced him. Emery wiped her cheek roughly. She hadn’t realized she was crying. “You held my hand at Father’s funeral and told me you’d always protect me.”
“I’m trying to protect you now.” Emmett stood, his face suddenly unreadable. “That’s why I’m doing this.”
Before Emery could get another word out, Emmett was already at the door, turning the handle with a measured breath.
And then she was alone again.
***
Walsh London Townhouse, 20 May, 1817
The Walsh drawing room had been freshly dusted and polished, as it always was on Wednesdays. The good tea set, ivory porcelain with rose-gold filigree, had been laid out precisely. A spray of early summer roses softened the room’s edges, and Elizabeth sat beneath them, poised and practiced. Her posture was perfect, her bonnet artfully tilted, and her demure smile so well-rehearsed it hardly wavered when Mr. Sandhurst stammered through his compliments about the morning light on her complexion.
Emmett stood nearby with the ease of someone born to the role of eldest son, one arm slung over the back of a settee as he watched each suitor like a hawk dressed in fine tailoring. His presence alone sent the more nervous young men into spirals. Emery sat a few feet away, dutifully present but uncharacteristically silent. Her gaze drifted from the suitors to the rain-dampened garden beyond the windows, where morning light glimmered across slick hedges and dew-heavy roses. A cup of untouched tea cooled in her lap. She hadn’t stirred it once.
She’d sent five men in Samira Mohan’s direction the night before. Five. One after the other, like some twisted offering to society’s expectations. She hadn’t dared approach Samira herself, not after the gallery. Not after the way her hands had lingered on Samira’s waist during the dance, the way her breath had caught at the curve of Samira’s neck. It had been too much. Too real. Too dangerous.
And yet, she hadn’t stopped watching her all evening.
Emery had tried to forget what it felt like to have Samira so close– especially since she forced herself to stay away at the ball. So she wandered, seeking comfort in the arms of someone else. Someone safer. Someone who asked for nothing in return. Emery couldn’t even recall her name. But Samira had seen. She had seen, and then she ran . And despite all the trust they had built, despite the warmth of their growing friendship, there was still a part of Emery, a younger, more fearful part, that worried Samira might tell someone.
“Miss Walsh,” one of Elizabeth’s more persistent callers, Lord Dalton, was saying now, “Your embroidery work at Lady Crawley’s salon was positively exquisite. My sister declared she’d never seen such elegant stitches.”
Elizabeth laughed lightly. “She’s very kind. Though I daresay Lady Crawley’s eyesight isn’t what it used to be.” She glanced toward Emery, perhaps hoping for a chuckle. Emery offered only a small smile.
“Are you quite well?” Elizabeth asked softly during a lull, catching Emery’s eye across the room.
“Only tired,” Emery said. “I didn’t sleep well.”
Not a lie. She had barely slept at all. Her mind kept turning to Samira’s expression, that startled breath, the way she’d taken a step back before running off into the night. From across the room, Elizabeth gave her a longer look, one of concern now. Emery forced herself to return to the present.
She finally stood quietly, excused herself with a nod to Elizabeth and Emmett, and drifted from the room. She could not sit in gilded salons and pretend civility while her thoughts screamed Samira’s name.
***
The large sitting room at the Mohan estate was a portrait of early summer, and Samira sat like a jewel in the center of it all, dressed in soft blue silk. Only the faintest pinch of her fingers around the teacup betrayed her mood. Her mother was sitting at a tea table just across the room, pretending to be invested in the paper and not on the suitors, but Samira knew better than to expect her mother to not meddle.
“Viscount Thorne,” the footman called.
She turned gracefully to the suitor, whose family was ancient and whose coat was embroidered with more gold than good taste.
“Miss Mohan,” he said grandly. “May I express my admiration for your poise under pressure? You shine, despite your… unconventional circumstances.”
Samira blinked once. “Do you mean my academic interests or my father’s death?”
“I– I only meant–”
“Careful, my lord,” she said, her voice still like velvet. “You’re beginning to mistake condescension for charm.”
Across the room, Lady Mohan looked as though she might faint– or strangle someone. But Samira only smiled.
“Lord Whitely,” the footman called next.
This one carried a leather-bound volume of poetry and a smirk that suggested he’d practiced it in the mirror.
“I thought you might appreciate Shelley,” he said, placing the book before her like a cat depositing a mouse. “I’m told you’re rather bookish.”
“I am,” Samira said, flipping open the volume. “Though Shelley is a bold choice, considering his affairs and scandals. Still, fitting.” She looked up at him sweetly. “Have you read it yourself?”
“Ah, only the first few pages,” Whitely admitted.
“Then I suggest you finish before gifting it again,” Samira replied, eyes twinkling. “The ending is the best part.”
He chuckled nervously, excused himself to go “fetch some tea,” and did not return.
“Lord Camden.”
This one launched immediately into a speech about his stable of horses, how well they’d taken to dressage, and how spirited his new filly was. Samira listened with polite nods until he paused for breath.
“How fortunate,” she said. “I imagine you’ll have no trouble taming her, with all your experience handling spirited creatures.”
He blinked. “Are we still speaking of horses?”
“I am,” Samira replied, serene.
A beat passed. Camden cleared his throat and stood. “Yes. Well. I’ll leave you to your tea.”
Three down. Samira fought the urge to sigh. She rose to her feet to stretch her back, her joints aching from the stiff posturing and ceaseless small talk, when a sudden commotion stirred outside the parlor door. Voices murmured, something shuffled, and then:
“Viscountess Emery Walsh to see Miss Mohan,” the footman announced.
Samira froze midstep. Her pulse stumbled, then surged with an unsteady beat. Emery stepped into the room, composed as ever in posture and poise. But Samira saw it, the flicker of tension in her jaw, the way her hands were clasped too tightly at her waist. There was something brittle beneath the polish tonight. A crack in the armor.
Her mother stood. Bristled. “Viscountess Walsh. I was not aware we were expecting–”
“Forgive the intrusion,” Emery said, her voice clipped and cool, though her gaze flicked to Samira. “But there is an urgent matter I must discuss with Miss Mohan.”
Samira straightened slowly. She was aware of every eye in the room, of the suitors lingering nearby with narrowed interest. And yet it didn’t matter.
“I’ll see her,” she said.
Lady Mohan’s displeasure radiated like heat. “There are gentlemen waiting, my dear.”
“And they may continue to wait,” Samira replied, polite but firm. She turned to Emery. “Shall we take the smaller sitting room?”
Emery nodded once, saying nothing to the other guests. Together, they slipped from the parlor and into the hall. Samira’s footsteps were measured, her heart anything but. The smaller sitting room offered them privacy, and as the door clicked shut behind them, a silence filled the space like a held breath.
Samira broke it first. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I came to apologize,” Emery said, gaze steady but tired. “For the other night.”
Of course, Samira thought bitterly. Of course she would come to set the accounts straight. She could still hear Trinity’s voice in her head: She has the habits of a rake . And it had been true, hadn’t it? Being avoided all night. Being pushed toward one gentleman after another, only to find Emery in the garden, not alone. Samira turned away, fixing her gaze on the flower arrangement atop the tea table. Peonies. Soft, excessive, fragrant. She hated them suddenly.
“Which part?” she asked, not looking back. “The parade of suitors you herded in my direction, or your garden tryst?”
She heard the breath Emery took. Then: “I suppose I deserve that.”
Samira sighed. Her tone softened. “I’m not… I’m not trying to be cruel. If it’s discretion you’re after, you needn’t worry. I just…” Her voice faltered, then steadied. “I’m disappointed. That you thought I’d be scandalized by something like that.”
“I do not think that low of you,” Emery said quickly. “I swear it. I would simply like the chance to explain myself. If you’ll allow it.”
Samira hesitated, then gave a small nod, almost in spite of herself.
“I’ve done this before,” Emery began, her voice lower now. More vulnerable. “I mean– what you saw. When I was seventeen, I was caught with another girl. We were foolish. And not nearly discreet enough.”
Emery paused. Her hands flexed open at her sides.
“My mother found us,” she said. “I was married to a respectable viscount within the week. We left for the countryside soon after.”
The silence that followed was deep and still. Samira turned slowly to face her. Her chest felt tight.
“He was a good man,” Emery continued. “Truly. He protected me. We protected each other, I suppose. But I never chose it. Our marriage was full of friendship. But it always hurts, knowing what it was meant to cover up.”
Samira’s breath caught in her throat. She imagined Emery at seventeen, terrified, exiled from herself, forced into a life that was only meant for appearances.
“I’m sorry,” Samira said, voice quiet. “That you had to go through that. But I’m glad, at least, that he was kind to you.”
Emery nodded once. “I’m sorry, too. Not only for the suitors. I’m sorry you stumbled into my recklessness. That you risked your reputation because of it. I saw what The Post wrote. About you fleeing the hedge maze.”
Samira stiffened. Her mother had stormed into her room the morning after, shoving the paper in her face as if it were a flaming torch. The headline had implied everything and confirmed nothing. Samira had tried to explain herself. A walk , she said, truthfully. An animal startled me , she added, less so.
“If I’m being honest,” she said now, with a dry laugh, “I couldn’t care less about The Post. I didn’t mean to run off so quickly. I suppose I was just… surprised. I thought you saw me as a trusted friend.”
“I do,” Emery said, without hesitation.
That simple certainty made something in Samira ease. There was a warmth in her chest, soft and slow, unwinding from where it had curled up tight.
“I won’t make the mistake of not trusting you again,” Emery added. And Samira believed her.
She smiled, just faintly. “Good. Now let’s see how long we can stall the rest of the suitors.”
***
The days that followed their conversation in the sitting room unfurled like soft ribbon, winding in unexpected directions. Emery kept her word. She no longer sent multitudes of suitors in her direction, no longer hovered on the fringes of ballrooms with a curated list of eligible bachelors pressed to her lips. Instead, when she wasn’t preoccupied with her own sisterly chaperoning, she stood beside Samira. At calling hours, garden strolls, theatre boxes. Her presence was quiet and far gentler than Samira remembered it ever being. They laughed more easily now, in those in-between moments when propriety didn’t hang like a veil over their shoulders. Emery would glance over with a dry remark, and Samira, already smiling, would toss her head back in laughter.
In the weeks that followed, friendships– both new and familiar– began to flourish.
Miss Victoria Javadi sought her out a few days after the Evans ball. She approached Samira during a poetry reading, cheeks a bit flushed.
“I never properly thanked you for what you did at the presentation,” Victoria murmured, taking the seat beside her. “I hadn’t eaten since dawn, and the corset– well, I’m sure you saw.”
Samira smiled, brushing it off, but Victoria pressed a hand over hers. “You acted so quickly. I shudder to think what might’ve happened if you hadn’t been there.”
There was a warmth to her voice that hadn’t been there before, the cool distance of competition replaced by genuine regard. From that afternoon on, Victoria joined their circle more often, her wit sharp but her fondness for Samira unmistakable.
Trinity was less subtle. She remained a loyal constant at Samira’s side, sweeping her into conversation wherever they went, often with an air of mischief. She’d nudge Samira at a dull supper party, whispering scathing observations about the guests’ powdered wigs or mismatched stockings, and Samira would bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Trinity dragged her into parlour games, and on more than one occasion, she talked her into sneaking out onto a moonlit terrace just to breathe and marvel at the stars. There, in the soft glow of candlelight, she spoke freely of how suffocating the season could be for women like them– always observed, always expected. Samira nodded, feeling the weight of understanding settle gently between them.
It was Lord Shen who surprised her most. They had exchanged pleasantries before, brief acknowledgments passed over tea trays and dance cards, but one afternoon, as the rain beat steadily against the glass windows of Samira’s drawing room, he offered her a hand of cards and an invitation to join a game of Whist. Emery raised an amused brow, but said nothing, and soon Samira would be joining John for weekly games along with Mr. Langdon and Lord Diaz. Shen was unrepentantly terrible at bluffing and even worse at losing, but his laughter was infectious, and by the end of the game, Samira had nearly forgotten to hold her tongue in polite company. From then on, John made a habit of striking up conversations with her, often under the guise of needing her opinion on some trivial matter. She saw through it, of course, but she allowed it, and sometimes even looked forward to it.
Now, the bustle of the season was still present, but somehow dulled. Samira moved through the glittering chaos of London with a quiet confidence that felt entirely new. When she and Emery were together, they rarely spoke of matchmaking anymore. They spoke instead of books and weather and the small absurdities of the nobility. Emery asked about Samira’s childhood, and Samira asked about the countryside. They grew used to each other’s rhythms, how Emery would bite her lip before saying something sincere, how Samira would twist her rings when thinking hard. The ache of that night in the garden still lingered at the edges of Samira’s memory, but it no longer stung.
“You play the pianoforte beautifully,” Samira said with a soft smile, flipping absentmindedly through the pages of a dusty novel.
They were tucked into the Walsh family drawing room, sun filtering through the tall windows and casting gentle light over the gleaming pianoforte. Emery had been playing for nearly an hour, her fingers moving with absent ease over the keys.
“I would hope so,” Emery chuckled, not pausing in her playing. “My family hired a tutor the moment I turned seven. It was deemed unseemly for a Walsh daughter to be unable to entertain a room.”
Samira hummed in reply, her gaze drifting from the page to Emery’s profile– elegant as ever, but unguarded in this moment, her hands speaking a language of their own across the keys. “And did you enjoy it? Or was it simply another duty?”
Emery hesitated, her melody softening into something contemplative. “At first, it was tedious. But eventually... the music felt like something that belonged to me. Something I didn’t need to hide.”
Samira closed the novel and set it aside. “It suits you. I'm glad you didn’t keep the music hidden.”
Emery glanced at her, a small, genuine smile tugging at her lips. “Neither am I.”
***
Lady Ashbury’s garden party was, by any reasonable standard, a soul-crushing affair. An expanse of lace-draped tables stretched across the manicured lawn, each one weighed down with delicate teacups, dry cakes, and stifling conversation. Somewhere in the corner, a quartet played a trembling waltz that failed to disguise the sound of endless gossip.
Emery sat beneath the marquee, her fan barely hiding the look of mild despair on her face as Lady Cresswell described, in elaborate detail, the tragic wilting of her latest batch of foxgloves. It was entirely her fault that she was in this situation, because Shen had approached her at the start of the event and attempted to convince her to take part in one of his pranks, but she had outright refused, and wandered off. Now, Emery tolerated the conversation for as long as she had the willpower to, before slipping away and finding John and Samira loitering at another end of the garden party.
“Emery,” Samira smiled as she approached. “Shen brought frogs.”
“I’m aware.” Emery said. “He showed me the bag. I said no.”
“But he said you used to do this sort of thing.”
John leaned in. “There are only two. Tiny things. Hop a bit. Cause a stir. No one’s harmed.”
“You are going to get us in trouble,” Emery hissed.
“Don’t tell me the Emery Walsh who once swapped out Lady Pembrooke’s peacocks for dyed geese is dead and gone?”
Emery gave him a murderous look.
“Come on, Emery,” Samira pleaded, her voice edged with a teasing lilt and a hint of a pout, one Emery lacked the resolve to resist.
She sighed, long and theatrical. “Fine. But if anyone traces this back to me, you’re dead, Shen.”
Samira beamed at her then, radiant and disarming, and Emery forgot, just for a moment, about the scandal this could become. All that mattered was that smile. That damn smile. Even as they crouched behind a hedge near the long tea table, Emery’s pulse danced somewhere between amusement and dread. John knelt beside them, grinning like a fox as he untied the drawstring of the sack. The way it shifted– jerked, really– should have been a warning.
Before Emery could ask any questions, John upended the bag.
And to Emery’s absolute horror, it wasn’t just two frogs. It was at least a dozen . A dozen very lively, very energetic frogs.
Emery froze. “Shen.”
“Yes?”
“You said two.”
“I said a few.”
“You said two!”
“Well, I was rounding.”
“This is not rounding, this is exponential chaos–”
One of the frogs leapt from grass, made a majestic arc over the hedge, and disappeared into the crowd. There was a brief pause. Then a shriek. Another frog hopped after the first. Then another. Then four more.
Emery covered her face. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” Shen said gleefully.
From their vantage point, they watched as Lady Fitzroy toppled backward in her chair, flailing as a frog launched itself across her skirt. Two others were skittering across the tea table, scattering scones and lemon cakes like cannonballs. Another vanished into a bonnet. Chaos. Pure, glorious, shrieking chaos. Samira was doubled over in silent laughter, clinging to John’s arm to stay upright. Emery sat back on the grass in horror and awe.
One frog bounded directly into the quartet’s cello. The musician gave a strangled yelp, and the music collapsed with a discordant twang. Another lady fainted, genuinely fainted, while two more clambered up a table leg to investigate a teapot.
“We’re going to be banned from polite society,” Emery muttered, though she was clearly fighting back a smile.
Samira turned to her, an excited look on her face. “You’re smiling .”
“I’m in shock.”
“You’re having fun.”
More shrieks echoed across the garden as the first frog leapt onto Lady Ashbury’s skirt, followed by another scrambling beneath the tablecloth. A tea cup shattered. Someone screamed.
Somewhere in the chaos, a man yelped, “Good heavens, they’re everywhere!”
Emery ducked lower behind the hedge, biting her knuckle to keep from laughing. Shen, grinning like a madman, was peering through the hedge branches with pure satisfaction on his face.
“Worth it,” he muttered.
“John–” Emery began, but a voice cut her off.
“There! Behind the rhododendrons!”
Samira’s eyes widened. Emery didn’t hesitate. “Run.”
They bolted. Shoes pounding against gravel, skirts hitched just enough for speed but not enough to give them away. Laughter trailed behind them, wild and breathless. Shen darted off in the opposite direction, throwing a wave over his shoulder.
“I’ll meet you later!”
“Coward!” Emery shouted back, but she was laughing.
They ducked through the garden gate and out into the London streets, where the genteel order of the tea party faded into cobblestone and carriage wheels. It had started to drizzle, just lightly, but the air was warm, and the sky above was soft gray, not storm-dark. Samira glanced at Emery and let out a joyful little whoop, lifting her skirts higher as they ran. Emery, caught up in it, caught up in her , reached for her hand without thinking. Fingers met. Samira didn’t pull away.
They rounded a corner, breath mingling, skirts damp at the hem, their clasped hands swinging between them. Behind them, voices rang out, someone from the garden, perhaps one of the more determined guests, shouting, “Stop! You there!”
Emery swore under her breath. “This way.”
She tugged Samira down a narrow side alley, the kind that cut behind old shops and flower stalls, dim and tucked away between brick walls. They pressed into the narrowest part, backs nearly touching the cool stone. Footsteps passed the mouth of the alley. Slow. Then quicker. Then gone. Neither moved. Emery could feel Samira’s breath against her cheek, the nearness of her, the way their hands were still joined. She didn’t even remember grabbing it again.
Samira looked up at her, cheeks flushed, rain catching in the lashes of her eyes. “Do you think we’re safe?”
“I think,” Emery whispered, her voice thick with adrenaline and something else altogether, “we should hide a bit longer. Just in case.”
Samira’s lips curled, but she didn’t press. Didn’t pull away.
After a beat, Emery said, “Come on. I know somewhere.”
They ran through the drizzle again, this time with purpose. Emery led them down familiar back streets, past laundry lines and the occasional open shop window. Their pace slowed as they neared the familiar establishment, and Emery didn’t hesitate as she opened the door.
Inside, it was warm, dry, and faintly smoky, the comforting hum of an early afternoon lull settling over Ellis’ gentleman’s club. A few patrons glanced up as the door banged shut behind them, but no one cared enough to ask questions. Samira leaned against the wood-paneled wall, breathing hard, curls damp from rain and laughter still sparking in her eyes.
Emery smiled. “Welcome to the only place in London where no one will blink if you’ve just fled a minor scandal.”
Samira looked around, eyes bright. “I think I love it already.”
Emery gave Samira's hand a final squeeze before gently letting go, leading her past the main floor and toward the back stairwell. The buzz of the bar faded as they descended into the lower salon. Oil lamps flickered along the wall, casting a golden hue over velvet upholstery, dark wood, and the soft glint of liquor bottles lining the back bar.
The room was nearly empty, save for a figure lounging in an armchair near the fire, one boot propped on a low table, a glass of whiskey balanced on her knee.
“Parker,” Emery called softly.
Parker turned. “Well, well. You’re early for once– and soaked .” She rose smoothly, dressed in a crisp waistcoat and high-collared shirt, and strode toward them with a curious flick of the eyes toward Samira. “This is a surprise.”
Emery chuckled. “Parker Ellis, meet Miss Samira Mohan. Samira, this is Parker. One of my oldest friends.”
Parker extended a hand, eyes gleaming with interest. “Pleasure’s mine.”
Samira shook it, polite but measured. “Likewise.”
“We’re just laying low. There was an… incident at the tea party today,” Emery added, aiming for breezy. Her eyes met Parker’s knowingly.
Parker let out a sharp laugh. “And you were involved? I can’t wait to hear this story.”
Emery flushed. “Peer pressure.”
“She was excellent,” Samira added, her voice light, teasing. “Hardly hesitated once.”
Parker chuckled, looking between them. “So the Diamond of the Season has a sense of humor.”
Samira gave a slight, coy tilt of her head. “Depends on the company.”
That earned a delighted sound from Parker, who gestured for them to sit. Emery took her usual seat across from the fire, and Samira followed. Parker moved behind the bar, already pulling out two glasses.
“I assume you’ll want something to warm you,” she said. “Tea, if you’re feeling saintly. Whiskey, if you’re feeling honest.”
“Tea for me,” Samira said with a smile.
“Honest, then,” Emery muttered, settling back in her seat.
As the cups were passed around and the fire crackled on, the three of them settled into an easy rhythm. Emery watched as Samira relaxed into the space, her gaze drifting around the low-lit room, taking in every detail. Her fingers curled around the teacup as though she'd always belonged here.
Parker leaned against the bar, studying her thoughtfully. “You’ve brought her into the inner circle.”
Emery rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m just saying. You don’t bring just anyone down here.”
Samira glanced at Emery. “Should I be flattered?”
“You should,” Parker said, before Emery could answer.
Samira smiled faintly, gaze flicking back to Emery. “I suppose I am honored.”
Emery didn’t know what to say to that. Something about the moment, warm firelight, damp hair, Samira so very near, made it hard to speak without giving something away. So instead, she just sipped her whiskey and hoped her eyes didn’t say too much. The warmth of the fire had done little to dry their damp clothes, and Emery, noticing the chill lingering in Samira’s shoulders, stood reluctantly from her seat.
“I’ll go find some towels,” she said, brushing her hands along the sides of her skirt.
Samira blinked, as if pulled from a comfortable thought. “You don’t have to–”
“I do,” Emery interrupted, softer than she meant. “You’ll catch a cold.”
Parker gave her a mock salute as she turned toward the back hallway. “Top shelf in the linen cupboard. Try not to get distracted by the brandy while you’re at it.”
Emery shot her a flat look over her shoulder, then disappeared. The walk was short, but her steps were unhurried. She liked the quiet of this part of the bar. The low hum of the city muffled by thick brick walls. In the linen room, she paused for a moment longer than necessary, palms resting against the cabinet door, breathing out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
When she finally returned, two folded towels in hand, the sound of low laughter met her before she even re-entered the salon. It was Samira’s laugh. Unforced, low, and teasing in a way Emery rarely heard outside their more private conversations. Emery slowed as she approached the doorway.
Parker was leaning casually against the back of the couch, close but not indecent, her body angled toward Samira like someone deeply interested in the conversation. Samira, still seated, was looking up at her with a smile tugging at her lips, eyes bright and a little mischievous.
Emery couldn’t hear what they were saying. She didn’t need to.
Parker was saying something clever, no doubt, probably one of her lazy, sharp compliments dressed as a joke. And Samira was smiling. Not just out of politeness, but like she was genuinely enjoying herself. It shouldn’t have made Emery freeze in the doorway, but it did. She stood there for a moment too long, towels still in hand, heart doing something strange and petulant in her chest. Suddenly her palms felt hot against the linen, her mouth dry.
Samira laughed again, ducking her head slightly, and Parker said something else that made her raise her brows in amused disbelief. And still, Emery lingered.
She swallowed and finally stepped forward, her heels clicking against the floor, the sound just sharp enough to draw their attention.
Samira looked up at once. “Oh–”
Parker turned too, with a smirk Emery could feel across the room. “You took your time.”
“Found the brandy after all,” Emery said flatly, handing a towel to Samira without looking at Parker.
“Lucky for me,” Parker said, and slid back toward the bar, their tone light, but her glance too knowing.
Emery ignored it. Samira took the towel with a murmured thanks, and Emery sat beside her, maybe a little closer than was necessary.
“Did I miss anything?” she asked, casual on the surface.
Samira shrugged, tucking the towel over her lap. “Parker and I were just talking. She’s certainly a charmer.”
Emery forced a smile. “Dangerous habit of hers.”
“Don’t worry,” Samira said, eyes flicking toward her, “I can handle myself.”
Emery believed her, but it didn’t stop that small, irrational knot from settling in her chest as the fire crackled on.
“So,” Samira began, her gaze sweeping once more around the low-lit room. “This is the first I’ve heard of this place. I knew of the gentleman’s club, of course, but this?”
Emery let out a soft chuckle. “If it’s mostly unknown, then it’s doing its job right.”
Samira hummed thoughtfully, turning her attention from the room back to Emery. “I meant what I said earlier. I’m glad you trusted me enough to bring me here.”
There was something in her voice, the earnestness, that landed in Emery’s chest with a weight she hadn’t expected. Of course she wanted to say. Of course I trust you.
“There are a lot of memories here,” Emery said instead, her voice softer now. “When I was younger, John, Parker, and I would sneak down here to avoid tea parties or promenade obligations.”
Samira’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “You truly were quite the rebel.”
“I suppose so,” Emery replied, a wry smile curving her lips. “Though somehow, they still managed to get me married off.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The low hum of the salon around them faded into something muted, clinking glasses, the warm buzz of conversation, the occasional trill of laughter from upstairs. But down here, in this tucked-away corner of the city, it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
Samira leaned back slightly on the settee, one hand resting near Emery’s. “I’m glad you weren’t entirely successful in your rebellion,” she said, her tone light but her eyes sharp. “Or we might have never met.”
Emery looked up, surprised by the softness in her voice, and maybe by the truth of the sentiment. “I suppose fate had other plans,” she murmured, voice low.
“Fate,” Samira repeated, a teasing edge to the word. “Or perhaps you were always meant to be caught sneaking out the back door of some social obligation.”
Emery huffed a quiet laugh. “Possibly. Though I like to think I was a bit more cunning than that.”
“Oh, I’m sure you were,” Samira said, eyes dancing. “But you’re not quite as inscrutable as you think, Viscountess.”
Emery arched a brow, intrigued. “No?”
“No,” Samira replied, leaning in just enough for her perfume, something laced with jasmine, to slip between them. It was intoxicating. “You can be terribly easy to read, if one knows what to look for.”
The air shifted. Emery felt it in her chest first, then in her throat. Her heart was suddenly too loud. She forced herself to smirk. “And what is it you think you’ve read?”
Samira tilted her head slightly, smile slow and knowing. “That despite your best efforts to remain composed, you’re still watching me the way you did in the gallery. When you thought I wouldn’t notice.”
Emery’s breath caught. Her carefully maintained mask cracked just slightly, enough for the flicker of longing to surface before she could push it back down.
Samira’s gaze dropped, to her lips, just briefly. “You don’t have to pretend, you know.”
Emery swallowed, pulse thudding in her ears like a drumbeat. Her hand moved, almost without permission, inching closer until her fingertips grazed Samira’s where they rested on the cushion between them. The contact was barely there, soft, electric, but it was enough to send a jolt through her entire body.
Samira didn’t move away. If anything, she turned slightly, just enough for her knees to angle toward Emery’s, for her breath to become the only thing Emery could hear. It would be so easy. To lean in. To close the tiny space between them. To let her hand drift from the cushion to Samira’s wrist, her cheek, her waist. Her eyes flicked down to Samira’s lips, parted just slightly. She could feel the warmth of her now, close enough to imagine the curve of her mouth against her own, to wonder how Samira would taste, how she would respond if Emery–
Emery’s breath caught. She wanted . God, she wanted it so badly that the air between them felt thick with it, the room holding its breath as if it too was suspended in this single, fragile moment.
And yet, the fear came fast and sharp, slicing through her desire like ice. The memory of the last time she followed that impulse was still too close, and despite her every desire, Emery pulled back, just a breath, just enough. Her hand slipped away.
“I should…” she started, voice raspier than she meant it to be. “We should get back upstairs soon.”
Samira blinked slowly, a flicker of disappointment passing across her face. But she nodded, gathering herself with quiet grace. “Of course,” she said.
Emery stood before shame and regret could swallow her whole. She didn’t look at Samira as she crossed the room, each step heavier than the last, heading for the stairwell. She nearly collided with Parker on the landing.
“Leaving already?” Parker asked, her gaze flicking between Emery and Samira, sharp with suspicion and shaded with concern.
“It’s for the best,” Emery said quietly. “Hopefully the chaos has settled by now. Our continued absence may only stir more talk.”
Parker gave a slow nod. “Well, get home safe. It was a pleasure to meet you, Samira.”
Samira offered a faint smile, the brightness from earlier now dulled. “Thank you for the hospitality.”
“You’re very welcome,” Parker said with a small, knowing smile.
Emery managed a grateful glance at Parker before continuing upward, Samira just behind her, both of them stepping back into the light and noise of a world that demanded far more composure than either of them could quite summon.
Chapter Text
Dearest Readers,
We scarcely know where to begin. Firstly, we must extend our deepest sympathies to Lady Ashborne, whose pristine rose garden was recently transformed into something more akin to a marsh. The occasion? Her annual midsummer tea party, known for its lemon cakes, stilted conversation, and, as of this year, a rather unexpected amphibious invasion. Eyewitnesses claim that no fewer than a dozen frogs emerged, quite literally, from the shrubbery, interrupting polite society with croaks and chaos. A maid fainted. A scone was hurled. One gentleman leapt onto a tea table with a shriek most unbecoming.
In other, more somber news, though it carries its own brand of romantic curiosity, Lord Jack Abbott has returned to London at last. The widowed Lord, known for his rugged silences and brooding charm, has spent the last eight years drifting across the countryside. His reappearance at Lady Ferrell’s soiree last week has already stirred murmurs in the drawing rooms. Only time shall tell. And many a debutante mother waits eagerly to find out.
And now, let us turn our gaze forward to what promises to be the crowning jewel of the season: the long-awaited masquerade hosted by none other than the Walsh family. This esteemed House has not hosted a ball in over a decade, so this grand affair is the talk of every parlor and modiste’s shop. Invitations are rare, the guest list is guarded like crown jewels, and whispers abound of unexpected reunions, romantic declarations, and perhaps even scandal behind velvet masks.
London Society Papers, 15 June, 1817
***
As Emery disappeared down the hall in search of towels, Samira found herself alone with Parker in the dim glow of the lower salon. Parker leaned against the back of the chair Samira was sitting in, a lowball glass in hand, studying Samira with a curious sort of ease. She didn’t speak immediately, and Samira didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it felt oddly companionable.
“She’s changed,” Parker said at last, her voice low, more an observation than a question.
Samira glanced up from where she’d been absently tracing the carved armrest of her chair. “Emery?”
Parker nodded. “When I first met her, she’d flirt with half the room and never mean a word of it.”
Samira raised a brow, a quiet smile tugging at her lips. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
Parker gave a soft huff of laughter. “Now she doesn’t look at anyone.” She took a sip from her glass, then added, almost offhandedly, but not quite: “Except you.”
The words lingered in the air. Samira’s heart gave an unexpected, quiet lurch.
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said lightly. “I think she’s still looking at plenty of women.”
Parker didn’t argue. She only shrugged, eyes glinting with something wry and knowing. “Maybe. But I doubt she remembers any of their names.”
Samira let out a soft breath, trying to laugh off the warmth crawling up her neck. “You’re quite observant for someone who claims to mind their own business.”
Parker smirked. “I don’t mind my own business. I mind Emery’s.”
Samira looked at her then, really looked. There was no teasing in Parker’s eyes now.
“She hasn’t looked at anyone like that in a long time,” Parker said. “Like she doesn’t quite know what to do with it.”
Samira’s gaze dropped to the ring she twisted absently on her finger. She didn’t know what to say, not really. Because hearing it out loud, hearing someone else say it, made the slow-building ache inside her impossible to ignore. She had tried so hard to stay grounded, to brush off the little moments, the glances, the lingering silences, the touches that felt important even when they were nothing at all. But now…
“I don’t want to assume anything,” Samira murmured. “She’s been kind, but she’s kind to everyone. And she pulls away just as often as she draws close.”
Parker was quiet for a moment, then leaned forward slightly with a smile. “Emery’s not kind to everyone. She’s polite to everyone. There’s a difference.”
Samira let that settle.
“She’s scared,” Parker added simply. “But she’s looking anyway.”
And Samira didn’t know whether that made her feel hopeful or terrified. Because she was starting to fall. Not in the whimsical way the poets liked to describe, but in a quieter, heavier way, like a leaf pulled steadily downward by gravity, slow and certain. Emery was in her thoughts when she woke, in the spaces between conversations, in the silent moments when Samira let her guard down and dared to imagine something more.
If she misread this, if Emery’s glances were simply habit, or her softness just a remnant of old intimacy shared long ago, if Samira was just a flicker of memory in Emery’s long, complicated past, a momentary comfort rather than a present choice, she didn’t know if her heart could handle it. She had survived longing before, but this felt different. It wasn’t a youthful crush or an infatuation sparked by proximity. It was something more lived-in, more fragile. Something that mattered.
***
The late afternoon sun was kind to the manicured lawns of Kensington Square. Emery stood with her gloved hands folded neatly in front of her, the picture of composed elegance, though she was sure she looked a bit more stiff than usual. Chaperoning was never her strong suit.
Elizabeth walked a few paces ahead, laughing with a small group of debutantes and two exceedingly polite gentlemen. Emery kept a watchful eye, even if her thoughts had begun to drift, not to the young hopefuls or their idle gossip, but to a quiet salon, to fingertips brushing against her own, to lips she hadn’t dared kiss.
"Well, look who’s taken to playing governess," a familiar voice drawled behind her.
Emery turned, already smiling in recognition. “Jack.”
Lord Jack Abbott, tall and lean with a windswept look about him, approached her. The last time Emery had seen him was at her husband’s funeral; the time before that, at his wife’s. It would have been almost comedic, if it weren’t so deeply tragic. He wasn’t quite the dashing, immaculately put-together man she had known in her youth. Now, there was a roughness to him, a bit more scruff at his jaw, a touch more wear in his eyes. And yet, when he reached her, he still managed a smile.
"Didn’t think I’d find you in a place so… proper," he teased.
She offered a dry look. “Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of doing my duty.”
“And doing it well, I’m sure. Your sister looks radiant.”
“She does.” Emery followed Elizabeth’s laughter with her gaze, softening for a moment. “She’s taken to it far better than I ever did.”
They stood in companionable silence for a moment, watching the slow-moving circuit of lace and parasols winding through the gardens. Jack broke it first. “I heard about the frogs.”
Emery pressed a hand to her mouth, but a laugh still escaped. “Of course you did. I’m surprised mine and Shen’s names weren't in the morning papers.”
“Parker sent word. She said you two were the least convincing criminals she’d ever seen.” He looked at her more closely then. “She also said you two weren’t alone.”
The warmth in Emery’s cheeks wasn’t from the sun. “No, we weren't.”
“Miss Samira Mohan. Unexpected Diamond of the Season.” He said the name casually, but his eyes sharpened just slightly.
Emery tried for nonchalance. “What about her?”
“I ran into her earlier today,” Jack said, his tone still conversational. “Quite charming. Quick-witted. She mentioned knowing you.”
“I’m sure she did,” Emery said, voice careful.
Jack gave her a side glance, lips quirking. “She also mentioned you’ve been spending time together.”
Emery looked away, watching her sister pretend not to be entirely charmed by the suitor she was with. She felt it again, that strange, simmering pull low in her chest, like jealousy dressed in the finery of protectiveness. She didn’t like the way Jack said Samira’s name. Didn’t like the speculative gleam in his eyes.
“If you’re thinking of pursuing her,” Emery said, voice sharper than she intended, “don’t.”
Jack blinked, clearly caught off guard. “I wasn’t. But is there something I should know?”
“No.” Emery’s voice was cool, crisp. She forced herself to relax her shoulders. “Only that she’s not for you.”
Jack tilted his head slightly, considering her. “You do realize how that sounded.”
“I’m aware,” she replied, turning back toward the promenade. “And I meant it.”
A pause. Then Jack gave a low whistle, not unkind. “Well. I’ll be damned.”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
He stepped beside her again, tone gentler now. “You know I wouldn’t meddle if it were serious.”
Emery let out a soft chuckle, trying to shake the tightness in her chest. This was Jack, after all, an old friend, not some petty rival. “Of course. Though I do think we’re overdue for a proper catch-up. Ellis’ tonight?”
Jack nodded, a half-smile tugging at his lips. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
***
The lighting was low in the private backroom of the club, warm lamplight glancing off mahogany paneling and tumblers of whiskey. Parker Ellis sat at the head of the table, shirt sleeves rolled up, a deck of cards fanned lazily in one hand. Shen was mid-story, arms animated, laughter bright, while Jack nursed a drink, observing it all with his usual steady calm.
Emery sat between them, quiet. Not her usual kind of quiet, the poised, deliberate silence she’d perfected over years of being watched. No, this quiet was frayed at the edges. Distracted. She hadn’t touched her drink. The condensation beaded down the side of the glass, forgotten, just like the sound of Parker’s voice or Shen’s latest jest. Her hands were folded too tightly in her lap, her posture a little too still, as if she were bracing against something invisible.
She could still feel the shape of that moment at Ellis’, as if it were etched into the backs of her eyelids. The way the low lamplight had softened the sharp lines of Samira’s face, the way her lips had parted just slightly, hopeful, open. All Emery would’ve had to do was lean forward. One breath’s distance. One slip of courage. One impossible, stupid, tender choice. And she hadn’t done it.
Instead, she’d pulled away, her fear a vice around her ribs. She’d told herself she was protecting them both, protecting Samira from scandal, from the weight of Emery’s ruinous past, from the stain that would come from desiring someone like her. But that was only half true. The other half was more selfish, more cowardly. She had been afraid of what it would mean to finally give in to wanting something that wasn’t safe.
Samira hadn’t looked at her the same way since. Not coldly, not cruelly, but with a hesitancy Emery recognized far too well. And maybe that was what she deserved.
Parker flicked a card onto the table. “Your turn, Walsh.”
Emery blinked. “Hm?”
“You’ve been staring at the same corner of the room for the last ten minutes,” Shen said, elbowing her gently. “Unless you’re in love with the wallpaper, I’d say you’ve got something on your mind.”
Emery offered a faint smile, trying for breezy. “Just tired.”
“So,” Shen drawled at last, breaking the lull in conversation, “Does it have anything to do with your friend, Miss Mohan?”
Jack’s brows arched. “Ah, yes. Quite the woman.”
“And smart,” Shen added, grinning into his glass. “Sharp as hell. Beautiful, too, but that’s stating the obvious.”
“She is,” Parker said idly, sipping from her drink. “Also: completely enchanted with you, Emery.”
She froze, and her jaw tightened, breath shallow. “That’s not–”
“Oh, come on,” Shen cut in, eyes dancing. “You brought her to Ellis’. You don’t just bring any girl here.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?” Jack asked, mild but curious.
Emery slammed her glass down on the table a bit too hard. The sharp crack of it startled all three of them.
“Can you all just stop?” Her voice rose, sharper than she intended. Her hands were clenched tightly in her lap, knuckles blanched white. “It’s not a joke.”
The room stilled. A beat of silence stretched between them, heavy and uncomfortable. She hadn’t meant to snap. The words had just torn out of her, too fast to catch. And now they hung there, brittle and loud, the kind that couldn't be taken back. It would only make them more suspicious, more curious. She could already feel the shift in the air, the way their amused glances sharpened into something quieter, more careful. And still, she couldn’t bring herself to look up.
Jack was the first to speak, voice low. “Emery, we tease because we care. We haven’t seen you like this in... a long time.”
Emery didn’t respond at first. She just nodded once, stiffly, and leaned back in her chair again. “Sorry. I suppose I’m not myself this evening.” For a moment, the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the clink of ice in a glass. “Emmett and I are trying to organize this horrid masquerade ball, and God knows we’ve been having trouble deciphering mother’s handwriting for the instructions.”
Then Parker broke the tension with a murmured, “Alright then, no more teasing Emery. She clearly has enough things to worry about. Let us return to safer topics. Such as how Shen lost two hundred pounds to Lady Cranston at cards last week.”
“Or,” Jack cut in smoothly, “we could discuss Parker’s new woman instead.”
Parker rolled her eyes. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not telling you who she is.”
Jack smirked. “Why not? Do we know her?”
“Most certainly not.”
“Don’t tell me she’s a debutante,” Shen offered, barely containing his grin.
Parker scoffed, drawing a reluctant smile from Emery. “Heavens, no.”
Emery studied her friend for a moment, her amusement giving way to curiosity. Parker was never one to avoid questions about her flames. If anything, she seemed to delight in the scandal. She’d never cared about propriety the way Emery had. Unless… she was meddling in propriety in more ways than one.
“Go on then,” Parker said with a sigh, slumping back in her chair with mock defeat. “I can see those cogs turning. Let’s get this over with.”
Emery took a slow sip of her drink, eyes narrowed just slightly. “She’s married, isn’t she.”
When Parker didn’t deny it, Emery merely shook her head, amusement flickering across her face. “I thought you’d sworn off married women. Or have we forgotten the time one of their husbands threatened to kill you?”
“I outranked him,” Parker said breezily. “So it was fine.”
Shen barked a laugh, and a moment later, the whole table was laughing with him. Their laughter lingered, mellowing into fond smiles and quiet sips of drink. For a brief stretch, it felt like years hadn’t passed, like they were still young and untouchable, tucked away in Ellis’ dimly lit club, safe from the watching eyes of the world outside.
Parker tipped her head back against the worn leather chair. “It’s good to have us all in the same room again.”
“Feels almost illegal,” Shen muttered, stretching his legs under the table.
They all clinked their glasses together, the chime echoing softly through the wood-paneled room. Emery smiled, but her gaze drifted for just a second too long into the fire. She didn’t say what was on her mind, not about Samira, not about the ball, not about the way her life felt like it was shifting underfoot. Instead, she drained the last of her drink and leaned back in her chair with practiced ease.
***
The boat rocked gently beneath them as it drifted along the Serpentine. A warm breeze danced across the surface of the water, tugging playfully at sunhats and ribbons. Trinity had taken up the oars with theatrical flair, rowing in uneven spurts that sent the little vessel zigzagging, to the loud protests of Victoria Javadi.
“Honestly, Trinity, it’s a wonder you haven’t steered us into the bank yet.”
“I’m adding drama,” Trinity replied, unapologetic. “We’re on a lake, not a carriage. You’re meant to drift.”
Mel snorted from her spot near the bow, her legs stretched long in front of her, one arm hooked casually over the side of the boat. “It’s Hyde Park. The most dramatic thing that’s ever happened here was someone losing a bonnet.”
Lady Melissa King, now more commonly known as Lady Wynn since her marriage last season, had recently joined their little circle of friends. The acquaintance had begun at a soiree, where Samira quickly found in her a welcome and refreshingly candid perspective on the marriage season. Most of Samira’s current companions were still unwed, so it was helpful to speak with someone who had navigated the process and emerged on the other side.
Mel had always been honest about her courtship experience. By her own account, it had taken four full seasons to find a suitor who was acceptable. Not out of arrogance, she insisted, but simply due to the way things unfolded. And even now, a year into her marriage, whenever Samira or Victoria inquired after Lord Wynn, Mel would merely shrug and say, “He’s adequate.”
It wasn’t the most reassuring account.
“I nearly lost my life to that swan ten minutes ago,” Victoria muttered, dabbing her forehead delicately with a lace handkerchief.
Samira smiled faintly, but her eyes were somewhere else. She sat nestled in the middle of the group, her parasol laid across her lap, fingers idly turning its handle over and over again. The sun was kind on her skin, the laughter around her easy and familiar. But inside her chest, her thoughts swirled like the ripples breaking against the boat.
She still hadn’t caught her breath, not truly. Not since the other night.
That near-moment haunted her like a song she couldn’t stop humming. Her body remembered it before her mind could interrupt: the flutter in her stomach, the heat that rose to her cheeks, the way her fingers had tingled when their hands brushed. How close it had all come to changing.
“Samira,” Mel said, nudging her foot lightly. “Are you alright?”
Samira blinked. “Yes. Sorry. Just... thinking.”
“About anything in particular, or just contemplating the deep mysteries of pond scum?” Trinity grinned.
She laughed, softly. “Somewhere in between.”
The boat rocked again as Trinity adjusted course, this time more smoothly, and the quiet stretch of water ahead opened up into sunlight. The trees lined the shore like sentinels, their branches bowing gently toward the water. A pair of ducks glided past on the left, and the occasional bark of a dog echoed from the walking path beyond. It was a perfect day. A rare kind of calm. And Samira, surrounded by people who cared about her, couldn’t quite shake the hollow ache in her chest.
She didn’t want to name it. So instead, she leaned back on her elbows and let the breeze play in her curls, eyes turned upward toward the cloudless sky. She smiled again, this time more genuine.
“It’s beautiful out here,” she murmured.
Javadi smiled. “It is. And for once, no one’s making us wear gloves.”
Their laughter floated across the lake, light and easy. And Samira let it carry her for a while, even if her thoughts still hovered somewhere just out of reach, caught in the space between almost and not quite.
When she returned to the Mohan estate later that afternoon, she headed straight for the sitting room and settled into her usual spot, opening the novel she had recently begun. Not long after, her mother entered, embroidery hoop in hand, and took a seat across from her. For a while, they sat in rare silence. The only sounds were the steady ticking of the grandfather clock and the occasional rustle of paper as Samira turned the pages resting in her lap. And yet, the quiet was deceptive, Samira could feel it. Her mother was waiting. It lingered in the air like a storm gathering at the edge of a field, patient but inevitable.
“I spoke with Lady Devreux this morning,” her mother said, at last, her voice casual in a way that wasn’t casual at all. “She asked after you. Said her son was disappointed you hadn’t accepted his invitation to the botanical gardens.”
Samira kept her eyes on the page. “I found the last outing with him rather dull.”
“He’s an heir.”
“He’s a bore.”
Her mother hummed. It wasn’t quite agreement, but not quite disapproval either. A pause stretched between them, broken only when she set her embroidery down on the side table and folded her hands neatly in her lap.
“Samira,” she said gently, “we need to talk.”
Samira looked up. That tone, steady, soft, but purposeful, unmoored something in her chest. “I thought we were talking,”
“No,” her mother said, with the faintest smile. “You’re deflecting. And you’ve been doing it all season.”
Samira’s shoulders tensed. “Have I?”
“You have.” Her mother leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees. “You’re not even trying. You’ve been relying on your position as Diamond. You’ve been waiting for them to come to you. And they have. But you don’t want any of them.”
There was silence. Samira held her mother’s gaze, the breath in her chest too shallow.
“Is that such a crime?” she asked, quieter now.
“No,” her mother said. “Not a crime. But it is a risk.”
Samira glanced away. The windows let in soft summer light, and beyond the glass, the garden bloomed riotously, wild and beautiful and a little untamed. She didn’t speak.
“You know I don’t care about the company you choose to keep,” her mother said, more softly now. “I’ve known since Oxford.”
When Samira didn’t speak, she continued, “What I worry about is what happens when the season ends. When the protection of your father’s name fades further into memory. You are not a man. You don’t have the luxury of living quietly on an estate and being called eccentric. You are a woman. And the world will not forgive you for it.”
Samira swallowed. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you’re gambling on being beloved enough to outrun it.” She paused, studying her daughter’s face. “The same way you think your… friendship with the Viscountess Walsh is doing you any favors.”
Samira forced herself to stay composed. “So you’ve noticed.”
“I’d have to be blind not to. The two of you aren’t exactly subtle.”
Her jaw tensed. All day, she hadn’t been able to keep Emery from her thoughts.She’d told herself she was good at hiding her feelings, naively, it seemed. Because if her mother’s words were any indication, she wasn’t nearly as composed as she liked to believe.
Strangely, her mother’s expression softened even further. She stood and crossed the room, resting a hand lightly on Samira’s shoulder. It felt unfamiliar. They hadn’t shared gestures of affection like this since Samira was a child, and she still never quite knew what to do with them. “Contrary to what you may think, I do want you to be happy, Samira,” her mother said quietly. “But if I have to choose between you being happy or you being safe, I will always choose safe.”
Samira closed her eyes. For a moment, she let herself lean into the hand at her shoulder.
Then, a knock. Not loud. Polite. Perfectly timed, as always. Before she could answer, the drawing room door opened and one of the younger footmen stepped just inside, bowing slightly at the waist. He was holding a long, pale blue box, velvet ribbon tied neatly around it.
“A delivery for Miss Mohan,” he said.
Her mother raised a brow. “From whom?”
He shook his head. “No card, my Lady. Only instructions that it be brought to Miss Mohan directly.”
Samira hesitated. Then, curiosity winning out over apprehension, she rose to her feet and crossed the room. The velvet was smooth beneath her fingers as she slid the ribbon loose. Her mother stood just behind her, quiet now, watchful. The box lid lifted with a soft, luxurious sigh. Inside, nestled on a bed of pale tissue and sprigs of lavender, was a mask. Not just any mask– a masterpiece. Midnight blue velvet, stitched with shimmering silver thread that curved like stardust across the cheeks and around the eye cutouts. Tiny crystals caught the light and scattered it like diamonds, and a delicate filigree of lace framed the outer edge, almost like frost on a windowpane.
Her mother leaned in slightly. “That’s no ordinary token.”
“No,” Samira murmured. “It isn’t.”
The footman cleared his throat lightly. “Shall I send a thank-you note to anyone in particular, miss?”
She shook her head, slowly. “No. Not yet.”
He bowed again and departed. The door shut behind him with a soft click. Samira’s fingers hovered just above the mask, not touching, not yet. Her heart was thudding again.
“Well,” her mother said softly, “Perhaps whoever sent this will reveal themselves at the masquerade.”
Samira didn’t answer. Her throat felt tight again, but not from the argument. This was something else. Something slower, sweeter. And infinitely more dangerous. Her mother gave a quiet sigh, not quite exasperated, something closer to resignation. She touched Samira’s elbow gently, then stepped back again.
“I’ll leave you to it.”
And just like that, Samira was alone.
Alone with a gift that had no name, a heart full of questions, and a mask that shimmered like stars in the half-light. She traced a single fingertip along its curve. Whoever had sent it knew her tastes intimately, knew how to catch her breath with beauty alone. The masquerade was days away. But the games, it seemed, had already begun.
***
The drawing room table was strewn with parchment and ribbon, a veritable battlefield of planning. Swatches of fabric clashed with floral samples, half-written invitations, and an inkpot that had already tipped once, thankfully onto Emmett’s sleeve and not the calligraphy.
Emery sat with her arms crossed over her bodice, trying not to explode.
“She wants white lilies, purple delphinium, and twelve-foot candelabras in the front gallery,” Emmett read aloud from their mother’s letter, squinting at the carefully looping script. “And the string quartet must begin with Haydn’s Serenade. She’s underlined it. Twice.”
Emery let out a groan and slumped back into the settee, fingers pressed to her temple. “I told her this was your domain now.”
“And yet, here we are,” Emmett said dryly, folding the letter. “I daresay she’s been preparing this ball since Elizabeth was a child.”
Elizabeth, for her part, was in the corner, happily sorting the last of the invitations, humming to herself, entirely unbothered.
“It’s all too much,” Emery muttered, scanning the chaos before them. “The guest list alone reads like an extended novel. Half these people weren’t even invited last year. Are we supposed to pretend it isn’t suspicious that so many suitors appeared the moment Samira was named Diamond?”
She hadn’t meant to say her name aloud.
Emmett raised a brow, but didn’t comment. “The florists are arriving at five to set up near the gallery. You’ll have to greet them.”
Emery nodded mutely, her gaze fixed on the small vial of sealing wax as if it might offer some kind of answer. But her thoughts were elsewhere, miles and hours away. Earlier that day, she had found herself in one of her family’s more discreet townhouses tucked away in Mayfair, attempting to chase oblivion in the arms of another nameless woman. She’d thought it might help. That it might dull the ache. But it hadn’t.
To her own surprise, and perhaps, more frustratingly, to her own disappointment, she couldn’t go through with it. The woman had been kind, patient, and beautiful in the way Emery once might’ve appreciated. But none of it mattered. Her thoughts refused to stray from Samira. The way she smiled. The way she almost kissed her. The way she had looked at her like she was something worth waiting for.
And all Emery could think, standing there in that dim, silent room, was how desperately she wished she could go back. To the moment in Ellis’ club. To the moment in the museum. To anywhere that she could choose differently. Because this, the running, the avoidance, the fear, was no longer enough to keep her heart in check.
“I forgot to confirm the champagne delivery,” she said suddenly, bolting upright. “I think Mother will haunt us if we serve the wrong one.”
“You’re dodging,” Emmett said.
Emery looked up. “Dodging what?”
“The thing that’s actually making you spiral.”
She hesitated. “Nothing you have to worry about, Brother.” she said. “I’ve just had a long week.”
Emmett softened, coming to stand behind her, resting a steadying hand on her shoulder. He gave her a light squeeze. “If you need to talk. About anything. You know I’m here.”
She nodded, lips pressed together. There was a knock at the front door, followed by voices in the foyer, likely the decorators with the first rounds of centerpieces.
Emery stood. “I’ll see to the candelabras. And don’t forget to double-check the calligraphy.”
Emmett gave her a fond salute. “Yes, Lady Commander.”
As she swept toward the door, Emery paused, just long enough to glance toward the tall windows, where sunlight filtered through linen drapes. She wondered where Samira was at this very moment. And whether she was thinking about her, too.
***
The carriage slowed to a halt before the grand iron gates of the Walsh estate, already aglow with lanterns strung like stardust across the hedgerows. Music filtered faintly through the trees, strains of strings and laughter, and the scent of summer roses lingered in the breeze.
Samira stepped down with practiced grace, her gloved hand resting lightly on the footman’s arm. The gravel crunched beneath her satin shoes as she looked up. The manor had been transformed.
Wreaths of midnight blue silk and silver tulle framed the tall windows, casting an ethereal shimmer across the facade. Dozens of candles flickered from chandeliers suspended in the entryway, their light catching on crystal and gilded mirrors. The crowd beyond the threshold shimmered in velvets, brocades, and satins, each guest cloaked in mystery and adorned in masks that glittered like secrets.
Samira exhaled, rolled her shoulders back, and ascended the stairs. Inside, the ballroom was a cathedral of candlelight. Golden stars had been suspended from the ceiling in staggered heights, like a constellation frozen mid-fall. The soft rustle of gowns mingled with the scent of champagne, gardenia, and beeswax. Every so often, a mask turned toward her, curiosity gleaming behind painted eyes. She met them all with a steady gaze. She was no stranger to attention, but tonight, she wasn’t just the diamond. She was a question waiting to be answered.
A waltz had begun by the time Samira descended the last step into the ballroom. The violins swelled, their rhythm a heartbeat all its own, and couples moved like water across the polished marble floor.
She barely made it five paces before a tall man in a forest-green mask approached with a bow. “May I have the honor?”
His accent was clipped, practiced. His hand extended politely, gloved in white. Samira offered a smile and placed her hand in his. “Of course.”
He was a good dancer, careful with his steps, respectful in his hold. They circled the room in time with the music, his small talk gentle and forgettable– the decor, vague compliments. She answered graciously, but her mind was elsewhere. Another gentleman came forward after the waltz ended, this one wearing a navy mask studded with pearls along the bridge of the nose. He did not ask her name, none of them did, and that was the thrill of it, wasn’t it? That veil of anonymity, the sense that anything could be whispered into the night and vanish with the dawn.
“You move as if you’ve danced in dreamscapes before,” he murmured as they spun.
Samira raised an eyebrow behind her mask. “And you speak like you’ve read too many poems.”
He grinned, charmed rather than chastened. The night blurred into color and candlelight, one suitor after another, bows and curtsies, phrases murmured at the edge of propriety. Some were bold. Others tried and failed at mystery. A few clearly knew who she was and hoped to impress.
But none of them made her pulse skip. None of them looked at her the way–
Samira drew in a breath and politely excused herself from her latest partner. She drifted to the edge of the room, the music swirling around her like smoke. A tray of champagne passed, and she took a glass more for something to do with her hands than anything else.
The music shifted: playful, lilting, with a mischievous lilt in its phrasing. The kind designed to confuse and delight, where dancers wove through one another and partners were swapped with a flourish. A favorite at masquerades, meant to test one's memory and grace. Samira found herself drawn back to the floor. She hadn’t meant to dance again, but her feet carried her, her champagne flute abandoned on a nearby tray. She joined a forming square of dancers, catching the nod of a masked man to her left and the curtsy of a lady to her right.
The music began.
They bowed, turned, and stepped in sync. Samira spun into the arms of her first partner, an older gentleman with a playful tilt to his head. She offered polite banter, managing a smile. Then the melody shifted. A clap. Switch.
She spun again, this time into the hands of a new figure. And her breath caught.
The hold was steady, light but certain, familiar in the way it knew exactly how to guide her. Gloved fingers curled around her waist and hand like they belonged there. The masked suitor wore a tailored black coat with deep blue accents, the cut sharp, severe. Instinct alone drew her gaze to her partner’s mask.
And she froze.
Midnight blue. Not just similar to hers, but paired with it. The same velvet base, but with inverted accents: soft silver lace woven across the top half, curling like frost along the brow. Stars stitched from obsidian thread winked in the candlelight. The symmetry was impossible to mistake. Her mask had been custom. A one-of-a-kind design. But what caught her, even more so than the mask, was the eyes. Slate-gray beneath dark lashes. Watching her too closely. Too gently. Samira’s heartbeat tripped.
The steps continued around them, other pairs laughed or stumbled, the orchestra bowing onward, but Samira couldn’t hear anything over the pounding in her ears.
“You’ve improved your footwork,” the suitor said softly, voice lower than usual, disguised, but not quite well enough.
Samira’s mouth parted. Her next step faltered. “You’re not even trying to hide it.”
A smile twitched at the corners of that familiar mouth. “I rather thought you might recognize me.”
Samira exhaled, slow and sharp, her hand tightening slightly in hers. “I could recognize your touch blindfolded.”
The suitor’s grip didn’t falter, but the breath she took in next was unsteady. For a few turns, neither of them spoke. Samira watched the candlelight glint off her mask, and fought the urge to reach up and remove it. To pull the truth into the light.
“It was you who sent the mask.” she murmured, her lips barely moving.
“Suitors are meant to send gifts.” Emery responded.
The final sweep of the dance sent them into a slow turn, the orchestra softening the tempo, drawing the partners close for the closing steps. Samira’s breath ghosted against Emery’s cheek. The orchestra, for once, let the music linger, stretching the moment, holding it like breath. Samira blinked. Emery still held her hand.
Samira raised a brow beneath her mask. “We’re meant to switch again.”
Emery tilted her head slightly, amusement glinting behind her mask. “Are we?”
“That’s how the dance works,” Samira said, stepping back half a pace, but Emery didn’t let go.
Emery’s voice was lower now, velvet over steel. “Tonight, let’s pretend it doesn’t.”
Samira’s breath caught again, not from shock this time, but from the deliberate tilt of those words, the boldness. She recovered quickly. “And what are we pretending instead?”
“That I’m just another suitor,” Emery said. “Another masked admirer here to charm you and steal a dance or two.”
Samira’s lips curved. “You think you could charm me?”
“I’d like to try.” Emery stepped in, guiding her easily into the rhythm again. “I heard the Diamond of the season is particularly fond of clever conversation and brooding glances from across ballrooms.”
Samira huffed a laugh. “You forgot dramatic tension. And long, simmering stares.”
“I believe I’ve mastered those,” Emery said, deadpan. “I’ve been rehearsing for years.”
Samira leaned in slightly, teasing, “And what else have you rehearsed?”
A beat. Emery’s eyes gleamed behind the mask. “Compliments I should not say aloud.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Because you are unmarried,” Emery said, tone mock-solemn. “It’s rude to say scandalous things to unmarried women.”
Samira laughed, genuinely now, and Emery’s answering smile was startled and radiant.
“You’re terrible at being just another suitor,” Samira murmured.
“Am I?” Emery asked, stepping close again for the turn. “You’ve yet to flee the floor.”
“That’s only because I’m curious what else you’ll say.”
Emery’s lips parted, then paused, clearly weighing something. Then, softly, “You look beautiful tonight.”
Samira froze for the smallest breath. Not because of the words themselves, she’d heard them before, but because of the way Emery said them. She met Emery’s eyes across the narrow space between them. “That one wasn’t even clever.”
“I didn’t think it needed to be.”
Silence again, but warm now, comfortable, humming with energy. Samira arched a brow. “What if I prefer suitors with sharper tongues?”
Emery smiled slowly, eyes raking over her like a man might a flame. “Then I’ll have to do better.”
Another beat. The music began to slow.
“Shall I ask for your next dance?” Emery murmured, voice velvet again.
Samira tilted her head, feigning aloofness. “You’ll have to find me first. That’s how masquerades work.”
She had just turned, skirts brushing against Emery’s legs like a whisper, when fingers gently caught her wrist, a bit possessive. Samira stilled. The music was still playing, the ballroom full of light and whirling dancers and glittering masks. Laughter floated in the air. No one was looking at them.
Still, Emery leaned in close, her voice low and warm at Samira’s ear. “I’d rather not waste time searching,” she murmured.
And then, without warning, Emery turned and guided her, fingers still curled around Samira’s wrist, through a narrow hall just off the ballroom floor. Samira followed, heart thudding as they ducked behind a velvet curtain and through a small door she hadn’t noticed before. It creaked open onto a quiet corridor dimly lit by a few flickering sconces. Emery walked ahead, never rushing, but clearly knowing the way. Her touch remained light, but present. Steady. Samira didn’t ask where they were going. She didn’t need to.
They reached the end of the hallway, where another door, this one unassuming and wooden, led outside. Emery pushed it open, revealing a sloping stone path that led down into the back gardens of the Walsh estate. The sounds of the party vanished almost instantly. A gentle breeze moved through the hedges. The moon cast silver light across the trimmed grass and the gravel path beneath their feet. A marble fountain trickled somewhere nearby. When they reached the bottom of the steps, Emery finally stopped, releasing Samira’s wrist.
“I used to come out here when I needed quiet,” she said, her voice gentler now, brushing the edges of vulnerability. “Hardly anyone remembers the door exists.”
Samira looked around. “It’s beautiful.”
“So are you,” Emery said, simply.
Samira turned to her, eyes narrowing beneath her mask. “That’s the second time tonight.”
“I stand by both.”
They were standing close again, closer than before, and this time there was no orchestra or chaperone, no swirling crowd of masked dancers between them. Just the garden. The moon. The sound of Emery’s breath. And everything they weren’t saying yet.
Samira’s pulse thundered in her ears. She looked down at the hand Emery had used to guide her. Still warm from contact. Then back at the woman before her, this suitor in a mask, more familiar than anyone else in the world. Slowly, she smiled. “You’ve grown quite bold this evening.”
Emery’s return smile was softer. “I think the mask helps.”
Samira stepped closer, skirts brushing together again. “Pity you can’t wear them forever, then.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The quiet night pressed in around them, the music from the ballroom muffled behind stone walls and silk curtains. Emery’s hand was still wrapped around Samira’s wrist, but her fingers loosened, not letting go, just holding, tethering them in place.
Samira’s voice was low. Breathless. “Why did you bring me out here? I thought after what happened at Ellis’...”
Emery swallowed, her jaw tight. “I made a mistake that night. I should’ve–” She stopped herself. Bit down the rest.
But Samira stepped closer. “Should’ve what?”
Emery’s breath hitched. Her mask caught the light just enough for Samira to see the strain behind it. The tension in her shoulders. The way her fingers twitched slightly where they touched Samira’s skin.
“I should’ve done this,” Emery said hoarsely.
And then she kissed her. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t even close to being composed. It was weeks of longing, all detonating at once. Emery surged forward, one hand slipping to the back of Samira’s neck to pull her in hard, mouths crashing together like they were trying to erase all the space they'd ever kept between them. Samira gasped into it, her hands flying to Emery’s waist, gripping the fabric of her coat tight.
She opened to Emery like a match to flame. Their teeth knocked slightly. Their noses bumped. It was messy, desperate, utterly consuming. Samira could feel Emery’s heartbeat against her chest, wild, erratic, and hers was no better. Emery kissed her like she was drowning and Samira was the only thing that had ever kept her afloat.
Samira’s back hit the ivy-covered stone of the garden wall, and Emery didn’t even seem to notice she’d pushed her there. Her hand cupped Samira’s jaw, thumb stroking beneath her mask, as if memorizing every piece of skin she could reach. Samira kissed her back with just as much ferocity, curling one leg slightly to press them closer, like even this wasn’t enough.
The world fell away. There was only this. Only the taste of Emery’s mouth and the heat of her touch and the soft, broken sound she made when Samira scraped her nails lightly up the back of her neck. When they finally broke apart, panting, flushed, eyes wide, it was like they’d been torn out of some fevered dream. Samira’s lips were swollen. Her mask was slightly askew.
Emery didn’t pull away for long. Her breath was hot against Samira’s lips, but then her hands slid down to Samira’s waist, gripped tighter, and that restraint snapped like brittle glass. The second kiss was rougher. Deeper. Emery pressed her body flush against Samira’s, crowding her back against the stone wall until the cold bit into her through silk and satin. But Samira barely felt it. Not with Emery’s mouth devouring hers, not with the way her thigh slotted between Samira’s legs with zero hesitation, like she knew exactly what she was doing, and she did. God , she did.
Samira gasped into the kiss, her fingers curling tightly in the lapels of Emery’s coat, her knees just about buckling. Emery’s lips dragged along her jaw, her neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin just beneath her ear, and Samira made a noise she’d never made in her life. Her thoughts spun, hot and fast. And the worst part, the maddening part, was that Samira had imagined this. Ever since the night she caught sight of Emery in that shadowed garden, hands on a girl with her skirts hitched up and her head tipped back in pleasure. And then she’d gone home and thought of Emery’s mouth for weeks.
And now it was real. Emery’s mouth was on her, hands confident and possessive, as if this wasn’t the first time but the thousandth. She rocked against Samira once, slow and sure, and it stole the breath right out of her lungs. She gasped softly, fingers tangling again in Emery’s coat, half-mad with the sensation of being wanted so thoroughly. And she was ready. She wanted to be taken apart, right here against the garden wall. But then–
She opened her eyes and saw the edge of Emery’s mask. This wasn’t just any masked stranger. This wasn’t some fantasy they could both hide behind. Samira stilled.
“Wait,” she whispered, voice quiet but firm.
Emery froze, her breath hot against Samira’s neck.
Samira reached up slowly, gently, her hand brushing along the line of Emery’s jaw as she found the edge of the mask. Her fingers curled there, meaning to lift it away, to reveal her face. Her real face.
“You’re not just another suitor,” she murmured, barely a breath. “I don’t want to pretend anymore.”
And maybe that was the spell-breaker, because Emery recoiled– not abruptly, but like someone startled out of a dream. She took a step back, her hands falling away from Samira’s waist, her expression suddenly unreadable beneath the mask. Her chest heaved, but her gaze was shuttered, veiled in panic.
“Emery–” Samira began.
But just then, the faint crunch of footsteps echoed down one of the gravel paths followed by a soft ripple of laughter. Too close. Emery’s head snapped toward the sound, then back to Samira. Something raw passed between them. Fear. Longing. Regret. Without a word, Emery grabbed her hand.
Samira let herself be led, heart pounding, skirts rustling against her legs as they ducked beneath low-hanging branches and darted along the garden’s edge. She didn’t know where they were going, didn’t care, not at first, because Emery’s hand was warm and sure in hers, and for a fleeting second, she let herself believe that maybe this was it. That Emery had chosen her. That this wasn’t just another half-measure or whispered promise in the dark.
But then the glowing entrance to the Walsh estate came into view, lanterns flickering in the soft mist of the evening.
Samira slowed. “You’re taking me back inside?”
Emery stopped just short of the threshold, her fingers still curled around Samira’s. “We were almost seen,” she said, breathless. “I just– I needed to get us away. I needed to make sure–”
“That we weren’t caught,” Samira finished flatly.
Emery faltered. “Yes.”
A silence stretched between them, taut and fragile. Samira looked at their joined hands, then slowly pulled hers free. “I thought you were taking me somewhere private,” she said quietly. “I thought you finally–”
“I’m trying to protect you,” Emery said, her voice barely above a whisper. “You know what would happen if someone saw–”
“Yes,” Samira said, her voice sharp now, brittle with disappointment. “I knew exactly what would happen, Emery. But for once–” her breath caught, just slightly, “I thought maybe you didn’t care.”
She turned then, steps light but quick, and walked back inside the ballroom without another word.
Emery didn’t follow.
Chapter 5
Notes:
uhhh check new tags ig??? samira gets her well deserved crashout this chapter after being left high and dry by emery
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dearest Readers,
What a spectacle the long-awaited Walsh Masquerade was! The grand halls of the Walsh estate glittered with candlelight and shimmered with silks, velvets, and masks so elaborate they might have been plucked from a Venetian fantasy. The dancing was lively, the champagne flowing, and the costumes? Simply divine. The Walsh family spared no expense in creating an evening that will be the talk of the ton for weeks to come.
Particularly of note was the dizzying succession of partner-swapping in the late dances, which allowed even the shyest guests to cross paths with half the room. Many a young lady (and gentleman) found themselves momentarily swept into the arms of a mysterious stranger, some lingering in conversation far longer than propriety would suggest. It seems masks, indeed, embolden the heart.
Yet, while the masquerade may have been the crown jewel of this season’s events, the hourglass is swiftly running dry. With only weeks left before the season draws to its inevitable close, debutantes are racing from soiree to supper, tea to ball, in hopes of securing the ever-elusive perfect match . Rumor has it the guest lists are shrinking to only the most exclusive of circles, and those who have not yet captured a suitor’s interest may soon find themselves with empty dance cards.
Speaking of interest, one cannot help but notice the recent attention of Lord Jack Abbott toward this year’s Diamond of the Season, Miss Samira Mohan. Though Abbott is no stranger to society, having returned to London after several years abroad, his widower’s reserve has kept him largely removed from the flirtations of the ton. That is, until now. Observers have noted more than one instance of his seeking Miss Mohan’s company at recent gatherings, a timing which, coincidentally, or perhaps not, has aligned with the visible distancing of Viscountess Emery Walsh from the Diamond. Whether this is merely the shifting of social tides, whispers abound that Lord Abbott’s interest may be more than fleeting. Will this promising acquaintance blossom before the season’s end? Only time, and perhaps another well-timed social event, will tell.
London Society Papers, 23 June, 1817
***
Aldridge London Townhouse, 3 June, 1807
The fire had burned low. Emery sat in a stiff-backed chair, hands folded in her lap. She was dressed plainly in soft gray fabrics, the collar high, her hair pinned with surgical precision. It was the sort of modest attire her mother forced her to wear when trying to avoid notice.
The door opened with a quiet creak, and Viscount Aldridge stepped inside. He looked much the same as she remembered—tall, slender, with watery blue eyes and a constant air of nervous politeness. His coat was a bit too tight in the shoulders, as if he’d recently grown into it, and his boots squeaked when he moved.
“Miss Walsh,” he said with a bow.
“Viscount Aldridge,” she returned, rising. “Thank you for coming.”
“Please, call me Nicholas.” He took the seat opposite hers, perching at the edge like he wasn’t sure he was meant to stay. “I was… I was sorry to hear of the circumstances.”
Emery tilted her head. “The ones that required you to make this proposal or the ones that got me caught in the first place?”
To his credit, Nicholas flushed. “Both,” he said softly.
That earned him a ghost of a smile.
He laced his fingers tightly in his lap, glancing down. “Lord Abbott is like an older brother to me, and he said you might prefer honesty. So. I will be honest. This arrangement, if you choose to accept, would benefit me as well.”
“You’re not under any illusion of affection, then,” Emery said dryly.
“No,” Nicholas replied, meeting her eyes. “But I believe we might... care for each other. In time. Or at least be kind. Which is more than many marriages can claim.”
She studied him. He looked tired too. Tired in a way she recognized, of hiding, of silence, of the weight of secrets on a spine too young to hold them.
“You understand that I’ll never be able to give you what a traditional wife would,” she said carefully.
“And you understand that I’ll never ask it of you,” he answered just as firmly.
A pause.
“I have a small estate in the countryside," he said after a moment. “Secluded. Quiet. You could come and go as you please. My staff knows better than to ask questions, and I rarely entertain. There’s a conservatory if you like music. And a rather decent cook.”
“You’re… trying to convince me?”
“I’m trying to make this seem less like a prison sentence.”
Emery looked away, then back. “Do you play the pianoforte?”
“No. But I’d listen.”
A long silence settled between them. Finally, Emery said, “If we do this… I’d like there to be understanding. Of all things, I’d like that the most.”
He nodded. “You’ll have it.”
Another pause.
“Jack told me you’re fond of horses,” she said, quietly.
“Back in the countryside, I have a lovely horse named Lysander,” he chuckled. “I could teach you how to ride, if you’d like.”
“I barely know how to mount a horse.”
Nicholas gave a slow smile. “Then I suppose we can start there.”
***
London 1817
Emery had long since perfected the art of looking like she belonged in these kinds of gatherings while caring very little for their actual purpose. The garden at Lord Haverton’s estate was awash in pastel silks and shaded parasols, the clipped hedges framing the polite meandering of conversation. The air smelled faintly of roses and too-sweet pastries.
Elizabeth was a few paces ahead, animatedly chatting with a pair of young men who clearly thought themselves charming enough to hold her sister’s attention. Emery kept one eye on her while standing beside Parker Ellis, who with her dark coat, sharp jaw, and general air of disinterest, looked like she’d been dropped into the wrong painting.
“I can’t believe you let me get talked into this,” Parker muttered under her breath, arms folded.
“I didn’t let you do anything,” Emery replied smoothly, her gaze following Elizabeth for a moment before drifting over the crowd. “You came of your own free will.”
Parker snorted. “Free will is a loose term when you’re up against your stubbornness.”
Emery almost smiled—almost, but her focus had already snagged elsewhere. Across the lawn, just beyond a fountain glinting in the midday sun, Samira strolled at an unhurried pace with Lady Mel Wynn and Miss Trinity Santos. The three of them were laughing at something Trinity had said, their heads tilted together conspiratorially.
Samira’s gown was a pale, soft green today, the kind that caught the light in a way that made her seem luminous. A matching ribbon threaded through her dark hair. Her posture was relaxed, her expression open in a way Emery hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since the masquerade.
She had not spoken to Samira since that night. Not a word. Not even a glance returned directly. It was safer that way, she told herself. Whatever had taken hold of her in the gardens, the urgency, the heat, the way weeks of restraint had combusted in a single kiss. It had been reckless, and Emery Walsh did not make a habit of being reckless. Not anymore.
And yet, here she was, tracking every step Samira took across a crowded lawn.
“You’re staring,” Parker said quietly beside her, not even bothering to hide the smirk in her voice.
“I’m looking ,” Emery corrected, her tone cool but not convincing enough.
Parker followed her gaze, then hummed. “Pretty group.”
Emery shot her a sidelong look. “I’m here to watch Elizabeth.”
“And I’m here for the free pastries,” Parker said, clearly amused. “Neither of us are fooling anyone.”
Emery didn’t rise to the bait. She forced herself to look away, scanning for her sister instead, but Samira’s laughter still rang faintly across the distance, threading itself into her chest. She told herself she wouldn’t approach. Couldn’t. The memory of Samira’s disappointed eyes when Emery had pulled away in the garden still burned, and she wasn’t ready to see whether that disappointment had hardened into something worse. But her gaze found her again all the same, a habit she wasn’t sure she would ever break.
Parker was halfway through remarking on the absurdity of the floral arrangements when a movement at the edge of the crowd caught Emery’s attention.
Lady Mel had just bent to examine a tray of petit fours when a slim bejeweled bracelet slipped from her wrist and tumbled soundlessly onto the grass. Before Mel could even notice, Parker stepped forward. Emery hadn’t realized her friend had been standing so near until she was stooping to retrieve the fallen jewelry.
“Yours, I believe,” Parker said, offering it up.
Mel turned, startled at first, then smiling. She reached to take it, but in the small exchange, her fingers brushed against Parker’s, light, quick, but lingering just a fraction longer than politeness required. And Parker…
Parker looked at her in a way Emery recognized. A look that was half amusement, half appraisal. The kind of look she’d used to give in smoky corners of her club, when she’d decided someone was worth the trouble. Mel seemed to notice too, her lips curved in something like a thank-you, but her eyes held Parker’s just long enough for Emery to clock it as deliberate.
Parker, for her part, only inclined her head slightly and stepped back, expression returning to its usual lazy neutrality as though nothing at all had transpired. But Emery knew better. She’d known Parker long enough to recognize when her attention had been caught. Emery’s brows knit slightly as she watched Mel rejoin Samira and Trinity, her hand idly brushing over the bracelet now secure at her wrist. Across the lawn, Parker was pretending to be invested in the cake selection, but Emery saw the faintest trace of a smile still lingering.
Parker drifted back toward her a moment later, hands in her pockets like she hadn’t just made eyes at Lady Wynn across the lawn. Emery kept her gaze fixed on the promenade path where Elizabeth was making a slow circle, but she tilted her head just enough to catch Parker in her periphery. “So,” she murmured, tone deliberately casual, “ that’s the married woman.”
Parker didn’t flinch, which was exactly how Emery knew she’d guessed right. Instead, she let out a quiet huff that might have been amusement, eyes scanning the crowd like she was checking for eavesdroppers. “You’re losing your touch, Walsh. Took you long enough to put it together.”
Emery gave her a pointed look. “It wasn’t exactly subtle, the way you were staring at her.”
“That wasn’t staring. That was… retrieving someone’s property.”
“And brushing her hand like you were in some romance novel?”
Parker smirked, clearly enjoying herself. “Maybe I just have good manners.”
“Mm,” Emery said, noncommittal, though her mind was already running the numbers. She’d known for weeks that Parker was entangled with someone’s wife—and Parker, in her usual infuriating way, had refused to tell her who. Now the pieces fit too neatly.
Her eyes flicked back toward Mel. There was a strange tightening in Emery’s chest she didn’t care to examine. “You’re playing a dangerous game,” she said quietly.
Parker only shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
For some reason, Emery found herself uneasy. Parker could play this game, the lingering looks, the brushed fingers, the whispered rendezvous, because she didn’t care about consequences the way Emery did. Parker liked the thrill. She chased it. She’d take the risk, weather the fallout, and laugh about it years later over brandy. Emery, on the other hand, had already lived through ruin once. She still felt the echo of it sometimes, sharp as the day it happened: the look on her mother’s face when she’d been caught, the swift marriage that followed, the years spent shaping herself into something quieter, safer.
And yet her eyes betrayed her, finding Samira again across the lawn. Just the sight of her made Emery’s pulse trip over itself. Parker’s recklessness was dangerous, yes, but it was also freeing. Emery envied that.
Because Emery knew, as surely as she knew her own name, that she was losing this battle with herself. She told herself to look away, to busy herself with something, anything, other than watching Samira like a lovesick fool. But then Samira glanced over. It wasn’t one of those casual sweeps of the eye, the sort that could be dismissed as chance. No, her gaze caught on Emery and lingered, steady, unblinking. The chatter of the crowd dulled, the brightness of the day dimmed, and for a moment it was just the two of them in that invisible thread of connection.
There was no smile, no polite nod. But Emery felt it—that dangerous pull. The same pull she had felt in the garden, at Ellis’ club. Her heart climbed into her throat, reckless words sitting on her tongue. She imagined crossing the lawn, imagined taking Samira’s hand in full view of everyone, imagined not caring for once about who saw or what they thought.
But Samira looked away first. The thread snapped.
Emery was left standing in the middle of the manicured gardens, hands clasped neatly before her as if she hadn’t just been teetering on the edge of a precipice. She exhaled slowly, forcing her features into something neutral, something safe. But the truth pressed against her ribs with brutal insistence: she could only resist this for so long.
***
The afternoon of a long awaited hunting party was grey and cool, the kind of weather that seemed to sharpen every sound and scent. Emery had come at Emmett’s insistence. Her brother had been invited by one of the landowners hosting the event, and as always, he preferred not to attend such outings without at least one of his sisters present. The gathering itself was a modest one, with only a handful of other ladies accompanying the gentlemen, most of them married women keen on the fresh air and polite conversation, along with a few older debutantes whose families hoped they might yet make a match. Among them, of course, was Samira, her dark hair perfectly arranged despite the breeze, her presence as poised and radiant as if she’d stepped out of a piece of artwork.
Emery stood beside Lysander, a tall dapple-grey gelding shifting his weight with a quiet snort. She laid a gloved hand on his neck, fingers brushing the coarse silver mane. Nicholas’s horse—hers now, but she still thought of him as his. He had been Nicholas’s favorite, a steady creature who never shied at gunfire or sudden movement. Riding him always felt like a quiet tether to something she had lost, but not entirely left behind.
Samira stood a few paces away beside a chestnut mare, the animal tossing its head and shifting as if impatient to be moving. Her gloved hands smoothed over the reins in an attempt at calming it, though Emery could see from the taut line of her shoulders that she wasn’t entirely confident with the creature’s restless energy.
Without thinking, Emery crossed the short distance. “May I?” she asked, her voice pitched low enough that only Samira could hear.
Samira looked over her shoulder, surprise flickering into something softer. “If you insist.”
Emery stepped closer, one hand taking the reins, the other hovering near Samira’s elbow. “Foot in the stirrup,” she murmured. “When I say, push up. I’ll steady you.”
Samira obeyed, her boot sliding into place. Emery’s hand closed around her waist, firm but careful, feeling the give of the riding habit beneath her gloves and the faint, warm press of the body beneath. “Now,” Emery said.
WIth Emery’s help, she swung up in a single, graceful arc, landing lightly in the saddle. For a heartbeat too long, Emery’s hand remained at her waist, her gaze lifting to meet Samira’s from below. The sunlight caught in the curve of Samira’s cheek, in the shine of her eyes, and Emery’s chest tightened with something uncomfortably close to longing, and perhaps something more.
“Thank you,” Samira said, the words quiet, but there was something else in them, a slight hitch, a flicker of awareness.
Emery let go, the absence of Samira’s touch striking harder than she expected. Her hand hovered for the briefest moment before her fingers curled in, slow and deliberate, as if she could trap the fading warmth in her palm. “You’re welcome,” she said, her voice quieter now, turning sharply before she could be tempted to linger.
As she approached Lysander once more, a voice rang out behind her. “Allow me.”
Lord Gainsworth, a younger man with the easy eagerness of someone still keen to impress, stepped forward. He moved to stand beside her mount, one hand already reaching toward the stirrup, his stance almost identical to the way Emery herself had stood moments earlier when helping Samira.
“That won’t be necessary,” Emery said lightly, though her smile did not quite reach her eyes. Before he could protest, she placed her boot in the stirrup and swung herself up into the saddle in one smooth, practised motion. Lysander’s ears flicked back briefly at the shift in weight, then forward again, ever attentive.
“Ah,” Gainsworth said after a beat, withdrawing his hand. “Quite accomplished, I see.”
“So I’ve been told,” she replied, gathering the reins and nudging Lysander forward toward the line of riders.
She spent most of the trail riding alongside Emmett, then drifted to Jack’s side for a stretch. Her gaze flicked to him, then ahead to where Samira rode a few yards forward. After a moment’s thought, she knew exactly what she needed to do.
Jack Abbott was, despite his occasional reputation, one of the few men she trusted implicitly. He was kind, loyal, intelligent, and, perhaps most importantly, not the sort to treat a wife as an ornament or a possession. If Samira must marry, and Emery knew she must, then why not someone like Jack?
It was, Emery reminded herself, the very reason she had drawn close to Samira in the first place. From the moment they had struck up their unlikely friendship, Emery had intended to act as a guide, a matchmaker even, to help the Diamond of the Season find a husband worthy of her. But somewhere along the way, that purpose had blurred. Instead of arranging meetings or making introductions, she had kept Samira too near, hoarding her time like a miser counting coins. The more they spoke, the more she found excuses to keep her away from others, to keep her laughter, her wit, her warmth all to herself.
That wasn’t care. It was selfishness . And selfishness would do nothing to protect Samira from the unkindness of the world.
Jack would be gentle with her. He’d understand her quick mind and sharp tongue; he wouldn’t stifle her, wouldn’t crush her into the small, silent shape so many husbands demanded. Emery could already imagine the two of them together: Samira walking easily at Jack’s side, admired and secure, her future well-guarded.
This was what she should have been doing all along. It was better to suffer now, in quiet, than to wake one day and find Samira trapped in a life that would dim her light. If it broke Emery’s heart to hand her over to another… well, that was her cross to bear.
***
The hunting party was a glittering parade of earth tones and polished boots winding its way through the forest, the bright chatter of voices rising and falling like birdsong. Samira rode near the middle of the group, her mare stepping carefully over the litter of crisp leaves. The air was damp with the faint promise of rain, that cool, almost metallic scent of late summer settling in her lungs.
It was, on the surface, a charming outing, but Samira couldn’t help the frustration that still managed to settle within her. From the moment they set off, she had been acutely aware of Emery’s absence, her figure on horseback just far enough away that their paths didn’t intersect. It might have been easier to bear if Emery had simply ignored her. Instead, Samira watched, incredulous, as more than once Emery drew Jack Abbott into conversation and, with the subtlest shift of her horse or change of direction, guided him nearer to Samira.
When the realization hit, Samira’s patience had frayed to a single, taut thread.
Lord Abbott was a pleasant enough riding companion, amiable, straightforward, with the easy manner of a man accustomed to both solitude and society. His gelding matched her mare’s pace, their steps falling into the same rhythm as they navigated a narrow turn in the path.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he observed after a lull in their conversation.
Samira kept her gaze ahead. “I’m only taking in the scenery,” she said, smoothing her tone into something light.
Jack’s brow arched. “You’re a poor liar, Miss Mohan.”
Her lips curved faintly. “Perhaps I’m simply not in the mood for endless small talk.”
He chuckled at that, but his eyes, clear, steady, and far too perceptive, slid briefly toward the rear of the party, where Emery was riding in easy conversation with her brother.
“You know,” he said, lowering his voice so it wouldn’t carry, “I’ve seen a great many expressions in my time. The one you’re wearing now? I’d wager it has something to do with her.”
Samira’s pulse stuttered, but she didn’t let it show. “You’d be wagering poorly, my lord.”
“Would I?” His tone wasn’t sharp, merely curious, gentle in a way that made it worse.
She didn’t answer, only urged her mare forward a fraction. The movement broke the conversation, but not the tension. Jack let it go, speaking instead of the land they rode over. She responded politely, even smiled once or twice, but each time she glanced toward the edges of the group, her eyes found Emery.
It wasn’t as though Samira expected Emery to shadow her every moment. But after the masquerade, after that heady rush of heat and closeness, after feeling for one breath that they had finally stopped dancing around one another, this cool, deliberate distance was maddening. And now, to add insult, Emery was not just keeping her distance, she was actively nudging another in her place.
It was absurd. Infuriating. And yet, because Jack was kind and easy to speak with, Samira found herself trapped between her own good manners and the sharp sting of her temper.
They rode on, the path widening and narrowing, the group breaking and reforming as riders adjusted their pace. Somewhere ahead, a dog barked, followed by the faint call of one of the huntsmen. Samira tried to fix her attention on the countryside, the pale sweep of grass in the clearings, the low stone walls half-hidden under ivy, the skeletal branches of oaks reaching over the track. But her mind refused to be led away from Emery.
Emery, who had kept her hands off Samira entirely since that night in the garden, save for the brief, steadying touch that afternoon as she’d helped her mount. Emery, who could look at her across a room, or across a field with an expression Samira could not decipher, and then turn away as though it had never happened.
The longer Samira watched her maneuver Jack nearer, the sharper her frustration grew, until it was a living thing under her ribs. It made her want to abandon her mare and stalk across the wood just to demand what, exactly, Emery thought she was doing. She reminded herself, futilely, that the man beside her was innocent in all of this. Jack was perfectly pleasant, perfectly harmless, perfectly undeserving of the irritation she felt. If anything, he seemed faintly amused by her stiffness, as though he’d seen such things play out before and knew better than to step into the fray.
The trees closed in as the party reached the appointed camp, a small clearing where the ground was soft with last year’s leaves and the air smelled of pine and damp earth. A makeshift hitching post had been set up between two sturdy trunks, and several huntsmen were already dismounting, handing off reins to the stable boys who had ridden in with them.
Samira’s mare slowed, ears flicking forward, and she felt the subtle shift in the air that always came when a group dismounted together: the soft thud of boots hitting the ground, the creak of saddle leather. Jack drew up alongside her and swung down from his horse with easy grace. Before she could move to dismount on her own, he stepped close, one gloved hand raised.
For a heartbeat, she considered refusing, pride bristling at the thought, but his hand was already there, steady and warm. She placed her own in his and let him guide her down, the ground firm under her boots once more. The moment her feet touched the earth, she felt it, a weight, warm and unyielding, from somewhere beyond her shoulder. She knew before she looked.
Her gaze slid over almost of its own accord, and there Emery was, still astride her own horse, her posture immaculate, her expression unreadable. But her eyes were fixed on Samira , following every inch of the motion as Jack’s hand steadied her waist. Samira felt the contact linger, though Jack had already released her and stepped back to see to his own horse. The faintest smirk tugged at her mouth, half triumph, half something sharper. She wanted Emery to look, wanted her to feel even a fraction of what Samira had been enduring all morning.
The group began readying for the next part of the hunt. Rifles were brought out, checked, and loaded. The married ladies and older debutantes stood in small knots, talking softly as they adjusted gloves and hats. Emery dismounted at last, handing her horse’s reins to a stable boy with a brief word.
The guide gave a short call, and the party began to file into the forest proper, boots crunching over roots and damp leaves. The canopy overhead thickened, muting the light. The air grew heavier.
Samira kept her eyes forward, but she could still feel Emery’s absence at her side like a phantom limb, close enough to sense, far enough to ache. Jack walked near her still, making an easy comment about the likelihood of finding pheasant this deep in the season. She responded politely, but her attention kept straying to the space behind her where she knew Emery walked, her presence a constant shadow.
Somewhere above, a breeze whispered through the branches, carrying with it a scent she couldn’t quite name—fresh, cool, with an edge that prickled against her skin. She glanced up, and for the first time noticed the clouds between the branches. They were darker than they had been an hour ago.
By now, the party had begun to thin out. Some hunters pressed ahead with the guides, eager for fresh game. Others lingered behind, chatting in low voices or adjusting their equipment. Somewhere ahead, the deep bark of a hound echoed through the trees, followed by a distant call.
Jack had drifted away, moving toward Lord Gainsworth with some easy remark about the best spots to find pheasant this time of year. Samira watched him go, and her patience, already threadbare, snapped entirely. She spotted Emery alone just a short distance behind, her posture just a shade too composed.
Samira strode toward her, boots biting into the leaf-strewn path.
“Must you?” she said, low but sharp.
Emery turned, brows knitting. “Must I…?”
“Send him over every chance you get.” Samira’s voice wasn’t loud, but it had a taut edge to it. “Do you think I haven’t noticed?”
A flicker of something passed across Emery’s face. Guilt, maybe, or irritation, but her tone remained level. “Jack is a good man. I thought you might enjoy his company.”
“I enjoy his company well enough,” Samira shot back. “That’s not the point.”
They began walking, side by side, but Samira’s pace was brisk, her steps pulling them gradually off the main path. The undergrowth here was thicker, branches arching overhead in a tangle.
“What is the point, then?” Emery asked, her gaze flicking to the narrowing trail ahead.
Samira’s jaw tightened. “You’re pushing Jack at me every chance you get. I never asked for that.”
Emery exhaled, the sound just shy of exasperation. “Jack is someone I trust. He would treat you well.”
“That’s not your choice to make,” Samira said, quickening her stride.
The forest seemed to deepen around them, the light dimming under the thickening canopy. Emery glanced back—no sign of the others, only the distant murmur of voices fading.
“Samira, we’re straying from the group,” she said, her voice firm. “We should turn back.”
Samira didn’t even slow. “There you go again. Telling me where I ought to be, what I ought to do. I’m tired of it.”
“I’m not telling you what to do,” Emery said, matching her pace now, “I’m telling you we are getting too far—”
“And why should that matter?” Samira snapped, spinning halfway toward her as she walked. “It only matters if you actually intend to be near me, and you don’t. You keep your distance, you avoid me, and then you have the audacity to decide which man should have me?”
Emery’s mouth opened, but Samira cut her off, her words spilling faster, sharper. “Do you think I haven’t noticed? The way you pull back the moment things might mean something? The way you choose the safe option, the proper option, even when—” She broke off, breath tight in her chest.
The path underfoot had grown narrower, little more than a game trail now, and the air felt heavier, as though the clouds overhead were pressing closer.
“Samira—” Emery tried again.
“No,” Samira said, her voice hard. “I don’t want to hear you tell me we’re too far, or it’s improper, or whatever else. I’ve heard enough of what you think I need. What about what I want?”
They stopped, both of them breathing harder now, and not just from the walk. Emery’s eyes searched hers, but whatever answer was there was locked tight behind that cool exterior. Somewhere above, a low rumble sounded, too faint to command notice unless you were listening for it.
Samira’s voice was sharp now, the words tumbling out faster the longer she spoke. “You keep pushing me away, and for what? So you can tell yourself you’ve done the noble thing? That you’ve kept me safe from the great disaster that is you? You send Jack to me as if I can’t see exactly what you’re doing, as if I should be grateful for it.”
Emery’s brows knit, but she said nothing.
Samira stepped closer, anger feeding on the unshaken calm in Emery’s eyes. It only made the hollow ache in her chest sharper. Her hands flexed uselessly at her sides, as if she needed to hold onto something, anything , to keep steady.
“If you don’t want me, Emery,” she said, the words snapping out harder than she intended. Her breath caught halfway through, forcing her to push the rest out before it failed her. “Then just—” she swallowed, her throat tight, “just say it. End this before I’m made into even more of a fool than I already am.”
The last words came out thinner, softer, like the air had been stolen from her lungs. She blinked quickly, desperate to keep the burn in her eyes from becoming anything more, even as her jaw clenched in the effort. That seemed to break something in Emery, her eyes glinting with something fierce and unguarded. She took a step forward into the space between them.
“If you think this is about lack of want ,” she said, voice low and cutting through the air between them like a blade, “you are surely mistaken.”
And then, as if the world itself conspired to underscore the truth of it, the first crack of thunder split the sky. A cold sheet of rain came down almost instantly, heavy drops drumming against the canopy overhead and soaking through in seconds. The sudden downpour wrapped them in its roar, blurring the outlines of the trees, stealing the air from Samira’s lungs. She couldn’t tell if the shiver running through her was from the rain or from Emery’s words still echoing in her bones.
The rain was relentless. It flattened Samira’s curls to her head, ran cold trails down the back of her neck, seeped into the seams of her boots. Around them, the forest erupted in the sound of water, leaves shuddering under the weight of it, the sharp patter of droplets hitting the undergrowth, the muffled thuds of it on damp earth.
“We need to get back to camp,” Emery said, already reaching for Samira’s arm.
Samira pulled away. “Now you want to be close?”
Another rumble of thunder rolled overhead, closer this time. Emery glanced toward the faint direction of the hunting camp, though it was already lost behind a veil of rain. “If we don’t find cover, we’ll be soaked through before we get there.”
Samira laughed, but it was hollow. “Too late for that.”
Emery swore softly under her breath, then stepped forward, lowering her voice as if that might soften the fight still clinging between them. “There’s an old trapper’s cabin nearby. Not far.”
“And you just happen to know that?”
“I’ve hunted here before,” Emery replied, impatience threading her tone. “Come on.”
Samira hesitated. Her pride told her to turn back toward the others, to prove she didn’t need Emery leading her anywhere. But the rain was colder now, sinking past the thin barrier of her riding jacket, and a low gust of wind stole the warmth from her entirely.
Emery had already started forward, her dark coat a moving shadow through the sheets of water. “You can stand here and argue, or you can follow me,” she called over her shoulder.
Grinding her teeth, Samira followed. They pushed through the trees, boots sinking into soft earth, branches dripping cold onto their faces and shoulders. Emery kept glancing back, slowing just enough to make sure Samira was behind her.
The forest closed in, the sky barely visible through the dense foliage. When the dark outline of the cabin emerged ahead, small and weathered but standing firm against the storm, she almost laughed in disbelief. Emery was already at the door, testing it. It gave way with a protesting creak, and she stepped aside to let Samira in first.
Samira hesitated again, looking at her through the curtain of rain, the memory of Emery’s earlier words— you are surely mistaken —still burning in her mind.
***
The door groaned shut behind them, cutting off the worst of the wind. The air inside was damp and musty, steeped in the smell of old timber, but it was blessedly still. Emery stood for a moment, dripping onto the warped wooden floor, letting her eyes adjust. The only light came from a small, grimy window, grey with the storm outside.
Emery’s heart was still beating too fast, some leftover rhythm from their argument, but already it felt dulled, buried beneath the pressing immediacy of the storm battering the walls. Somewhere deep in the forest, the thunder rolled again, long and low, followed by the rush of rain on the roof.
She shrugged out of her soaked coat, wincing at the cold cling of her sleeves, and tried not to notice the way her hands trembled. The air inside wasn’t much warmer than outside.
“You’re shivering,” Samira said. Her voice had lost its edge; there was no trace of their fight in it now, just observation. She scanned the room quickly: a wooden table, a few empty shelves, a low hearth dark with soot.
“Of course I’m shivering,” Emery said lightly, attempting to mask the ache in her bones with dry humor. “I’ve been standing in the rain for—”
“Sit down,” Samira interrupted. Not unkindly, but firmly, like she was giving an order she expected to be obeyed. She set her own sodden coat over the back of a chair and moved toward the hearth.
Emery hesitated, half bristling at the instruction, half grateful for it. She lowered herself onto the nearest chair, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, watching as Samira knelt in front of the fireplace.
From the corner, Samira dragged over a small pile of split logs and a bundle of brittle, dry twigs she’d found beneath a shelf. Then she began arranging them with a practiced precision, smallest sticks at the center, then larger ones, all angled just so.
Emery tilted her head. “You’ve done this before.”
“I went to Oxford, not finishing school,” Samira said without looking up.
It was meant as a tease, but something about the way she spoke, confident and sure of herself, made a small, unexpected warmth settle in Emery’s chest. She’d grown up in houses where fires simply appeared. A servant’s hands always lit them, unseen. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched someone coax flame from cold.
Samira pulled a match from a small tin she’d found on the mantel and struck it against the rough strip. The spark flared bright, illuminating her face for an instant, before she lowered it into the nest of kindling. The dry twigs caught quickly, orange tongues licking upward. She shielded the fragile flame with her hands until the wood began to crackle and shift.
Within minutes, heat began to seep into the room. Emery realized she was staring. Not at the fire but at Samira, the concentration in her brow, the way the flicker of light played along her cheekbones, catching in the damp curls of her hair, now loose from her updo.
Samira glanced over her shoulder at her. “Better?”
Emery straightened, as if she’d been caught out. “Much.”
Samira didn’t call her on it, only turned back to adjust a log. But Emery found herself still watching, her earlier frustration dissolving into something quieter, an ache that had nothing to do with the rain still dripping from her hair. Despite the fire crackling low in the hearth, Emery’s shivers had only worsened. They rolled through her in waves, starting at her fingertips and teeth and burrowing deep into her bones. She tried to hide it, tucking her arms tight around herself, but the tremor wouldn’t stop.
Samira turned from the fire, eyes narrowing. “You’re still freezing.”
“I’ll warm up,” Emery said, though the words wavered as much as her voice.
“Not like that you won’t.” Samira crossed the room, her steps brisk and sure on the warped floorboards. “If you stay in those clothes, you’ll catch your death. Start taking them off.”
Emery blinked at her. “Sorry?”
Samira was already moving toward a set of shelves in the corner, opening drawers, shifting aside a pile of old canvas bags. “Wet fabric holds the cold. You need to be dry.”
“I—” Emery hesitated.
Samira didn’t give her long to think. “Do it, Emery. Now.”
The command in her tone startled her into obedience. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of her corset, slower than they should have been, the cold making them stiff.
Behind her, she could hear Samira muttering under her breath as she rummaged through a wooden chest. Her voice was low, but Emery still caught the words: “...of course she’s no help. God forbid the Viscountess lift a finger for her own survival.”
Emery’s cheeks flushed. “I heard that,” she said tightly.
“Good,” Samira shot back without looking up, tossing aside an old length of burlap. “Maybe it will inspire you to learn how to build a fire one day.”
Emery bristled, but her shivers overpowered her indignation. Her corset joined the coat on the chair, and she moved on to the layers beneath, each one feeling heavier and colder than the last. Gooseflesh prickled over her bare arms as the air hit her skin.
Samira finally returned to her side, arms full of a mishmash of supplies: a couple wool blankets, a canvas tarp, and what looked like a strip of thick sailcloth. “This is all we’ve got, so we’ll have to make it work.”
She dropped the pile beside the fire, kneeling to spread one of the blankets so it could start absorbing some heat. “Once you’re out of those wet things, we’ll wrap up in this. Skin to skin keeps warmth in better than fabric.”
Emery swallowed, unsure if the shiver that ran through her now had anything to do with the cold at all. She worked the last of her damp skirts down over her hips, trying to maintain some shred of dignity as she stepped free of them. The wet garments slapped the floor with a heavy thud. She grabbed the second blanket and began to dry herself as best she could.
Samira, already stripped to her shift, was wringing the water out of her stockings near the fire, muttering something under her breath about “reckless noblewomen” and “no sense of direction.”
Emery’s head snapped up. “Forgive me, but wasn’t it you who decided to storm off into the woods in the middle of a hunt?”
Samira looked over her shoulder, eyes sharp. “I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t been pushing Lord Abbott at me all morning.”
“That’s what you wanted!” Emery shot back, heat rising in her voice despite the chill still clinging to her body. “You came into this season looking for a match. I was trying to help you.”
“You were trying to get rid of me.” Samira stood then, moving closer, her wet shift clinging scandalously to her figure. “And you’ve been doing it for weeks. Don’t pretend it was anything else.”
Emery scoffed, stepping toward her as well. “If I truly wanted to be rid of you, Samira, I wouldn’t be standing here, freezing half to death in a godforsaken cabin because I followed you into a storm.”
Samira’s jaw set. “You followed me because you think I need saving. You’ve never once stopped to think I might actually know what I’m doing.”
Emery’s voice dropped, low and deliberate. “If you knew what you were doing, we wouldn’t be here at all.”
The space between them shrank to nothing, heat and rain-slick tension radiating between their bodies. And then— a sharp crack of sound, shocking in the small cabin. A sudden, stinging jolt lit up the side of her face as Samira’s hand struck, the heat blooming instantly beneath her skin. Emery froze, breath catching, her skin tingling with the lingering heat of the blow. The world seemed to go silent but for the sound of their breathing. Her pulse thundered.
Then Samira moved. Her fingers curled into the blanket draped around Emery’s shoulders, bunching the fabric tight in her fist as she pulled her forward. The suddenness of it left no room for breath before Samira’s mouth met hers, hard and unyielding, shattering every fragile thought that had been holding Emery together.
The world seemed to tilt. Heat spilled through her as she surrendered to the kiss, her body folding into Samira’s as if it had been made for this. Fingers slid up into Emery’s hair, threading deep until they grazed her scalp, and she swore she could feel the sensation in her knees. Samira’s mouth was warm, plush, insistent . Every perfect word Emery might have used to describe it was lost, swallowed by the aching truth that nothing had ever felt like this. She didn’t think, couldn’t think, her arms wrapped around Samira on instinct, drawing her closer, until there was no space left to steal. Samira let out a quiet, startled sound, the kind that burned into Emery’s memory the moment it left her lips. As if she hadn’t expected Emery to answer her like this. As if there could be any other answer.
Heat pooled low in Emery’s belly as she tilted her head, deepening the kiss until it turned ragged and breathless. When Samira’s lips parted and the faintest stroke of her tongue brushed against hers, a low, helpless groan escaped Emery, loud in the hush of the cabin. Her hands trembled as they slipped down, gripping Samira’s waist, thumbs sweeping over the damp cling of fabric, aching to feel the bare heat beneath. Samira’s own noises—small, urgent, almost desperate—were enough to make Emery dizzy. If this was a dream, it was cruel in its realness.
Samira broke the kiss just long enough to breathe, and Emery took the opening to press her lips to the warm curve of her neck. The taste of her was faintly sweet and salt-edged, the heat of her skin blooming against Emery’s mouth. Samira tipped her head back with a soft, unguarded whine, the sound curling low in Emery’s stomach.
“I’m still—” Samira’s voice caught, breath hitching, “I’m still angry at you.”
Emery’s lips moved up the column of her throat, brushing the edge of her jaw with a kiss that felt like a promise. “I know.”
A gentle push against her chest brought them a breath apart. Samira’s gaze held hers, steady and unreadable, before she reached for the hem of her damp shift. She drew it up slowly, the firelight catching on the arcs and planes of her body as it rose. The fabric slipped over her head and fell to the floor without a sound. The breath caught in Emery’s lungs. Firelight clung to every curve. Long legs, the soft line of her waist, the swell of her breasts, the warmth of her skin turned to gold. Emery thought she had seen beauty before. She had been wrong.
“Thank you,” Samira said with a coy, knowing smile, and heat flooded Emery’s cheeks as she realized she must have spoken the thought aloud.
She closed the distance between them again, her palm skimming up Samira’s spine until her fingers tangled in the loose strands of hair at the base of her skull. A light tug angled Samira’s head back, exposing the long, perfect line of her neck to the fire’s glow.
“Tell me to stop,” Emery murmured, her voice ragged against Samira’s skin. “If you want me to stop, you have to tell me now.”
Samira scoffed, then claimed Emery’s mouth in a kiss that left no room for doubt.
“If you think I want anything other than your touch right now,” she murmured against Emery’s lips, her breath warm between them, “then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.”
Emery let herself be guided by the pull of Samira’s hands, by the way they roamed, one anchored at her shoulder, the other sliding down to her hip, urging her back. The blanket around Emery’s shoulders slipped away entirely, pooling on the floor as their steps found the uneven rhythm of bodies too intent on each other to care where they were going.
The tarp and layered blankets by the fire caught them in a slow collapse, the soft rustle of fabric beneath them barely registering against the pounding in Emery’s ears. They went down together, still tangled in each other’s mouths. The heat of the fire pressed against one side of Emery’s skin; the heat of Samira’s body claimed the other. She felt the solid weight of her, the way her knee slotted between Emery’s, the press of her palm against the bare skin just above her ribs. Emery’s hands skimmed over the length of Samira’s back, learning the curves and slopes by touch, fingers curling when she felt the faint shiver beneath her palms.
When they broke apart for air, their foreheads rested together and Samira’s lips were swollen, her dark eyes fixed on Emery’s as if she was trying to memorize her in this exact moment.
“You said…” Samira swallowed, her voice unsteady. “You said your distance from me was not for lack of want. Prove it to me.”
Something inside Emery broke loose then. Her gaze darkened, eyes narrowing as her hands slid to grip Samira’s hips—firm, claiming. In one fluid motion, she reversed their positions, pressing Samira down into the layered blankets beneath them.
Her mouth found Samira’s again for a kiss that was hungry and unrelenting before she began a slow descent, her lips trailed heat down the side of Samira’s throat. She lingered there for a moment, letting her teeth graze lightly against the flutter of her pulse, then moved lower, mapping every inch of her with her mouth.
“I’ve thought of this,” Emery murmured against her skin, trailing her mouth lower, “every night you’ve been away from me. Every morning. You’ve been in my mind so completely I’ve forgotten what it’s like to think of anything else.”
Her hands smoothed over Samira’s sides, sliding down to her hips before curving inward to pull her closer. She pressed a kiss just above her breastbone, then another, her lips parting to draw her tongue across the heat of her skin. “I’ve imagined your skin under my hands so often I could trace you blindfolded.”
“ Emery ,” Samira breathed, voice catching when Emery’s mouth closed over the soft swell of her breast, teeth grazing lightly before she soothed the spot with her tongue.
Her hands moved restlessly, sliding up to cradle her ribs, then down again to stroke the length of her thigh before draping Samira’s legs over her shoulders. Samira’s fingers curled into Emery’s hair, holding her there as her head tipped back. “I’ve wondered,” Emery continued, her words scattering between kisses to her inner thigh, “what you’d sound like if I touched you like—”
Emery’s tongue dragged between Samira’s folds, parting her slowly, torturously , until she heard Samira’s breath hitch in her throat with a gasp. She smiled against her. “Just like that.”
She continued making steady strokes through her, tasting her, humming her own pleasure as Samira’s fingers tightened in her hair. Emery let go of her hips and brought her hands down so she could spread Samira with her thumbs before carefully sucking her clit into her mouth.
“ Oh —” Samira panted, her body rising in search of something just out of reach. “Oh, that feels…”
She brought her fingers to Samira’s entrance, teasing the tips of her middle and ring finger against her before slipping inside and meeting no resistance. Samira threw her head back, a choked out moan escaping her as Emery began a maddening pace, curling her fingers and flicking her tongue against Samira’s bundle of nerves with each thrust.
Emery felt as if she could be content with just this for the rest of her life, the feeling of Samira even wetter against her now, her fingers— two, now three — slipping in and out of her, pulling these beautiful sounds right from Samira’s throat. Emery could go mad with this feeling, and she knew she would never be able to get enough.
Eventually Emery lapped at her faster, held her tighter as her eyes flicked up to meet Samira’s, daring her to fall over the edge. Samira’s eyes were dark, her pupils fully blown as she held Emery’s gaze. She just kept rocking her hips up, arching her back and finally moaning her release into the air around them, Emery’s name like a mantra falling from her lips. Emery worked her through her climax, feeling her slick all the way down her chin. Samira’s body seemed to twitch uncontrollably as she fell back against the blankets, breathless, her leg falling from its perch on Emery’s shoulder.
Samira lay back for a moment, chest rising and falling in quick, uneven pulls, a sheen of sweat along her collarbone. Emery stayed where she was, kneeling between her thighs, hands still stroking gently along her hips as if to anchor her through the aftershocks. She didn’t want to look away, not from the flush in Samira’s cheeks, not from the way her lips parted on each sharp inhale, not from the quiet, almost dazed expression she wore. Emery had never seen anything so devastatingly beautiful.
Then Samira’s gaze locked on hers. Whatever softness had been there a moment ago shifted, replaced by something else. Without a word, she pushed up onto her elbows, then onto her knees, moving toward Emery with slow, steady intent. Emery sat back instinctively, and Samira followed, climbing into her lap with a grace that made Emery’s pulse stutter. The heat of her bare skin settled across Emery’s thighs, their bodies pressed flush from chest to knee. Samira’s hands framed her face for a heartbeat, steady, grounding, before her mouth claimed Emery’s again in a kiss that tasted like fire and want and something Emery couldn’t name.
“I’m not done with you,” Samira murmured against her lips, her breath warm, her tone a challenge. The words sent a jolt of heat straight through Emery.
Samira’s mouth curved in something between a smirk and a dare. “Where’s the rakish viscountess the ton loves to gossip about? The one who knows exactly how to take what she wants?”
Emery’s pulse kicked hard. Samira didn’t understand that she wasn’t like the others. The women in her past had been fleeting distractions she could charm, bed, and forget. But Samira… Samira was the thought that kept her awake at night, the temptation she couldn’t touch without feeling the ground shift beneath her feet.
“Careful, love,” Emery murmured, her voice low and unsteady, hands sliding to grip Samira’s hips as if she could anchor herself there. “If I give you what you’re asking for, I won’t be able to stop.”
Samira’s smirk deepened, her hands sliding up to frame Emery’s face, thumbs brushing along her cheekbones in a touch that was almost tender—almost.
“Then don’t stop,” she whispered, leaning in just enough that her lips grazed Emery’s without fully kissing her, letting the heat of her breath fill the space between them. “Take me.”
Emery’s breath hitched, her grip on Samira’s hips tightening until her knuckles ached. She didn’t remember deciding to move; she only knew her mouth was on Samira’s the next instant, the kiss hard enough to bruise, her hands pulling her flush until there was no space left at all. The taste of her, the feel of her straddling her lap, the way she met every press of her mouth without flinching, it all came together in a rush that made Emery’s head spin. Samira had thrown the match, and Emery had no intention of putting out the fire.
Emery’s hand slipped between Samira’s thighs, finding her already slick from her previous orgasm. The sensation drew a low moan from Emery’s throat as she bent to reclaim Samira’s neck, her lips grazing over the delicate skin before nipping lightly at her collarbone. Samira’s answer was to grind down against her hand, slow and deliberate, her own fingers roaming, skimming up Emery’s back, tangling in her hair, touching anywhere she could reach. Their breaths grew uneven together, the sound of them mixing in the small, firelit space, until Emery’s fingertips found her clit again, circling over her slick heat with a teasing, deliberate rhythm that made Samira shiver in her lap.
“Is this what you wanted?” Emery asked, voice strained.
Samira continued the rock of her hips, chasing more friction. “You know it’s nowhere near enough.”
At that, Emery almost growled, thrusting one finger up to the knuckle so suddenly that a gasp tore itself from Samira’s throat. Emery relished in it, capturing Samira’s sounds with her own mouth. “Better?”
Samira pulled back just enough to find Emery’s free hand, her fingers curling around it with a grip that was both gentle and sure. Slowly, she guided it upward, tracing the path over the plane of her stomach, over the swell of her ribs, then between the soft, perfect curves of her breasts. Emery’s breath caught, her pulse hammering in her ears, but Samira didn’t stop, she kept guiding until Emery’s palm was splayed just above her sternum, feeling the quick, shallow thrum of her heartbeat beneath her skin. The deliberate, suggestive invitation sent a sharp jolt through Emery, enough to nearly push her over the edge.
Emery’s fingers flexed instinctively against the warm skin beneath her palm. Her mouth went dry, her pulse wild, and for a moment she could do nothing but feel—feel the heat, the closeness, the weight of Samira’s body in her lap.
“Samira…” It was half her name, half a warning, but even to Emery’s ears it sounded frayed, undone.
Samira only leaned in, her lips brushing the corner of her mouth, her voice low enough to be felt more than heard. “I said,” she whispered. “Take me.”
With the hand pressed to Samira’s sternum, she began to guide it upward, letting her palm drag lightly over warm skin until her forefinger found the steady thrum of Samira’s pulse. She traced it lazily, feeling each beat beneath her touch, before her thumb curved to the other side of her neck. Samira whined and nodded the moment Emery’s grip tightened, her body going still for half a heartbeat before a slow, deliberate roll of her hips started again. Her eyes fluttered shut, then opened to fix on Emery with a look that was equal parts challenge and surrender as Emery slipped another finger inside of her.
“ Yes ,” Samira moaned, her body canting into the touch as Emery picked up the pace. “Oh, Emery.”
What struck Emery most was the trust—the quiet, unshakable trust Samira gave her, even with her hand curved halfway around her throat. There was no tension in her body, no flicker of doubt in her eyes. Only the certainty that Emery would never hurt her, not here, not now, not ever. That certainty was as heady as the heat between them, and it made Emery want to worship her all the more.
Emery pressed her fingers firmly against the quick, fluttering beat of Samira’s pulse, her other hand working her without mercy. She drove her fingers deep, curling them until she found that spot that made Samira’s head tip back with a sharp, broken cry. Her legs began to give, trembling with each thrust, the muscles quivering under Emery’s hands. She pressed her face into the warm swell of Samira’s chest, tongue flicking over a hardened nipple as she doubled down, fucking into her harder, faster, chasing every sound she could drag from her. The wet, rhythmic slide of her fingers filled the air, nearly overtaking the steady hiss of the fire behind them. Every push into her was met with heat and slickness that made Emery’s own body ache, her pulse thrumming in time with Samira’s.
“I feel it again,” Samira whined, and Emery could feel her swallow beneath her palm.
Every time Samira’s pulse kicked beneath her hand, every time her breath stuttered and her hips lost their rhythm, every time she whimpered out how close she was to the edge, Emery squeezed firmly, holding for a slow count before easing her grip and stilling the fingers moving between her thighs. She did it over and over, again and again, until Samira’s control frayed completely, a wrecked, filthy sound tearing from her throat. Her grip in Emery’s hair turned near-painful, her whole body tensing before she finally shattered against her, coming apart in Emery’s hands.
But instead of slowing, Emery only pushed harder, hungry for more. Samira’s eyes fluttered open, her hand scrambling to grasp Emery’s forearm, fingers curling over taut muscle and tendon. With the hand that had been at Samira’s throat, Emery lifted her thumb to press against Samira’s lower lip, coaxing it free from between her teeth.
Samira’s breath hitched, her lips parting around a shaky, “I— Emery , I don’t know if I can—”
“Yes, you can,” Emery murmured, her voice a low, steady anchor. “This is what you wanted. One more for me, love. Give it to me.”
She pressed her thumb more firmly to Samira’s lips, and this time Samira didn’t resist. She opened for her, taking Emery’s thumb into her mouth. The wet heat of her tongue curled around it, sucking in slow, deliberate pulls that made Emery’s own breath falter.
“That’s it, Samira,” Emery coaxed, her tone turning rougher as her other hand kept working between Samira’s thighs. “You’re perfect.”
Samira gave in completely, melting into every word Emery fed her, letting the sensations strip her down to nothing but need. She was a vision, flushed, wild-eyed, caught between bliss and delirium. Strung so tight from the crest of her first two releases, she shattered fast, the orgasm hitting her sharp and deep. Her whole body shook, muscles locking as she bit down on Emery’s thumb, sucking around it even as her hips jerked through the waves, the slow thrust of it between her lips dragging every last tremor from her.
Samira sagged forward as the last of her release rolled through her, her grip on Emery’s arm loosening but not letting go. Emery eased her hand from between her thighs, the movement unhurried, her other thumb slipping free from Samira’s mouth with a soft drag over her lips. The air between them was thick with the scent of sweat and firelight, their breaths uneven, mingling in the small space they’d carved for themselves on the floor. Emery felt the rapid beat of Samira’s heart against her chest, each thud gradually slowing under the steady rhythm of her touch.
“You’re all right,” Emery murmured, her voice low, almost reverent. She pressed her lips to Samira’s temple, the gesture as much for herself as for her.
Samira let out a quiet, shivery exhale, her fingers loosening in Emery’s hair but not letting go entirely. “I know,” she whispered, and the words landed like an anchor in Emery’s chest.
Emery held her close, feeling the last of Samira’s shivers ease beneath her hand. She was content to keep her there, pressed against her, letting the fire’s warmth and the steady rhythm of their breathing blur the edges of the world. But then Samira shifted, just enough to press a lingering kiss to the hollow of Emery’s throat. Another followed, slower, warmer, just below her jaw. Before Emery could speak, Samira’s hands slid down her sides, bracing as she shifted her weight.
“Slow down,” Emery said, her arms tightening as if to keep her there. “You must be exhausted. You don’t need to—”
Samira cut her off with a look, softened by release yet certain as ever. “Do you really think I could sleep knowing I left you wanting?”
The words stole the breath from Emery’s chest, the way she spoke as if she hadn’t been ruined just moments ago, and she let Samira ease her back onto the blankets. The firelight cast warm gold over her skin, and above her, Samira leaned in, bracing one hand beside her head while the other traced a slow, deliberate path down her body.
“You’ve spent tonight seeing to my pleasure,” Samira murmured, her lips brushing the shell of Emery’s ear before trailing to her neck. “Now, let me see to yours.”
The words stole the breath from Emery’s chest. She rarely let women touch her, never like this, never with the intent to undo her completely. Control had always been hers to keep, a shield she wore as easily as her title. But with Samira, the idea of surrender didn’t feel like losing anything at all.
When Samira’s fingers found the apex of her thighs, Emery’s hips jerked hard, a ragged sound slipping from her throat before she could stop it. Samira didn’t hesitate. She slid through the slick heat of her, gathering it before gliding over her swollen nerves in slow, deliberate circles that made Emery’s breath catch on every pass. She touched her like she meant to learn her by feel alone, each stroke more certain than the last, until the growing urgency in her movements broke through. Then, without warning, she pressed two fingers inside up to the hilt, setting a quick, relentless rhythm that left Emery gasping.
The first thrust nearly stole the air from Emery’s lungs. Samira’s fingers filled her, the heel of her palm pressing just right, sending heat coiling low and fast. Emery’s hands clutched at the blankets, then at Samira’s back, needing something to hold onto as the rhythm built. Samira kissed her like she had all the time in the world, even as her hand moved with a focused urgency that left no doubt she wanted to see Emery undone. Each curl of her fingers dragged a shiver from deep inside her, each press against that spot making her hips buck despite herself.
“You’re trembling,” Samira murmured against her lips, her tone both teasing and reverent.
Emery tried to respond, but it came out as a choked sound, her breath breaking as Samira’s pace quickened. Control, the thing she never surrendered, slipped further with each thrust, until she was moving with her, chasing the pleasure like she couldn’t bear for it to stop.
“ Lovely ,” Samira whispered, “Let me have you.”
The words tipped her over the edge. Emery’s back arched, her head tipping back as a sharp, involuntary cry escaped her. She came hard, every muscle tightening around Samira’s fingers, her whole body trembling with the force of it. Samira kept moving, drawing out every wave until Emery was shuddering and breathless beneath her. When she finally stilled, Samira eased her hand away, replacing it with a palm spread warmly over Emery’s stomach.
Emery let out a shaky breath as the last tremors faded, her limbs heavy and loose against the blankets. Samira stayed close, her palm still resting warmly over Emery’s stomach, her thumb drawing lazy, grounding strokes against her skin. Neither spoke, the fire crackling softly behind them, their breathing slowly finding the same rhythm. Emery turned her head, brushing her lips against Samira’s jaw in a faint, almost absent kiss. Samira tilted her head down, catching her mouth in return.
It wasn’t the fevered desperation from before; this was softer, lingering. Their lips met and parted lazily, their mouths moving together like they had all the time in the world. Samira’s hand cupped the back of Emery’s neck, holding her close for another kiss, and then another, each one shorter, slower, until they were just brushing their mouths together in drowsy little presses. When Samira finally pulled back, it was only far enough to nudge her nose against Emery’s. She tugged the blanket up over them, tucking Emery into the curve of her body.
“You know,” Samira murmured, “not so long ago you were shivering like a half-drowned kitten.”
Emery huffed a quiet laugh. “And whose fault is it that I’m warm now?”
“I’ll happily take the blame,” Samira said, leaning in for another slow kiss. “In fact, I think I deserve credit for it.”
“You think very highly of yourself,” Emery teased, though her fingers tightened lightly at Samira’s waist, pulling her closer.
Samira’s answering hum was low and pleased. “Only where you are concerned.”
They stayed like that, tucked into each other, the firelight soft against their skin. Emery’s breathing slowed, her body giving in to the weight of exhaustion, and she felt Samira’s hand still at her back, steady and warm, until the pull of sleep took them both.
Notes:
angry samira was so hot that i almost made her top. but dw she will get her chance in the future
Chapter Text
Aldridge Country Estate, 9 June 1809
Rain slid in lazy streaks down the glass of the conservatory windows, each droplet catching the faint lamplight before vanishing into the black beyond. The scent of damp earth and chamomile drifted in through the half-open panes, soft and clinging. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, low and unhurried, like the world itself had grown drowsy. Emery sat at the piano in her dressing gown, barefoot, her toes curled against the cool floor. Her fingers moved without direction, weaving fragments of melody, half-remembered lullabies, the bones of waltzes she once danced beneath chandeliers. Nothing whole. Nothing finished. Her hair hung loose down her back. She never wore it loose in town.
Nicholas entered as he always did, soundless save for the faint rustle of a book under his arm. He took his place on the chaise opposite, as steady in habit as the tick of the clock. He did not interrupt. He never did.
After a few moments, Emery’s gaze flicked to him. “You read that one last week.”
“I like the ending,” he murmured.
Her lips curved faintly, unguarded. “The ending where she leaves him?”
“Precisely. Very modern of her.”
Her hands stilled on the keys. She turned toward him fully, chin tilted. “It’s our anniversary.”
“I know.”
“Two years.”
“I know that too.”
The silence between them was not empty but weighted, like the pause between two chords waiting to resolve.
“You’ve never asked me if I regret it,” Emery said at last.
“I never needed to,” he replied, setting the book aside. “You would have told me.”
She tilted her head. “And you?”
Nicholas’s expression softened, touched with something that might almost have been reverence. “I don’t believe I’ve known this much peace in my life.” He leaned back, hands loose, unthreatening. “You don’t ask questions you know I cannot answer. You let me disappear into my garden for hours without complaint. You leave poems on my desk when you think I’m sulking. And you play music even when you don’t know I’m listening.”
Her throat tightened, the ache of unshed tears pressing sharp at her sternum.
“You once told me,” he went on, “that all you wanted was understanding. I never told you, but that was all I wanted too.”
She rose then, barefoot steps across the carpet. Curling onto the chaise beside him, she tucked her legs under herself, folding into the space he made without thinking. He adjusted the blanket around them both, his arm stretched across the back, never touching until she leaned into him first. Which she did.
Their marriage had never been the kind sung of in poems. No firelight, no reckless promises whispered in moonlit gardens. It was built instead of quiet mercies: steadiness, gentleness, the keeping of promises no one else had been willing to make. Music played on rainy afternoons.
“Do you think you’ll ever fall in love someday?” Nicholas asked suddenly, voice quiet but piercing in the hush. “Truly fall in love.”
“I’m not sure,” Emery admitted. “I don’t think that’s in the cards for me.”
“What about that Lady who calls sometimes. Beaumont, is it? She seems rather taken with you.”
“Margaret?” Emery gave a wry little smile. “She flatters well enough. But I’m not in love with her.”
Nicholas studied her. “Would you like to?”
“What, fall in love?” Emery shook her head. “I think it would be far too difficult. Dangerous, even. Especially here.”
A quiet beat. Then Nicholas smiled faintly, almost mischievous. “Do you think if I fancied women and you fancied men, we might have fallen in love with each other?”
A startled laugh escaped her. “If you were any less of the man you are now, I doubt we’d be such close friends.”
His smile deepened. “Agreed.”
The thunder rumbled again, distant, unthreatening. They sat together in silence, the kind of silence that belonged to those who no longer needed to fill it.
“I do hope it happens for you one day,” Nicholas said at last, almost tenderly. “That you fall madly in love.”
Emery leaned more fully into his side, eyes slipping shut as the rain drummed its lazy rhythm against the glass. “We’ll see about that.”
Nicholas only drew the blanket closer around them both, his hand warm and steady at her shoulder. And there, in the quiet storm of the conservatory, they let the evening carry on without words.
***
London, 1817
Emery woke to the sound of the storm.
Not the sharp, splintering thunder that had rattled the cabin earlier, but a low, steady rumble, rain sweeping in sheets against the roof. It should have been unsettling, yet in the small pocket of warmth they’d made, the noise was strangely distant, almost muted, like they were cocooned away from the rest of the world. She turned her head and found Samira still sleeping.
Her hair was a dark spill over the pillow, a few damp strands curling against her temple. Her breathing was deep and even, lips parted just enough for the faintest sound to escape with each exhale. The firelight, banked low, painted her skin in warm amber and shadow. Emery let herself look.
She traced the slope of Samira’s cheek, the fine curve of her mouth, the long line of her neck disappearing into the tangled blanket. Her gaze caught on the rise and fall of her chest, the steady rhythm hypnotic in the hush between rainbeats. Emery wanted to reach out, just to touch, to reassure herself she was real, but she kept her hands still. It felt like trespassing, somehow, to disturb her when she looked so at peace. It hit her then, like a wave she’d been too far from shore to feel until now.
She loved her.
Not in the vague, indulgent way she’d once told herself she might grow fond of someone. This was heavier, deeper, something with roots that had been burrowing in quietly for weeks. It was the ache she felt when Samira smiled at her, the tightness in her chest when she turned away, the way she could recall her voice in perfect detail when she was gone. It was the unshakable pull to want to give her everything, no matter what it cost.
Her throat tightened, the air catching in her lungs. She wanted her. Wanted her without the careful distance, without the measured restraint she’d convinced herself was for the best. Wanted to keep her here, like this, safe and warm, where no one could tell them they were wrong for it. But alongside the wanting came something uglier. A younger part of herself stirred, the part shaped by too many years of being told to hide, to quiet, to avoid giving anyone cause to look too closely. That part still whispered that wanting like this was dangerous—that to be caught loving her would mean ruin.
She hated it. Hated that shame still had a hold on her, still had teeth sharp enough to bite through even this moment, where the only things between them were breath and warmth and the slow stretch of the night. She had built a life, worn her title, buried her past, and still it lingered. Her eyes closed briefly, jaw tightening as if she could grind the feeling away. When she opened them again, Samira was still there, still sleeping, still breathtaking in a way that made Emery’s chest ache.
She reached out then, unable to help herself, and brushed the back of her fingers lightly against Samira’s hair, letting a single curl slip between them. The touch was fleeting, but it grounded her, a reminder that Samira was here, in her arms, by her choice. Outside, the storm kept on. Inside, Emery lay awake, watching her, the weight of what she felt pressing down with quiet inevitability. She didn’t know what to do with it—not yet. But she knew she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there anymore.
And that, perhaps, frightened her most of all.
***
Samira felt Emery stir against her, a soft hum slipping from her throat as she shifted, lashes fluttering open. For a heartbeat, Emery’s gaze was unfocused, wearing that unmoored look people carried when waking somewhere unfamiliar. Her eyes drifted over the dim cabin: the ember-glow of the hearth, damp clothes strung near the fire, the hush of rain beyond the shutters.
As their eyes met, the world felt fragile between them.
They stayed like that for a moment too long, eyes holding, bodies still warm from the night before, before Emery finally, reluctantly, began to pull away. She reached for the pile of blankets at the edge of their makeshift bed, the shift of her body leaving behind a sudden emptiness. The space she left behind felt colder than the damp air pressing in, even with the hearth still breathing its faint heat into the room.
Samira sat up slowly, clutching the blanket to her chest before leaning forward to reach for her clothes. Her slip was still cool and faintly damp, the fabric clinging uncomfortably to her fingers. She pulled it over her head in one smooth motion, shivering when the chill touched her skin.
Across from her, Emery was dressing as well. They moved in the careful, deliberate way of people who were both thinking about last night and pretending not to be. Samira caught herself staring at the pale line of Emery’s throat as she fastened her stays, and quickly looked away. The silence was stretching, brittle and dangerous. Samira could feel it pressing in, threatening to swallow them whole.
She decided she wasn’t going to let it.
Samira’s voice broke the quiet, calm but cutting. “I’m not going to do this with you anymore.”
Emery blinked, turning to face her fully. “Do what?”
“This—” Samira gestured vaguely between them, her tone still level but with an edge that carried. “This hot and cold, back and forth, wanting me one moment and pushing me away the next.” She stood then, smoothing her skirts, but her eyes didn’t leave Emery’s. “Last night was… everything. But I won’t have you make me feel like that and then pretend it never happened.”
“Samira—”
“I know,” she added, her voice softening but no less firm. “I know I’m asking you to risk something that has already nearly ruined you once before. I know what that means, and that it’s not easy. But I have to do this for myself, Emery. I can’t keep wondering if you’ll stay or go.”
She drew a breath, steadying herself. “If you want me then I’ll be here. But if you pull away again, I won’t take you back. I can’t. My heart won’t survive it.”
The words landed between them like stones dropped into still water, the ripples reaching into every corner of the small room. The air felt heavier for having been spoken. Emery’s lips parted, the faintest breath of sound escaping like she might speak, but nothing came. Her hand shifted as though to reach for Samira’s, stopping halfway before curling back against her own knee.
Before either of them could find the courage to close that distance, the world outside intruded: the thud of boots on earth, faint at first, then clearer. Low voices carried through the dripping trees, the sound out of place in the hush of the cabin. Samira froze, her eyes locking with Emery’s. The search party.
And just like that, the fragile, impossible little world they had made for themselves splintered, replaced by the one waiting for them beyond the cabin walls. The muffled murmur of voices cut through the hush of the forest. At first it was only a faint ripple, blending with the steady drip of water from the leaves, but it grew clearer, a man’s shout, the crunch of boots on wet leaves.
The door burst open moments later, ushering in a rush of cold air and the sudden reality of the outside world. Relief should have followed, but it sat strangely in Samira’s chest, tempered by the heaviness of what had just passed between them.
“Emery!”
The man at the door—Emmett Walsh—looked as though he’d run every mile of the search. His coat dripped onto the floor, his hair plastered to his brow. In two long strides, he was in front of his sister, gripping her shoulders as if to make sure she was truly there. His gaze swept over her, searching for injury, before his expression broke into unguarded relief.
“We’ve been searching for hours,” he said, his voice thick with exertion and worry. “The storm—” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Thank God you’re safe.”
Behind him, Lord Jack Abbott stepped inside, trailed by two other gentlemen Samira only vaguely recognized. Jack’s sharp eyes took in the cabin, the two of them disheveled and damp; the fading fire; the air still heavy with heat and the faint scent of smoke. His gaze lingered on Emery, then shifted to Samira.
Something caught in her throat at the way he looked at her. Concern and curiosity, yes. But also a silent question he didn’t voice. She glanced at Emery, unsure what she might see. Emery’s eyes met Jack’s across the narrow cabin. She didn’t speak, but a small, deliberate nod passed between them.
Jack’s brow furrowed faintly, but he obeyed, stepping toward her. “Miss Mohan,” he said quietly, offering his arm.
The moment his hand was there, steady and warm, Samira understood. Emery was already turning back to Emmett, murmuring something about the ride home, her body angled away. She wasn’t looking at her. Not after last night. Samira’s chest tightened, but she took Jack’s arm. The movement felt mechanical, each step bringing her closer to the door. She told herself not to look back.
She failed.
Emery stood near the hearth, the low fire casting a muted glow over her damp hair and shadowing the fine edges of her face. She was speaking low to her brother, but her eyes flicked to Samira for the briefest moment, quick enough for Samira to know she’d been watching all along.
The cold morning air hit her as Jack led her outside, sharp and startling after the heat of the cabin. She wanted to breathe it in and let it wash everything away, but instead, her lungs still felt full of Emery—her warmth, her scent, the memory of her mouth on hers. And despite the ultimatum she’d given, despite her resolve to protect herself, Samira couldn’t stop the ache in her chest, the quiet, treacherous part of her that still wanted to turn back.
The echo of her own voice came to her again, not sharp this time, but tender in its longing:
If you pull away again, I won’t take you back.
The words held firm in her mind. But as she followed Jack into the gray morning, the space between her and Emery felt heavier than the miles they would ride apart, and far harder to bear.
***
The rain had left the streets slick and glistening, but Emery barely registered the puddles soaking through the hem of her skirts. Her boots were damp, her riding coat clung uncomfortably to her arms, and her hair, pinned without care, was already falling loose around her face. She hadn’t stopped to change. She hadn’t stopped to think.
She’d left the Walsh townhouse as if fleeing a fire, though the only thing chasing her was the thundering in her own chest. She walked fast at first, then faster, until she was nearly running down the length of two streets. Somewhere between Grosvenor Square and the corner of Curzon Street, she thought of turning back. Instead, she pushed on, breath sharp and uneven, every step pushing her further into a decision she wasn’t sure she’d made.
When the butler at Lord Abbott’s Mayfair townhouse opened the door, his eyes widened at the sight of her. “Viscountess Walsh—”
“Is he in?” she said, the words clipped, urgent. She didn’t wait for the answer before stepping inside, leaving the damp and the street noise behind.
She heard his footsteps before she saw him. Abbott appeared at the end of the hall, his waistcoat unbuttoned, shirt sleeves rolled as though she’d dragged him from a half-finished task. He stopped short at the sight of her, brow knitting. “Emery. You look—”
“Don’t.” Her voice was too sharp. “Don’t say it.”
He took her in for a moment, then let out a low hum. “Then come in before you frighten the neighbors.”
She followed him into the sitting room, the warmth from the small fire brushing her damp cheeks. She stayed standing, hands twisting together so hard her knuckles ached. The words broke free before she could brace herself.
“I need you to marry her.”
Jack straightened from where he’d been leaning against the mantle. “I beg your pardon?”
“Samira,” she said, too fast, like if she slowed down she’d choke on the name. She moved toward the fire, staring at the flames as if they could burn the images in her head away, the feel of Samira’s skin under her hands, the sound of her voice in the dark. “You’ve taken an interest in her. You’re respected, trusted. You could protect her. You could give her everything I—” Her voice wavered, breath hitching. “Everything I cannot.”
Jack said nothing at first. The silence swelled until it felt unbearable.
When he spoke, his voice was slow, careful. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
She turned toward him, every muscle tight. “I love her.” The admission came out ragged, breaking open something in her chest. “And I will ruin her if I stay near her. You’ve seen what this world does to women like—” She stopped herself, pressing a shaking hand to her brow. “She deserves safety. A future. Not the… shadow of a woman I’ve become.”
His gaze softened, though there was steel beneath it. “And you think that future is me?”
“You’d be kind to her. You’d keep her from harm. That’s all that matters.”
Jack gave a short, incredulous laugh. “That is not all that matters, and you know it.” He crossed the room, stopping just short of her. “You’re asking me to marry a woman who is in love with you. Do you realize how absurd that is?”
Her throat worked, but no answer came.
“I won’t marry Samira, Emery. Not because she isn’t remarkable—she is—but because you’re trying to give her away like she’s a burden you can’t carry. You’re not unfit for her. You’re terrified . And you’d rather hand her to someone else than face that fear.”
Her breathing was uneven now, fingers curling into her palms. She could feel her pulse in her temples, hear the faint roar of the storm still lingering somewhere beyond the city. The room seemed to shrink around her. The warmth of the fire pressed against her skin, but the cold inside her wouldn’t thaw. She had come here to act, to fix something, but all she’d done was reveal the depth of her own fear. She hated it.
Jack watched her for a moment longer, studying her in that maddening way that made her feel both exposed and seen, then moved to the sideboard. “You look like you could use a drink,” he said, already pouring.
“I feel like I could use five,” Emery muttered, the corner of her mouth twitching despite herself.
It drew the faintest smile from him, wry, brief, but real. He handed her a glass, and when their fingers brushed there was that familiar spark of an old, wordless understanding. The kind forged through years of shared company, shared silences, and most of all: shared grief.
She took a long swallow, the burn a steadying weight in her chest, and found herself glancing toward the decanter. “Still the same brandy,” she murmured. “Nicholas used to swear it was too sweet.”
Jack lowered himself into the chair opposite her, his own glass resting loosely in one hand. “And yet you’re drinking it.”
“I’ve learned to adapt,” she replied, though the words lacked their intended bite.
The mention of Nicholas hung between them for a moment, settling into the quiet. The fire popped softly in the grate, filling the pause. Outside, carriage wheels rattled faintly over slick cobblestones, and somewhere in the street, a vendor called out in the damp morning air.
“He hated this brandy,” Jack said at last, his gaze fixed on the amber swirl in his glass. “But he’d drink it anyway if it was all we had. Said it was better to drink bad brandy with good company than good brandy alone.”
A pang went through her, sharp and tender all at once. She could see Nicholas in her mind’s eye, leaning back in this very chair, long legs stretched toward the fire, that easy smile tugging at his mouth. He had been so at home here, as though Abbott’s house was his own.
“I miss him,” Emery said quietly, the words tasting strange in her mouth, as though they should be said to him, not about him.
“I do too.” Jack’s voice was softer now, stripped of its usual sharp edges. “You know, sometimes I still expect him to walk through that door and tell me I’m doing something wrong with the horses.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Or that you’ve worked yourself into another corner and need me to come drag you out of it.”
Emery let out a breath that felt almost like a laugh, though it caught halfway. “He would have hated all of this. The way I keep making a mess of things.”
“He wouldn’t have thought you’d made a mess,” Jack said firmly. “He wanted you to have a full life. And he’d have wanted you to live it with someone who made you happy.”
The words pressed hard against the wall she’d been holding up since the cabin, since the moment she’d felt Samira’s gaze on her across the firelight. She took another sip, staring into her glass as if the answer might be there. She thought of Samira’s face that morning, the raw steadiness in her voice when she’d laid out her ultimatum. She thought of how she had looked back, knowing they were already being pulled apart.
Emery finished the rest of her brandy in one swallow, the heat chasing the chill in her bones, and set the glass aside.
***
The quiet of the Mohan townhouse was deceiving. Samira had barely stepped across the threshold when her mother’s voice rang sharp from the top of the stairs.
“Samira.”
It was not a question. The syllables landed heavy, final, dragging her to stillness in the middle of the hall. She looked up, rain-slick skirts clinging to her ankles, and found Lady Mohan waiting, her face pale and severe in the lamplight. Her mother descended one step at a time, composed as always, though her hand clenched tight on the rail as if to steady herself.
“You were gone the entire night. No word. No maid. No escort. And now the whispers have begun already. Do you understand what you have done?”
Samira’s throat was dry, but she forced the words out. “Yes, Mother. I understand perfectly.”
“Do you?” Lady Mohan’s voice sharpened, though a tremor threaded beneath it. “I thought we agreed that those… feelings for the Viscountess could only place you in danger. Did you think at all of the shame? For yourself, for me—for your father’s name, which you risk dragging through the mud?”
The mention of him cut deeper than any reprimand. For a moment, Samira saw her father’s face: stern, yes, but always kind, always warm when he turned to her. She remembered the year after his death, the way grief had wrapped itself around the house like ivy, climbing, choking. She had carried the family’s name as though it were a relic. She had agreed to her mother’s demands, to the Season, to being paraded in silks and jewels before men she could not stomach, because she thought it was her duty. Because she thought if she faltered, she would be failing him.
But standing here now, damp and aching from the storm, she knew the truth.
“Appa would never wish this on me.” Samira said, her voice hardening. “ He would despise it.”
Her father had always wanted her to be bold, to speak her mind, to follow the thing that made her heart alight. He would never want her to barter her happiness for a hollow sense of honor.
“I don’t want this life,” Samira pressed on. “The dances, the endless teas, the courtship rituals that feel like negotiations.”
“You’re a Mohan,” her mother snapped. “It is not just about you. You carry a name. A reputation.”
“I am not a reputation,” Samira shot back, louder now. “I am a person. I want to practice medicine. I want to use the education Appa fought for me to have.”
Her mother’s lips pressed into a thin, furious line. “And what of the Viscountess? Do you mean to throw away everything for a passing fancy?”
“It is not a fancy.” Samira’s voice cracked, but she steadied it. “And it is not yours to name. My future is mine. I will not spend another season pretending to hunt for something I do not want.”
Her mother stood very still, her eyes unreadable. “You love her,” she said at last, not a question but something between awe and horror.
“Yes.” Samira stepped forward. “But this is not just about her. All season, you’ve told me how I must act. Who I must speak to. How to be more… palatable.” Her voice wavered, but she didn’t back down. “I listened. I played the part. But I’m done, Amma. When the Season ends, I am going back to Oxford whether the Viscountess wants me or not. I am going to finish my studies as I always should have. I know what society will say, what they already whisper. But I will not spend my life shrinking for their approval.”
For a moment, her mother faltered. Her hand slackened against the banister, and her gaze softened with something that looked like grief. “You are my only child,” she whispered. “Everything rests on you.”
“Why do you keep saying that? If you truly loved me—”
“Is that what this is about?” her mother cut in, incredulous. “You think I do not love you?”
The silence stretched, thick as the storm-clouds still rolling outside. Samira stood in her soaked gown, hair damp and clinging to her neck, trembling with exhaustion and defiance both. Her mother’s face remained stern, but behind her eyes flickered resignation, and something deeper.
Her mother’s shoulders lifted, as if she meant to snap, but then something inside her seemed to break. For a moment she looked smaller. Not defeated, but no longer certain of her footing. “Of course I love you. But this is about more than just what we feel. Your father was the one who let you run. Let you dream. I tried to prepare you for what the world would do to a girl who dreams.”
“I know you did,” Samira said softly. “But I’m not afraid anymore. Not of the world. And not of you.”
Her mother’s gaze flicked back to her face.
“I always knew you loved me,” Samira went on. “You just didn’t know how to love me the way I needed.”
They stared at each other, the silence thick with years of unspoken hurts and misunderstood efforts. Samira’s hands trembled at her sides, but she did not look away.
“I’m not asking for your approval,” she said. “But I need you to know that I will never be safe if I have to be someone I’m not.”
Her mother closed her eyes. For a long moment, she said nothing. The shadows in the room lengthened, drawing dark lines across the silk of her sleeves.
Another pause. Then her mother turned slowly toward the window. “I don’t understand this life you want,” she admitted at last. “Not truly. But I remember how your father looked at you when you spoke of your studies. That pride. That hope. It frightened me.”
Samira’s throat tightened. “You can still protect me, Amma. But not by forcing me to change.”
Her mother looked back at her, really looked, and for the first time there was no lecture in her eyes, no disappointed tilt of the chin. Only something tired. And tender.
“I cannot stop the whispers,” she said quietly. “You know that.”
“Then I will learn to live with them,” Samira answered.
***
After returning from Abbott’s estate, Emery curled into the farthest corner of the drawing room, her body small against the settee, hair unpinned and falling limp across her shoulders. The fire snapped and spat in the grate, but its warmth seemed to stop short of her. She felt cold all the way through. Elizabeth arrived first. Her slippers made no sound against the carpet, yet Emery felt her at once, the familiar gravity of her sister’s presence. She sank onto the cushions beside her, folding her legs beneath her with the ease of a child, though her expression was all grown seriousness.
“Emery,” she murmured, her voice soft, cautious. “Are you alright?”
“I’m not quite sure,” Emery admitted. Her throat rasped with the words.
Elizabeth didn’t press. Instead, she reached across and threaded their fingers together, her grasp firm, anchoring. “This… this is about Miss Mohan, isn’t it?”
Emery kept her eyes fixed on the flames. The truth dragged itself out of her like something heavy. “Yes.”
Before Elizabeth could reply, the door creaked. Emmett stood framed in the threshold, hesitating as though uncertain whether to intrude. His gaze flicked to their joined hands, and whatever words he had rehearsed softened on his tongue. He closed the door quietly behind him and crossed the room.
“I imagine you think I’m here to scold you,” he said, dry as ever.
Emery huffed out a tired laugh, without mirth. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
He didn’t sit. Instead, he leaned against the mantle, the firelight cutting restless shadows across his face. His eyes, however, held something heavier, more difficult to name. “I heard you went to Abbott’s.”
“I did what I thought I had to do,” Emery said. “Now I cannot tell what I am meant to do at all.”
Elizabeth’s grip on her hand tightened. “Whatever it is, you know we stand with you. Always.”
The words landed like a benediction. Emery almost wept at the simplicity of them.
She looked down at her lap, her hands trembling. “I am going to have to let her go. If I truly care for her, if I wish to protect her, then I cannot be selfish. I will not ruin her.”
Emmett pushed away from the mantel with a scoff. “That is absurd.”
“And what of our family?” Emery demanded, lifting her eyes to his. “What of Elizabeth’s future, her prospects? Will I sacrifice them too?”
Elizabeth’s chin lifted, fierce. “I do not give a damn about prospects if it means you must waste your life in misery. Tell her, Emmett.”
Emmett’s sigh was long, weighted, as though pulled from his very bones. “The only true stain on this family’s name has been the way we let you suffer alone. I will not allow it again. Better the Walsh name in tatters than another year watching you hollow yourself out for appearances.”
A bitter laugh scraped its way out of Emery. “I recall a time when you did not speak so boldly.”
Emmett stilled. His expression faltered. “Emery—”
“When you married me off,” she said, her tone sharp as glass. “Do you not remember? When you told me there was no other choice, that I must accept a stranger’s hand and vanish into the countryside for the sake of our precious name?”
Elizabeth’s gaze darted between them, troubled, but neither sibling looked her way. The air in the room had gone taut, stretched thin over years of old wounds.
“Elizabeth,” Emmett said softly, though his eyes never left Emery. “Will you give us a moment?”
Her sister bristled. “I will not—”
Emery gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s alright, Lizzie.”
Elizabeth hesitated, reluctant, but finally rose and slipped toward the door, leaving Emery and Emmett with only the restless crackle of the fire and the storm of memory between them.
Emmett’s voice broke the silence at last, low but edged. “Clearly, you resent me. But do not twist this into cruelty. You know why I did it—because I cared.”
She laughed. A sharp, humorless sound. “Cared for me? Is that what you call it? Handing me over to a stranger before I was old enough to know my own mind?”
Emmett flinched. “It was the only way. You remember what Mother said. What they would have done to you if—”
“If you hadn’t sold me off like a bad debt?” Emery’s voice cracked, and she pressed her palms against her eyes before lowering them again. “Do not dress it up as protection. You did not fight for me. You fought for our name.”
His shoulders stiffened. “I fought for both. You and the family. Nicholas was kind, and—”
“Don’t you dare,” Emery cut in, her voice rising as she stood. “Do not use Nicholas to soften what you did. I loved him in time. I found a connection with him that surprised even me. But that does not absolve you. That does not erase the fact that when I was most desperate, when I was shamed and frightened, you looked at me and saw only duty.”
Emmett’s composure faltered, his eyes storm-dark. “And what would you have had me do, Emery? Stand idle while they tore you apart? Watch as you were cast out with no fortune, no protection, no future?”
“Yes!” she snapped. “I would rather you had stood with me. That you had fought with me, instead of bartering me away like a pawn. Do you know what it is, Emmett, to live each day feeling that shame still claw at you? To wonder if your own brother could not bear the scandal of who you truly were?”
The words landed heavy. For a moment, only the fire answered, spitting sparks into the dim air.
Emmett stepped closer, his voice rough. “I did it because I love you. Because I thought—no, because I knew —that if I did not, you would be destroyed. You think I cared for the family name more than you, but that is not true. I cared for your survival.”
Emery shook her head, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. “Survival is not the same as living, Emmett.”
He faltered, chest rising and falling with the weight of her words. She could see the regret etched into his face, deep lines carved by choices made long ago.
“Emery,” he said quietly, almost pleading now. “I would give anything to undo your pain. Anything.”
But she could not stop the bitterness from rising, even through the ache. “Then you should have given that fight when I needed you most.”
Emery’s words still hung in the air, sharp as shards of glass. Emmett didn’t move for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the fire. When he finally spoke, his voice was stronger, but it carried the weight of something deliberate. “You resent me for giving you away,” he said. “You think I chose the family’s name over you. But tell me, Emery—what is it you are doing now?”
She froze, lips parting, but no sound came.
“You love Miss Mohan,” he pressed, eyes meeting hers. “I’ve seen it. Anyone with eyes can see it. And yet what do you do? You push her away. You talk of setting her up with Abbott, of giving her to another man because you think it will keep her safe. Because you believe she will be ruined by being with you. Do you not hear yourself?”
Emery’s breath caught, indignation rising, but so too did the sting of recognition. “It is not the same.”
“Is it not?” His tone sharpened, though his expression was almost sorrowful. “When scandal loomed over you, I thought the only way to protect you was to bind you to someone who could shield you. I see now what that cost you, and God knows I regret it. But you, Emery—you are walking the very same path. You are willing to break your own heart, and hers, to protect her. To cage her future in the name of safety. Do you not see the resemblance?”
Her chest rose and fell with a ragged breath. The words burrowed under her skin, insistent, undeniable.
“Do you know what I would give,” Emmett went on, softer now, “to undo what I did to you? To give you back the chance to choose for yourself? And yet you would take that choice from her.”
Emery’s hands curled at her sides. She wanted to shout, to refute him, to cling to her fear that Samira was safer without her. But the truth of it, laid bare in Emmett’s words, stung too deeply. The firelight flickered between them, and for the first time, Emery saw not just her older brother, the Marquis, the man who had once controlled her fate—but a reflection of herself.
She could not bear the way Emmett’s words pressed on her chest, pressing and pressing until she thought she might shatter. Her knees felt weak, so she turned away from him and lowered herself onto the settee again.
Emery bent forward, pressing her hands hard to her eyes, trying to keep the tears from spilling. She hated this—hated how easily her brother could unravel her, how he had always been the one to make the decisions, to stand taller, to speak louder. She had told herself for years that she didn’t care, that she had built her own armor out of wit and distance and carefully chosen vices. But sitting here now, she felt like the same girl she had been a decade ago: scared, reckless, caught.
Her voice came raw when she finally dropped her hands. “I want her,” Emery whispered, as though the confession might combust if spoken too loud. “God help me, Emmett, I want her more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. And I cannot seem to stop, no matter how I try.”
The words hung between them, and in saying them she felt both lighter and unbearably exposed.
Emmett’s hand tightened on the mantle. His eyes softened as though he’d been waiting for her to speak the truth out loud. “Then stop trying.”
She almost laughed, bitter and short. “The scandal—”
“The scandal will not go away,” he said, cutting her off, his voice firm but not cruel. “It never does. Not yours, not anyone’s. The ton thrives on whispers. You could live like a nun and they would still find a way to stain your name.”
The words made her chest constrict. How many years had she bent her life into unnatural shapes to avoid those whispers? How many times had she sacrificed pieces of herself to appease them? She thought of that dreadful season, of the woman whose name she no longer allowed herself to say aloud. She thought of Nicholas: kind, careful Nicholas, how she had grown to care for him, but how that love had always been a soft thing, born of necessity, never the wildfire she now carried in her chest for Samira.
Her hands shook in her lap. Was she truly about to let fear dictate her again?
Her throat closed, because she had spent half her life letting it rule her. She thought of Samira’s voice in the dark cabin, sharp and trembling with defiance, saying she would not survive if Emery pulled away again. She thought of the heat of Samira’s mouth, the firelight tangled in her hair, the sight of her asleep with her cheek pillowed against Emery’s shoulder. Emery had known desire before, countless times—but this was different. This was love, and it terrified her.
Her voice cracked when she whispered, “And if it ruins her?”
Emmett’s eyes softened further, and for once he did not speak as Marquis, only as brother. “Then let her decide if you are worth the ruin. Do not decide for her, as I once did for you.”
The words cut like a blade, but they also lodged deep in her heart. For a moment, Emery could scarcely breathe. He was right. She had spent so long resenting him for the way he had shipped her off, for deciding her future without her say. She had buried that resentment under reason, under gratitude, under the years of knowing that Nicholas had been better to her than most men could have ever been. And yet it had never left her.
And now here she was, standing on the edge of doing the same thing to Samira. Smothering her choice beneath the weight of Emery’s fear.
Her breath shuddered as she bowed her head, clutching the arm of the chaise as though to anchor herself. “I want her more than anything,” she admitted again, louder this time, as though daring the world to hear.
Emmett straightened, but his voice gentled. “Then perhaps you’ve already made your choice. The rest… the rest is just noise.”
Emery sat back against the chaise, the words echoing in her chest. Noise. That was what it had been all along: the whispers, the stares, the endless prattle of the ton. She had let it coil itself around her throat for years, had let it guide her steps into exile, into silence, into a life half-lived. Nicholas had given her kindness, yes, but she had never stopped mourning the part of herself she’d been forced to bury to survive.
And now, here was Samira: bright, unyielding, fearless in ways Emery had never dared—and she was on the brink of doing the same thing again: offering her love up on the altar of fear. She thought of how alive she felt when Samira looked at her, how utterly seen. And for the first time, Emery let herself believe that perhaps she did not have to choose between duty and desire. Perhaps the noise would never stop, but perhaps it was not her task to silence it.
Only to stop listening.
***
The Queen’s Ball glittered brighter than any event before it, the pinnacle of the Season. Every guest knew it—the final triumph, the last chance to be seen, to be chosen, to secure a match that would set tongues wagging for the year to come. Samira moved through the grand entry with steady composure, though her stomach roiled beneath her corset.
The chandeliers above shimmered with hundreds of candles, crystal pendants scattering light into jeweled shards across the marble floor. The air was heavy with perfume, a mix of roses, violets, and the faint musk of so many bodies pressed into one gilded space. Music floated over it all, violins and cellos threading an elegant waltz that drew couples to the floor in sweeping arcs of silk and satin.
Whispers followed Samira as she entered, not hushed enough to escape her ears.
A small cluster of young lords bowed low as she passed, each vying for the privilege of a dance. “Miss Mohan, your card, if you would be so generous—” one began, only to be cut short by her poised refusal.
“I am already accounted for, my lord,” she said smoothly, with a polite dip of her head.
Another pressed forward, more insistent. “Surely you could spare just one? It would be the highest honor.”
Samira’s smile did not falter. “You flatter me too much. Perhaps later.”
And so it went: suitors one after another, and Samira waving them off with soft but decisive refusals.
Do not look for her. She repeated the mantra in her mind with every step she took further into the ballroom. Do not hope. Do not embarrass yourself by hoping.
But her body betrayed her. Her eyes, restless things, swept the crowd as if drawn by a string, past gentlemen in immaculate coats, past ladies in glittering gowns, searching for a familiar silhouette. She knew the folly of it. Emery Walsh had not been at the last ball. She had been absent at several gatherings since the masquerade. It was foolish, dangerous, to imagine that she would appear now, here, of all places.
The music swelled, violins soaring, and she fixed her eyes on the floor. The marble gleamed, patterned in pale and dark stone, steady where her thoughts were not. She breathed, deep and deliberate, as if she could anchor herself to that cold, hard surface. She had endured all manner of suffocating teas, of endless dances with men she could not abide, of whispered speculation behind every fluttering fan. She had endured it all for months, because she believed she must. She would endure this too. Even if Emery never came.
The music crested, chandeliers blazing above, when the murmurs near the entrance swelled. Samira’s pulse tripped against her ribs before she even turned. There she was.
Emery.
The crowd seemed to part almost instinctively, as though even the crush of silks and jewels acknowledged her presence. Emery stepped into the ballroom with the composed grace Samira remembered all too well, though her jaw was tauter tonight, her eyes cutting through the throng with quiet intensity. She wore midnight blue, the kind of dark that drank the light from the candles and gave it back as subtle gleam along the fitted lines of her gown.
Samira’s breath hitched, chest tightening beneath her stays. She told herself not to move, not to stare, but her body betrayed her. Her head lifted, her eyes sought. She could not help it.
Emery’s gaze swept the ballroom once, twice, and then landed on her.
For a suspended heartbeat, the music, the laughter, the perfume-thick air, all of it fell away. There was only that look, that recognition across the span of dancers and watchers and whisperers. Emery’s expression softened, if only for a flicker, something unguarded breaking through the careful reserve she wore like armor. Samira’s fingers curled against the silk of her skirts, nails biting the fabric. She wanted to run to her, to fling propriety to the wind. Instead she stood rooted, the training of a lifetime chaining her in place.
Around them, the waltz continued. A pair of ladies giggled as they passed. A lord whispered to his companion behind a fan. Somewhere, Samira’s mother watched like a hawk. But none of it mattered. Emery had come. And she was looking only at her. For a suspended moment, the crowd blurred, the swirl of gowns and coats, the fluttering fans, the glimmer of jewels, everything dimmed, leaving only that gaze. Then the world snapped back, and Samira’s pulse urged her forward. She took one step.
And immediately, a cluster of lords stepped into her path, bowing low, each angling for her card. “Miss Mohan—” one began, but Samira only gave the barest incline of her head, already angling her body past them.
Across the marble, Emery had started forward too. But an older dowager intercepted her, catching her hand in both of hers with delighted exclamation. Emery smiled politely, said something Samira could not hear, and with a subtle bow extricated herself, eyes flicking back to Samira all the while.
Samira moved again, weaving between couples. Her skirts brushed against velvet sleeves, jewels caught the light at the corner of her vision. A young lord, emboldened, reached to touch her arm. “One dance, Miss—”
She pulled back before contact, her smile sharp. “Forgive me, my lord. I am expected.”
Emery’s path was blocked again, this time by two gentlemen offering greetings, all grins and hearty clasps at her shoulders. She endured it with visible strain, her head tilting to catch sight of Samira over their shoulders. They kept walking, halting, walking again. Each interruption another cruel delay. Each step bringing them closer. Samira’s breath came quick, her body taut as a bowstring. She skirted the edge of the dancers, the waltz spinning dangerously near. Emery did the same from the other side, their lines converging with every beat of the music. At last, as if fate tired of toying with them, the current of guests parted. The space opened between them like the sudden hush of a stage curtain lifting.
They stopped a mere pace apart.
For a heartbeat, neither spoke. The violins swirled around them, chandeliers blazing overhead, but Samira saw only the faint flush high on Emery’s cheeks, the tightness at her jaw. Emery’s eyes swept her face, searching, softening, undoing her entirely.
Samira’s lips parted, the whisper breaking free before she could stop it. “You came.”
Emery’s voice was low, almost lost beneath the music. “Of course I did.”
For a heartbeat, the noise of the ballroom blurred into nothing but the sight of her. Emery stood just a few steps away, dark hair catching the shimmer of a thousand candles, her face drawn tight with something fierce and unguarded. No mask of composure, no polite distance. Only want. Only resolve.
Samira’s lips parted, but no words came. She remembered her ultimatum, her warning that she would not survive another rejection, and braced herself for whatever this moment would be. Emery moved first. She crossed the final distance, stopping close enough that Samira could feel the warmth of her body, close enough that propriety snapped like a thread. The ballroom churned around them, lords and ladies gliding past in their jeweled silks, but Emery looked only at her.
“I have been a coward,” she began, voice rough with urgency. “I have spent this entire Season pushing you away, telling myself it was for your safety, that if I denied what I felt, the world could not use it to harm you.” She shook her head, almost a laugh but edged with pain. “But all I did was harm you myself. And I cannot bear it any longer.”
Samira’s breath caught. “Emery—”
“No. Let me say this.” Emery’s hand trembled at her side, as if resisting the urge to reach for her. “I’m afraid, Samira. Afraid of what they will say, of what scandal might come. But most of all, I’m afraid of losing you. That is what I cannot bear.”
The orchestra swelled into another waltz, violins sighing, cellos thrumming beneath. Candlelight fractured across Emery’s features, gilding her eyes as she went on:
“You are what I want. You, despite the whispers, despite my own cowardice, despite every warning I told myself. I want you.” Her voice softened, almost broke. “I cannot give you a spotless name or an easy life. But I can give you the truth. I would rather face ruin at your side than endure one more night without you.”
Samira’s throat tightened painfully. She searched Emery’s face, waiting for the telltale flinch, the retreat she had seen too many times before. But there was none. Only steady fire.
“And if you pull away again?” she whispered, her voice sharp with the last of her fear.
Emery did not hesitate. “I won’t. Not again. If the price of wanting you is every scandal in London, I will pay it.”
The air between them crackled, charged with everything unsaid all Season. Samira’s pulse thundered as she whispered back. “Then take my hand in front of everyone here. Let them all see.”
At last, Emery reached for her, their fingers twining boldly, brazenly, in full view of the Queen’s ballroom. A murmur rippled through the crowd, fans snapped open, whispers hissed across the marble floor, but Samira heard none of it. Only the sure grip of Emery’s hand, the unshakable truth in her gaze.
Emery’s hand slid from Samira’s waist to her back, pressing just enough to draw her closer. The crowd dissolved into blurred silk and muted laughter at the edges of Samira’s vision. There was only the glide of their steps, the warmth of Emery’s palm, the steady anchor of her gaze. Each turn pulled them tighter into orbit, until the space between them was only a breath. Samira could feel the shape of Emery’s body through their layered finery, the curve of her hip against her own, the subtle shift of her chest rising and falling in time with the music.
The music faded into a final lingering chord, and only then did Samira’s senses return to her. She blinked, breath still shallow, and found that Emery’s hand had not loosened on her waist. Nor had she stepped back. They stood almost chest to chest, their foreheads brushing lightly, suspended in a stillness that felt both illicit and sacred.
It was the quiet that struck her first. The absence of footsteps sweeping the floor, of skirts brushing in rhythm. Slowly, as if waking from a dream, she glanced around.
The ballroom had emptied. Dozens of eyes watched from the edges of the floor—ladies half-hidden behind their fans, gentlemen with glasses paused midway to their lips, mothers with their daughters clutched close. Even the Queen’s gaze, cool and inscrutable, lingered from her throne at the far end of the hall. Samira’s stomach flipped. A flush rose from her collarbone to her hairline, though she did not step away. Emery seemed to notice at the same instant; her hand twitched against Samira’s back, as though belatedly remembering propriety, yet she did not drop it.
“They’ve all…” Emery’s voice rasped low, too soft for anyone but Samira to hear. Her throat worked around the words. “They’ve all stopped.”
Samira swallowed hard, her pulse hammering at her temple. “Then let them watch,” she whispered back, surprising herself with the boldness that surged through her chest.
Emery’s grip tightened, her breath faltering. For a heartbeat, the woman who had always been so careful, so restrained, looked utterly undone. Samira caught it, the flash of awe, the nakedness in her eyes, and her chest flooded with warmth.
Samira’s voice was steady even as her pulse raced. “Let them whisper. We’ll outlast every one of them.”
Emery’s eyes closed briefly, as though the weight of those words were too much to bear. When they opened again, they burned. She pulled Samira flush against her, heedless of propriety, and they turned, skirts flaring like wings. Their steps were flawless, but beneath the polished footwork ran a different rhythm, something raw, something that made every glide of her hand down Samira’s spine feel like a vow.
The violins started up again, chandeliers blazed, and the ballroom spun on. But in the center of it all, Emery held her as if nothing else existed, her body pressed close, her heart unguarded at last, the two of them moving together like the world itself had finally given them permission. For a moment, it was just the two of them holding one another upright in the stillness. Then, movement stirred at the edge of the crowd.
Trinity was the first. She seized the hand of a startled young lord, and spun him headlong onto the floor. Her skirts swished as she pulled him into a quick, almost reckless step, and she cast Samira a deliberate wink as she passed. Mischief, yes, but also a banner, unfurled in defiance: You will not stand alone.
Elizabeth followed, practically bursting out of the line of watchers, her smile a ray of sunlight in the hushed room. She dragged a partner by the wrist, pulling him into the waltz with more enthusiasm than grace, her skirts fanning bright arcs across the polished marble. Her eyes found Emery for a heartbeat, and there was no judgment in them—only joy.
Victoria was next. Composed, regal, her every step purposeful. She glided forward as though to remind them all that dignity and rebellion were not opposites, that a woman could move with elegance and still choose her own defiance. She dipped into the current of the dance, despite her mother’s protests, and held her head high.
And then… others. A trickle becoming a stream. One couple after another slipped onto the floor, filling the space around them. Some did so with determination, others with hesitation, but still they came. Young lords and ladies, friends and strangers alike, until the silence broke fully, until the floor was no longer a stage for Samira and Emery alone, but a sea of motion and music. The dance floor had filled again, music swelling back into brilliance, and Samira felt her lungs expand with the first real breath she had taken all night. Emery’s hand was warm against her waist, her touch grounding, but it was the sight of others, their friends, their allies, spinning around them that steadied her most of all.
Then the hush shifted. Not silence, but a ripple, a wave parting through the crowd as eyes lifted toward the dais.
The Queen had risen.
Her jeweled fan tapped lightly against her palm as she surveyed the scene: the couples swirling, the Diamond of the Season dancing not with the son of a duke nor the heir of a viscount, but with the widow Walsh, whose name had been whispered with pity and scandal both. For one breathless moment, all of London seemed to hold its breath, waiting for her decree.
Samira’s fingers tightened in Emery’s. She knew what was at stake, what a single raised brow, a single sharp word from the Queen could mean for them both.
But then, instead of summoning her guards or delivering some barbed remark, the Queen’s eyes, sharp and assessing, lingered on Samira, then on Emery. And then, to Samira’s astonishment, the Queen’s mouth curved, ever so slightly, into the faintest smile. Not broad, not indulgent, but measured, regal, as though she alone understood the courage it had taken to stand in the center of that floor together. After a heartbeat, her gaze drifted away again as she sank back into her chair, leaving the moment to shimmer between them.
The effect was immediate, if quiet. A ripple, almost invisible, passed through the onlookers nearest the dais. Fans lowered, conversations faltered, and a few courtiers exchanged wide-eyed glances. No one spoke it aloud, no one dared, but every soul in the room knew what that smile meant. It was not condemnation. It was not dismissal. It was, in its own restrained way, approval.
Relief shimmered through Samira, though she did not let herself exhale too loudly, afraid it would break the fragile spell. But then—her mother.
Lady Mohan stood near the edge of the dance floor, posture as rigid as carved marble. Samira braced herself for the sharp tilt of her chin, the narrowing of eyes, the flare of disapproval that had so often followed her throughout the Season. She almost turned away, unable to bear it.
And then, surprisingly, her mother inclined her head. A gesture as small as the Queen’s own, but no less profound. Samira’s breath caught. It was not full approval, not yet. But it was not rejection either. It was an acknowledgment that perhaps the world had not ended after all.
Her hand trembled in Emery’s, and when Emery squeezed it gently, Samira let her tears brim without shame. She pressed closer into the dance, letting herself believe that maybe, just maybe, they had both won more than they had ever dared to hope.
***
The garden air was cooler than the ballroom, damp with dew and the faint perfume of roses. Emery barely felt it; her pulse was still running wild from the dance, from the choice she had finally made and the eyes of the ton fixed on them as she did it. Her hand was still linked with Samira’s, and she kept it that way, unwilling to let go even in the shadows. They had stepped out of the blaze of chandeliers and music into lantern-light and silence, yet the echoes of the ballroom clung to her, faces craning, fans fluttering, whispers like ripples in a pond.
Her instinct should have been dread. For years, fear had been the air she breathed—fear of being seen, of being named, of being ruined all over again. And yet, walking here with Samira at her side, what astonished her most was the absence of panic. The world had not collapsed beneath her feet. No guards had dragged her from the floor, no shame had struck her down. The violins had not faltered. If anything, the music had swelled.
She glanced sideways. Samira looked radiant even in the dim light, her gown still catching glints of silver where the moon touched it, her face flushed with triumph and something softer, something meant only for Emery. That expression struck harder than the Queen’s approval, harder than the supportive nods of friends who had joined them. Emery realized with a sudden, almost dizzy clarity that she had never known what it felt like to stand in the center of the fire and not burn.
For weeks she had avoided this moment, convincing herself it was safer to step aside, to urge Samira toward safer hands. Safer futures. Men who could give her protection, titles, an easy path. Emery had told herself that was love: sacrifice. But standing here now, the lie of it burned on her tongue.
“Everyone will be talking about this,” Emery said at last, her voice unsteady. “We will no doubt be the subject of the post come morning.”
The silence between them was heavy, filled with the rustle of leaves and the rush of her own pulse. She remembered the way Samira had smiled at her across crowded rooms, the way her laughter lingered in Emery’s bones longer than it had any right to. She remembered the sting of pushing her away, the hollow it left behind.
“And yet I cannot seem to regret it,” Emery went on. “I’ve spent so long terrified of whispers, of being reduced to nothing more than scandal. But tonight—” Her chest tightened; she pressed a hand against her sternum as though she could hold herself together. “Tonight the whispers feel worth it.”
Samira’s eyes searched her face, quiet but unyielding. “What are you trying to tell me, Emery?”
“I love you, Samira. From the moment you spoke back to those ghastly lords with a smile that could slice marble. I loved you when you danced with every suitor I suggested and looked for me in the crowd instead.” Emery’s smile wavered, trembling at the edges, more ache than joy. “I have fought it, denied it, buried it beneath every excuse I could summon. I told myself it was impossible, that it would ruin us both. And still—here you stand. And still, I love you. I cannot stop. I do not want to stop. I would burn before I let it be torn from me.”
For a heartbeat, Samira was utterly still, as though the confession had struck her dumb. Then the change came, blooming across her face like dawn breaking after the longest night. Her lips parted in a breathless laugh, as if she could scarcely believe she had truly heard the words. Her eyes shone, dark irises wide and wet with unshed tears, and the smile that curved her mouth was uncontainable, too large for courtly composure, too radiant to be anything but joy.
Samira lifted a hand to Emery’s cheek, her touch light and reverent. “You have carried this alone too long,” she whispered. “But you are not alone now. I do not care who whispers, who turns away. I love you, Emery. And I choose you. Not because it is easy, but because it is true. And I would rather have one honest life with you than lifetimes of pretense without you.”
And Emery, undone by her, could no longer resist. She reached for her—like the world itself might fall apart if she didn’t. Their lips met, soft and breathless at first, the kind of kiss built from weeks of restraint. Then deeper. Fiercer. Emery’s hands cradled Samira’s face. Samira’s fingers curled into Emery’s waist.
The kiss broke past the careful edges of composure and became a torrent, desperate and consuming. Emery tilted her head, claiming Samira’s mouth as though she’d been starving for it, and in truth, she had. Samira pressed back with equal fervor, answering every pull with her own, her lips parting to let Emery taste her fully, sweet and intoxicating. The world narrowed to heat and breath and the press of their bodies. Emery’s thumbs stroked Samira’s damp cheeks, reverent even in their urgency, while Samira clutched at her like she might vanish if she let go.
When Emery finally tore herself back, it was only for air. Their foreheads touched, both of them gasping, trembling. But the distance was unbearable; Samira’s soft gasp was still warm against her mouth, and Emery dragged her in again, kissing her like prayer, like surrender, like promise . Samira moaned into her lips, the sound so unguarded it sent a shiver down Emery’s spine. One hand slid into Samira’s hair, tangling there, holding her fast. Samira’s own fingers dug into the fabric at Emery’s waist, bunching it tight, anchoring them together as though they could fuse into one.
Every kiss grew more reckless, more urgent, until Emery was half afraid of herself, afraid of the sheer depth of feeling pouring out of her, fierce as wildfire. But Samira only met her hunger with her own, answering it, welcoming it, as if she had been waiting all her life for this surrender.
When they broke again, both of them breathless, Emery’s voice was a hoarse whisper against her lips: “If I am to fall, let it be like this. With you. Always with you.”
And in Samira’s answering smile—dazed, radiant, her lips swollen and shining—Emery saw not ruin, not scandal, but salvation.
***
The tree loomed dark against the starlit sky, rough bark pressing cool and solid at her back, but all Samira could feel was Emery. Emery’s arm braced firm beside her head, her other hand sliding to her waist, claiming her with a force that made Samira’s pulse race. She was pinned, not in fear but in the kind of helplessness she had craved for weeks, Emery’s body crushing into hers as though closeness itself might be proof of what words had already confessed.
Samira’s breath caught, spilling out in a shiver as her head tipped back against the trunk. Emery’s mouth was on her again: hungry, unrestrained. This was no careful courtly kiss, no polite brush of lips meant to be forgotten. This was wildfire . Their teeth knocked, lips parted, and Samira met her with equal fervor, clutching desperately at Emery’s shoulders, dragging her nearer still, terrified she might be snatched away if she let go for even a heartbeat.
The scrape of bark burned faintly through her silk, grounding her even as the rest of her spun loose. Emery’s mouth left hers only long enough to trail down the fragile line of her throat, each kiss hot, urgent, dizzying. Samira felt the press of lips against the hollow beneath her ear, the brush of teeth grazing her pulse, the lingering taste of salt and rosewater claimed from her skin. A sharp gasp escaped her, her hands flying to Emery’s hair, fingers tangling deep, desperate to keep her there. Her head tipped back against the tree, offering more, and when another sound, a helpless whimper, tore from her throat, she felt Emery shudder in response, as if the noise itself had set her alight.
“Please,” Samira breathed, the word tumbling from her lips without thought, fractured and urgent. The instant it left her, she knew it had undone them both.
Emery’s kisses grew rougher, hungrier. They marked a path down her neck, along the sharp line of her collarbone, lower still, until Samira felt the brush of lips and breath across the swell of her chest where her bodice strained between them. Fabric shifted, tugged by trembling hands, not torn but demanded, desperate for skin beneath.
“I want you,” Emery’s voice broke against her, lips brushing where her gown had slipped askew. “I want to feel you, I want—”
Samira’s answer was no words, only a soft, wrecked moan that rose from the pit of her chest, her nails dragging lightly down Emery’s back through layers of gown and corset, urging her closer, needing her nearer still. Every nerve in Samira’s body felt aflame, and the sound that tore from her seemed to vibrate between them, as if Emery’s very bones could feel her need.
Emery’s hand slid lower, rucking up Samira’s skirts until cool night air rushed against her thighs. Her other hand palmed her breast, even through the confining corsetry, her thumb brushing the hardened peak until Samira gasped. Then—lower still. Fingers found her wet and ready, slipping through the heat of her folds with such ease it wrenched a broken cry from Samira’s lips.
It had haunted her for days, this touch. She had relived the cabin a thousand times in fevered memory, chasing the phantom of Emery’s hands when sleep would not come. Now, with those fingers truly upon her again, the ache was unbearable. She needed more. Needed her closer, deeper, without the barrier of silks and stays, but she would settle for this.
Emery swallowed her moans with another kiss, hot and bruising, as her fingers found Samira’s clit and circled with merciless precision. Samira was so slick that Emery could scarcely gain purchase, her palm already damp from the flood of her arousal. She set a rhythm, slow and sure at first, then sharper, crueler in its sweetness, sliding from swollen peak down to her entrance and back again, over and over until Samira was trembling against the tree.
All Samira could do was grind down on those fingers, desperate to draw them closer still. Her skirts bunched uselessly at her hips, her legs straining for space. She bent one knee up, trying to open herself further, and Emery caught the movement, hooking her free hand beneath Samira’s thigh, pressing her more firmly into the bark.
“Inside,” Samira whimpered, her voice shattered with want as she bucked helplessly against her. “Inside, please.”
Emery didn’t tease. She groaned into Samira’s mouth and thrust two fingers deep within her, sliding home in one smooth, devastating motion. Samira cried out, throwing her head back against the tree, her lips parted in an unrestrained moan. Emery’s hand worked her without mercy, fingers driving into her with abandon, the heel of her palm grinding her clit with every thrust. Samira’s own hands tore at her, one fisted in Emery’s hair, ruining the elegant updo, the other clutching desperately at her back. She couldn’t get her close enough, she wanted her fused to her, wanted to be consumed until nothing remained but this fire between them.
Every sensation blurred together: the scrape of bark through thin silk, the scent of roses and sweat on Emery’s skin, the low groans in her ear, the unbearable pleasure gathering tighter and tighter in her belly. Shame pricked at her, shame that they stood here, half-undone, in the Queen’s garden, fresh from defying the ton to their faces, but it was drowned almost instantly by need. No whispers could stop her now.
“Samira…” Emery’s voice broke against her skin, lips grazing the swell of her breast where her bodice had slipped. “Do you know what you do to me?”
Her answer was another ragged moan, a noise so raw it might have shamed her if she were capable of thought. Her nails dug harder into Emery’s back, pulling her closer, wordless in her plea for more. Emery curled her fingers inside her, again and again, finding that spot that made Samira see stars behind her eyelids. Her rhythm grew relentless, each thrust harder, deeper, her palm catching her clit with unbearable friction. Samira ground down on her hand, chasing the pressure until her thighs shook, her entire body quaking from the effort of standing.
Her breath came fast and broken against Emery’s neck, hot and damp as she gasped, “Emery—I’m close.”
Emery groaned, the sound guttural, as if she too were on the brink. “I know.”
That was all it took. Samira’s climax broke over her like a storm, stealing her breath, buckling her knees. She folded forward into Emery’s body, clutching her desperately as her hips jerked, Emery’s fingers never faltering, driving her through the crashing waves of pleasure. Every aftershock wracked her body until she was trembling, shaking helplessly against her, her breath escaping in wild, uneven bursts. Emery kissed along her throat, teeth grazing the tender spot below her ear, holding her tight as if she could anchor her through the storm. And when Samira began to still, Emery’s hand slipped free only to tease lightly across her swollen clit, making her jolt, every nerve too raw, too undone.
Samira was still trembling, her breath ragged and uneven, when Emery’s mouth found hers again. The kiss was messy, open-mouthed and gasping, their teeth clashing once before settling into something slower, deeper. Samira clung to her, hands buried in the silk-dark tumble of Emery’s hair, pulling her closer, unwilling to let the world back in just yet.
Samira’s lungs burned, but she didn’t care. She tilted her head, chasing Emery’s mouth, swallowing every sound Emery made. Her own whimpers spilled between them, muffled by the press of lips and tongue. Emery’s hands stayed firm, one cupping her jaw, the other splayed wide at her waist, keeping her pinned to the tree as if she might dissolve without that grounding hold. The air was cool on her overheated skin, night-breeze whispering through the garden, but Emery’s body was all fire, all weight and heat and want. Samira arched into her, kissing her harder, letting herself drown in the taste, the feel, the certainty that this was hers, that Emery was hers.
And for a long while, there was nothing but that: the slide of mouths, the rasp of breath, the unspoken vow carried in every kiss they shared beneath the shadow of the tree.
***
The townhouse was hushed, wrapped in the kind of stillness Emery had always associated with loneliness. Tonight, though, it was different. Tonight, the quiet seemed to cradle her, because Samira was in her arms.
Emery lay on her side, watching her as if she could make up for all the weeks she had spent looking away. Samira’s skin glowed faintly in the firelight, her chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm that Emery found herself matching without thinking. Her hair spilled across the pillow in dark waves, a few curls still damp where Emery’s kisses had traveled down her throat, across her collarbone, further still. She looked both impossibly young and impossibly certain, her lips parted in the softest sighs of sleep.
Her hand slid down, palm warm over the curve of Samira’s hip, tracing idle circles in the linen that covered her. She needed the reassurance of touch, as though Samira might vanish if she let go. Emery’s chest ached with the sharp, unbearable sweetness of it: this woman, so radiant, so brave, was here— hers .
“I can feel your eyes on me,” Samira mumbled, her voice husky, edged with sleep.
Emery smiled despite the sting in her eyes. “Allow me this indulgence, would you?”
Samira tilted her face up, lids heavy but eyes bright, firelight sparking in their depths. And when she smiled, drowsy and knowing, it broke something open in Emery. She kissed her then, unable not to, lips pressing with a tenderness that carried every unsaid word she had locked in her chest. Samira answered with a hum, her hand sliding up to cup Emery’s jaw, thumb brushing her cheek as though she could soothe away years of restraint.
When at last they broke apart, Emery buried her face against Samira’s neck, breathing her in. Rosewater still clung faintly to her skin, mixed now with the salt and musk of their shared desire. Emery closed her eyes, dizzy with the knowledge that she could finally hold her without fear, without hesitation.
This— this had been what she longed for all Season. Not the stolen glances, not the aching restraint, not even the fevered moments when she had let herself believe for a heartbeat that it might be possible. No, it was this: Samira warm in her arms, whispering her name, yielding to her touch and demanding more in the same breath. Emery had wanted this with a desperation that had nearly broken her. And now she had it.
She would not let it go.
***
The embers in the grate pulsed faintly, shadows licking the walls of the chamber. Emery lay on her back, staring at the ceiling beams, listening to the soft rhythm of Samira’s breath against her shoulder. She had shifted too many times already, restless, unable to will herself to sleep. The last thing she wanted was to wake Samira, not when she lay so peacefully here.
At last, with a muted exhale, Emery slipped from the sheets and padded barefoot across the carpet. The night air brushed cool against her bare arms, raising gooseflesh, but her blood ran too hot to care. She paused at the tall window, resting her palm against the chilled glass. London was hushed outside, the rooftops drenched in moonlight, carriages nothing more than a faint rumble in the distance.
And yet her mind wandered backwards: unbidden, unwelcome. The last time she had a woman in her bed, the world had come down around her ears. Stolen kisses, hurried touches, the desperation of a secret too dangerous to keep. The discovery, the scandal, her mother’s cold fury—the quick marriage that followed to bury the shame. She had learned then that desire meant ruin.
Her throat closed tight. She pressed her forehead to the glass, as if the chill might banish the memory. But behind her, Samira shifted faintly in her sleep, a soft sigh spilling from her lips. And Emery turned at once. There she was—Samira. Curled against the pillow, lips faintly parted, the curve of her cheek softened by moonlight. There was no trace of ruin here, no sign of peril. Emery’s chest ached with something sharp, overwhelming, as though she were seeing her for the first time all over again.
This was different.
No stolen, frantic touches in the dark. No shame biting at her heels. Only a love Emery had denied and fought until she nearly broke, and yet here it was, waiting for her all along. The windowpane had gone misted beneath Emery’s forehead by the time she heard the faint rustle behind her. Sheets shifting, a low hum, the kind of sleepy sound that made her chest clench with tenderness.
“Emery?” Samira’s voice was soft, drowsy.
Emery turned. Samira was pushing herself up on one elbow, her eyes heavy-lidded with sleep. She looked nothing like the diamond of the Season now: no jewels, no silks. Only Samira, warm and real, waiting for her.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Emery whispered, suddenly aware of how cold the air felt on her skin compared to the bed they’d shared.
She heard the shift of the sheets and watched as Samira rose from the bed. The candlelight caught her bare skin, gilding every line of her body as though she had been sculpted from light itself. Emery’s throat tightened; she had no defenses left against the sight of her. Samira didn’t hesitate, didn’t falter. She crossed the space between them with the surety of someone who knew exactly what she wanted, and Emery could only stand rooted, her chest tight, her palms damp against the windowsill.
Then Samira was there, close, so close, and she pressed against her. The sudden warmth of her body stole Emery’s breath: the brush of her breasts against her own, the slide of their stomachs, the intimate press of hips aligning. Emery swayed, nearly undone by the sheer, devastating simplicity of it.
Samira’s arms slipped around her waist, pulling her flush, erasing the last space between them. Emery’s hands hovered uselessly for a heartbeat before surrendering, one bracing against Samira’s back, the other tangling low at her hip. She could feel Samira’s heartbeat, fast, steady, real, pulsing through every point of contact until her own seemed to fall in rhythm. When Samira’s lips found her neck, Emery shuddered. A soft kiss, then another, each more deliberate, trailing fire across her skin. She let her head tip back, eyes closing, a sigh breaking from her chest despite her best attempt to smother it.
“Samira…” she whispered, the name tasting like reverence, like disbelief. She had wanted this for so long, starved for it, dreamed of it, and now Samira was here, bare and unguarded, pressed against her as if she belonged nowhere else.
Samira’s lips lingered at the curve of her neck, soft and insistent, as if to draw her away from the night sky and back to where she truly belonged. Emery’s hands trembled where they rested at Samira’s hips, her body taut as a bowstring.
“Come. Let me help you back to sleep,” Samira murmured, the words brushing against her skin like another kiss.
Emery turned her head, just enough to glimpse her in the faint glow of the candle. Samira’s eyes were heavy with sleep but unguarded, full of a warmth that made Emery’s chest ache. She looked as though she had never once doubted Emery’s place beside her, never questioned it, never feared.
“I—” Emery faltered, her throat tight. She wanted to say that she couldn’t sleep, that the world outside their cocoon of satin sheets still pressed too heavily against her. She wanted to confess that she had stood there reliving a past that once burned her, and fearing it might burn her again. But Samira’s body was flush against her own, bare and certain, and the words scattered like ash in her mouth.
Instead, she let herself be led.
Samira’s hands slid up Emery’s back, coaxing rather than tugging, until Emery let go of the windowsill and turned fully into her embrace. Their mouths brushed once, a kiss meant not to consume but to ground. Then Samira stepped back toward the bed, guiding Emery with her.
“Somehow I don’t feel tired anymore,” Emery whispered, an edge of teasing in her voice, though her pulse thundered too fast for jest.
Samira smiled against her lips. “You will.”
The mattress caught them in a tangle of limbs, but before Emery could surrender to its softness, she felt Samira’s fingertips trace up her spine. A shiver raced through her as Samira’s hand flattened against the back of her head, pressing her gently, insistently down until her cheek was buried in the pillow. A knee nudged between her thighs, parting them.
Emery had never been one for surrender. To submit was not in her nature, yet here, beneath Samira’s hands, she melted. No fight left in her. Too weary from the night’s triumph and terrors, too undone by the ghost of this room and the weight of Samira’s body against hers. She yielded without protest, without thought. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as her breasts brushed the bedsheets, the scrape of linen against her skin shocking her into want.
Samira’s fingertips dragged up her inner thigh, slow and deliberate, until they found the wet heat already waiting for her. She stroked with unhurried precision, teasing her folds but never granting the desperate pressure of her clit. Emery’s hands twisted in the sheets, too proud to beg, too wrung out to hide the shallow whimpers escaping her throat. Samira only pressed her further into the pillow, her grip in Emery’s hair firm but tender.
“What happened to helping me sleep?” Emery breathed, her voice frayed with need.
“Shh,” Samira whispered, and Emery felt her fingers slip away only to reappear at her lips, dragging the slick of her own arousal across them. “Get my fingers ready for me.”
Heat flamed through her cheeks as Emery shifted, taking Samira’s fingers into her mouth. She closed her lips around them, tongue swirling, sucking, tasting herself. The act alone nearly undid her—vulnerable, obscene, intimate beyond anything she had allowed herself in years. Samira did not pull away until Emery was trembling, her cheeks flushed and her body taut with want.
“Do you want me to touch you now?” Samira asked, no teasing in her tone, only reverence, only the raw edge of her need to please.
Emery could only nod, helpless, humiliated by the swell of her desire yet unashamed beneath Samira’s gaze. A thin string of spit glistened between them as Samira pulled away, then suddenly, her fingers thrust into Emery, deep and certain. Emery gasped, the sound torn from her chest as her back arched against the sheets.
There was no resistance, only the wet, slick slide of welcome. Samira’s rhythm was merciless, unrelenting, her other hand pressing between Emery’s shoulder blades, holding her down. Emery moaned into the pillow, her hips pushing back in greedy sync, her pride shattering beneath the flood of sensation. And then—
“ Fuck ,” Emery moaned, the word ragged, ripped from her throat as Samira’s wet tongue found her.
Samira laved over her center in long, devastating strokes, each one unraveling her further. The heat of it, the unrelenting pressure, made her buck helplessly against Samira’s mouth, her hands clawing at the sheets as though they might tether her to the earth. Every flick of Samira’s tongue sent shockwaves through her body, pleasure so sharp it bordered on unbearable. Emery’s moans spilled freely now, guttural and unrestrained, as though Samira were pulling them straight from her soul.
Emery’s cries cracked in the night air, muffled only by the pillow beneath her. Fingers and tongue worked in perfect, devastating rhythm, unraveling her inch by inch until she was nothing but need. She tried to stifle her sounds, biting the pillow, but Samira’s name broke through again and again, wrecked and fervent, the only word left in her mouth. When her release hit, it tore through her like lightning, her body bowing, spasming, collapsing back into the mattress as pleasure washed her clean and left her trembling, spent.
At last, Samira slid up beside her, catching Emery’s chin and coaxing her face toward her own. Emery let her, helpless and undone, and their lips met in a kiss that ached. Tongue, teeth, the faint salt of her own desire—every piece of it was sacred. Emery was pliant in Samira’s arms now, every line of her body loose with exhaustion, every breath shallow and uneven. Her cheek rested against the pillow, lashes heavy over half-lidded eyes. She looked utterly ravished and yet strangely fragile, as though the wrong touch might scatter her into smoke.
Samira shifted carefully, easing herself alongside Emery and drawing the covers up over their bare skin. The heat of Samira’s body still radiated against her own, which was slick with sweat and trembling faintly from the aftershocks. Samira’s hand found the curve of her back, stroking in slow, languid circles, coaxing her into stillness.
“You’re safe,” she whispered against the shell of Emery’s ear, pressing a lingering kiss there. “Rest now.”
Emery made a soft, incoherent sound, the faintest hum of contentment, and burrowed closer, her head finding Samira’s chest as though it had always belonged there. Her fingers curled weakly at Samira’s side, not gripping, just holding, as if to make sure she wouldn’t drift away. Samira brushed damp hair from Emery’s face and kissed her temple, her forehead, her closed eyelids. Each kiss was deliberate, unhurried—less passion now, more devotion.
“Sleep, my love,” she breathed again, letting the weight of her voice carry its own lull.
For so long, Emery had trained her body to resist rest, to hold tension even in her sleep, as if vigilance could protect her from disappointment or loss. Yet now, wrapped in Samira’s arms, she felt her breath stumble into a slower rhythm, her muscles slacken beneath a touch that was not demand but devotion. Every time her chest rose, Samira’s hand rose with it, and Emery could not help but match her lover’s steadiness.
And as she drifted, the last thought that shimmered through her fogging mind was not fear of scandal or shame, not the old weight of mistakes past, but only this:
She is mine. And I am hers. At last.
***
Dearest Readers,
They say London never forgets a scandal, but sometimes, it learns to celebrate one. At last night’s closing ball, our Diamond did not shine beside a future duke, nor at the arm of a war hero. She chose instead the most shocking partner of all: love. Miss Samira Mohan and Viscountess Emery Walsh crossed the floor together, hand in hand, daring society to blink. And blink it did. The tides, it seems, are changing. And some of us are ready to waltz with them.
London Society Papers
Notes:
i'm gonna write an epilogue chapter after this and then the story will be officially done omg... look how far we have come
Chapter 7
Notes:
ENJOYYYY!!!! also my gf and beta reader for some reason thought that samira/emery was the secret writer of the post bc they have entries in this but no that is untrue.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
By Special Contribution to The London Post — Co-Published in The Royal Medical Review, Spring Edition
Dearest Readers,
The Season sparkled, as it always does, with music and jewels, whispers and wagers. Many will recall the gowns, the dances, the gossip of who bowed and who faltered. But for me, the memory of that time lies elsewhere. When I first entered the Season, I believed it would be a performance, an endless parade of silks and suitors, every moment choreographed to please the eyes of society. And in many ways, it was. The dances were dazzling, the teas never-ending, the scrutiny sharper than any scalpel I have ever handled in my studies.
They said I would have to choose: to wed or to work, to be admired or to be useful. But I have found, through years of study, loss, and late-night quiet, that the heart and the mind are not enemies. I have walked into rooms where I was not expected. I have spoken truths that made the air go still. And yet, I have healed. I have endured. I have loved. I learned that the value of a name lies not in how loudly it is spoken, but in how honestly one lives beneath it. And I learned, most of all, that love is not weakness, nor scandal, but the strongest thing a heart can carry.
If there is wisdom I might offer to those who step into the ballroom after me, it is this: do not measure your worth by whispers, nor your happiness by approval. The Season will always belong to spectacle. Yet beneath the spectacle, there is something quieter, more lasting: the people who see you as you are, and the courage to let yourself be seen.
Dr. S.M., Royal Physician
London Society Papers, 21 July, 1823
***
The townhouse was still, the kind of stillness that only came in the hours before dawn. Samira sat at the desk by the front window, a single lamp burning low beside her, pages of notes spread like a fan across the polished wood. The ink on her pen dragged sluggishly in the margins, her handwriting tighter than usual, a sign of the fatigue straining her. Outside, Oxford slept beneath a veil of mist. The spires were shadows in the grey, the cobblestones slick with rain that had not yet dried. Somewhere a milk cart rattled down a side street, but here, in this narrow terrace house on Merton Street, all was silence.
Her hair was hastily pinned, her dressing gown wrapped around her shoulders. She had risen before four, unable to quiet her mind. A year left—only a year—and every page of study felt like both progress and an endless mountain. She had chosen this, she reminded herself, and she wanted it with all her heart. But sometimes the weight of being the first, the only one of her name to walk these halls, pressed heavy on her chest.
She glanced toward the staircase, toward the bedroom she had slipped out of. Emery would still be asleep, wrapped in blankets, hair falling across her cheek in a way that softened every edge. Samira’s lips curved faintly at the thought. It was strange, and wonderful, that this house, this city, even, was no longer hers alone. Emery’s presence filled it in quiet ways: a shawl left on the arm of the chair, a teacup abandoned by the piano, the faint scent of her perfume on Samira’s pillow.
Samira turned back to her book, trying to refocus, though her mind drifted. Two years ago, she would never have imagined this: mornings in Oxford, lectures in the day, evenings returning not to a solitary room but to someone waiting for her. To Emery . The memory of that first, impossible choice at the Queen’s ball burned steady even now, like a hearth-fire she carried always.
Her pen stilled. She exhaled, long and soft, and let her eyes fall shut for a moment. The townhouse creaked faintly with settling timbers, a sound almost like breath. She thought of Emery sleeping upstairs, steady and warm, and felt her chest loosen. Samira dipped her pen again, and bent once more over her notes. One year left. She would finish this. And when she did, Emery would be there—no scandal could change that, no distance could shake it. For the first time in her life, she studied not only for herself, but for the life they were building, page by page, morning by morning.
The scratch of her pen on the page was steady, almost soothing, until the faint creak of a floorboard carried down the narrow staircase. Samira glanced up, startled. Emery appeared in the doorway a moment later, barefoot. Sleep clung to her in the tousle of her hair and the faint squint of her eyes. She leaned against the frame, arms folded loosely.
“You’re awake,” Emery’s voice croaked, still thick with sleep. “Cruel woman.”
Samira didn’t turn, her pen scratching across the page. “You said I could study uninterrupted.”
“I said that before I realized you meant before dawn.”
The sound of bare feet padded across the rug, then Emery was there, draping herself over Samira’s shoulders with a sigh that was half complaint, half invitation. She pressed a lazy kiss to the curve of Samira’s neck, lips lingering.
“Come back to bed,” she whispered, each word a warm puff of breath. “I’m cold. And bored.”
Samira chuckled, though her pulse quickened under those lips. “Bored? There are dozens of books in our bedroom you could pick up.”
“But I have you,” Emery countered, brushing her mouth along Samira’s jaw, soft as a vow. “Far more interesting.”
Her hand slipped under Samira’s shawl, fingertips gliding over the thin fabric of her nightdress. Samira’s shoulders stiffened, but a smile tugged at her lips all the same. “Emery…” she warned, though the reprimand faltered into a sigh as Emery’s mouth found the shell of her ear, kissing lightly.
“Just ten minutes,” Emery murmured, voice low and coaxing. “I promise not to distract you. Much.”
Samira finally set her pen down and turned in her chair, hands catching Emery’s face. Her hair was mussed, her cheeks still flushed from sleep, her eyes dark with mischief. “You are entirely a distraction,” she told her.
Emery bent close, lips grazing hers, “And still you indulge.”
The kiss bloomed slowly, and Samira’s mouth parted, letting Emery taste her, savor her. Emery sank into it, her hand sliding to Samira’s waist, tugging her forward. Their mouths moved together again, deeper this time, Emery’s tongue coaxing hers, the kiss lazy and sweet but simmering with something darker beneath. Emery’s lips broke from the kiss only to trail lower, over Samira’s jaw, down the elegant line of her throat. Her teeth grazed skin just enough to make Samira’s breath stutter.
“Emery…” Samira whispered again, though it was softer now, half-plea, half-warning.
Emery only smiled against her collarbone. “You’ve been working so hard. Let me take care of you.”
Before Samira could respond, Emery was lowering herself to her knees, her hands steady at Samira’s hips. She pushed the shawl from Samira’s shoulders, kissed the hollow of her stomach through her shift, and looked up with eyes glinting dark as wine.
“Stay just like this,” Emery murmured. “Alright?”
Samira nodded breathlessly as nimble fingers worked the hem of her gown higher, bunching it over her thighs. Cool air brushed her heated skin, and then—Emery’s mouth, warm and insistent, pressing against her through the thin cotton. Samira let out a sharp gasp, her hands gripping the arms of the chair as her head tipped back against the wood.
“Please,” she whispered, the word spilling before she could stop it.
That was all Emery needed. She tugged the fabric aside and bent low, tongue sliding through Samira’s folds in a slow, deliberate stroke. The sound Samira made filled the quiet study, raw and helpless. Emery’s hands held her thighs open, thumbs stroking as her tongue teased, lapped, pressed deeper.
Samira’s fingers found Emery’s hair, tangling, tugging, unable to keep still as her hips lifted in tiny, desperate movements. “ Yes , just like that.”
Emery hummed in answer, the vibration shooting straight through her. She drew tight circles around Samira’s clit with the tip of her tongue, then flattened it, dragging broad strokes that made Samira’s thighs tremble. Every flick, every lap was patient and greedy all at once, coaxing her higher while savoring every sound she made. Samira’s pen, forgotten, rolled from the desk and clattered onto the floor. Her breath grew ragged, little gasps and whimpers spilling faster, until she could no longer think of books or lessons or the quiet fire burning low in the grate. There was only Emery, her mouth, her tongue, and the steady, relentless way she was unraveling her in the chair.
“ God ,” Her voice cracked, sharp with desperation. She couldn’t remember what she had been studying, couldn’t even picture the words on the page. The only thing that mattered was the steady torment of that mouth, tongue circling and flicking her clit until her vision blurred.
Emery shifted, hooking her hands under Samira’s thighs and tugging her to the very edge of the chair. Samira let out a surprised moan as her legs were spread wider, Emery forcing her open, devouring her with long, hungry strokes. The wet, obscene sounds filled the quiet study, mingling with Samira’s gasps.
“You taste,” Emery murmured against her, pulling back only to drag her tongue up again, “so damn good.”
The words broke something in Samira. A whimper slipped from her throat, helpless, needy. Her body arched, pressing hard into Emery’s mouth, every nerve alight with pleasure. Her thighs shook harder as Emery’s tongue flicked relentlessly against her clit, alternating pressure, teasing her just at the edge. Samira writhed in the chair, torn between begging for more and begging for mercy. “Emery—I’m close ,”
“I know you are,” Emery said softly, voice rough with want. She closed her lips around Samira’s clit and sucked hard, her tongue stroking in time, and Samira shattered.
Her cry tore through the study, ragged and desperate, as her hips bucked helplessly into Emery’s mouth. Heat flooded through her, a rush that left her trembling, nails scraping against the armrests as if she needed something, anything, to hold her together. Emery lapped through every wave of release, coaxing more and more until Samira’s body sagged against the chair.
When Emery finally pulled back, her chin glistened, her eyes dark and triumphant. She pressed a slow kiss to the inside of Samira’s trembling thigh before resting her cheek there, looking up with a crooked smile.
“You,” Samira managed between shallow breaths, voice hoarse, “are impossible.”
“And yet,” Emery smirked, her voice a low purr, “you love me.”
Samira laughed weakly, dragging her fingers through Emery’s hair, too bliss-struck to argue. She was still boneless when Emery rose from her knees, steadying herself with a hand on the desk. Her lips were kiss-bruised and wet, and she looked entirely too satisfied with herself.
“Can’t feel my legs,” Samira murmured.
“That was the point,” Emery said, leaning down to kiss her, slow and unhurried, letting Samira taste herself on her tongue. When Samira tried to deepen it, Emery only brushed her lips. “Now come back to bed.”
Samira shook her head faintly, a small smile tugging at her lips. “I should keep working…”
“You just said you couldn’t feel your legs,” Emery countered, tugging her gently up from the chair. Samira let herself be pulled, too drowsy and undone to protest. Emery wrapped an arm securely around her waist, supporting her as though she weighed nothing at all.
They moved through the dim townhouse in silence, Samira letting Emery guide her, each step a tether to the steady hand at her side. The faint glow of the hearth embers caught her eye as they passed, shadows flickering across the walls like whispers. Every inch of her body felt raw and alive; even the slip of her shawl down one shoulder made her shiver.
When Emery eased her down onto the mattress, Samira sank gratefully into the give of it, the blanket tugged up around her. She should have curled into the warmth, should have surrendered to the weight of exhaustion pulling at her limbs. But instead, she turned towards Emery. Her eyelids were heavy, her body slack with fatigue, and yet something sharper burned beneath it, a heat that refused to fade. Her gaze found Emery’s in the low light, steady, alight with want.
“You’ve been smug all night,” she whispered, her voice husky from sleeplessness. Her fingers slid over the curve of Emery’s hip, grazing bare skin where the nightshirt had ridden up. “It’s my turn.”
Emery gave a startled laugh, low and warm. “Samira, you’re half-asleep.”
“Then I’ll dream my way through it,” Samira countered, her lips brushing the line of Emery’s jaw before she pressed a kiss just beneath it. “Please?”
She felt the hesitation coil through Emery’s body, the way her chest rose with a protest that never made it to her lips. Her touch revealed the rest: the way Emery’s fingers tightened in the sheets as if bracing for surrender, the tautness in her shoulders, the faint tremor in her breath. Samira knew her well enough by now to recognize it, this instinctive retreat, this flinch from allowing herself to be taken care of, to be undone. Even here, in the quiet sanctuary of their bed, with only the night to witness them, Emery sometimes still carried the weight of old fears.
Samira leaned closer, her voice soft but unyielding, a plea wrapped in devotion. She pressed her forehead to Emery’s, willing her to feel only the truth of her touch, the steadiness of her love. And slowly, achingly slowly, she felt the resistance loosen, like a knot tugged gently free. Emery’s eyes—dark, glistening—met hers for a beat that seemed to stretch into forever. Then, with a shudder of breath, she gave the smallest nod. Yet to Samira, it was everything: the permission, the trust, the surrender she had begged for.
And when Samira’s hand slid lower, fingertips grazing the heat already damp through the fabric, Emery’s back arched, a hiss catching in her throat.
“See?” Samira murmured against her ear, satisfaction thrumming through her veins. “You need this as much as I do.”
Emery made a strangled sound and buried her face in Samira’s shoulder, teeth scraping against her skin like she couldn’t bear the weight of her own reaction. Samira’s smile curved with delight, with triumph , as she pressed firm circles over Emery’s clit. Emery trembled almost instantly, trying to hold still but failing, her hips chasing every flick of Samira’s fingers.
“Relax,” Samira soothed, though she teased faster, rougher, unable to resist. “I’ve got you.”
The groan that tore from Emery’s chest was ragged, and Samira was thrilled at the sound of it. She curled her fingers lower, sliding inside with practiced ease, and Emery’s whole body arched to meet her, knees drawing up, hips tilting to take her deeper.
“Fuck, yes—” Emery gasped, but Samira barely heard it over the thundering rush in her own ears.
“That’s it,” she whispered, curling her fingers again and again, watching Emery shudder, undone, against the sheets. “You’re perfect like this.”
Her other hand caught Emery’s wrist when it scrabbled against the mattress, not to stop her but to anchor her, to feel her grip as her body clung tighter and tighter. Emery’s moans grew louder, spilling out without restraint, and Samira pressed her thumb hard to her clit.
“You’re already close, aren’t you?” Samira breathed, her own voice frayed with desire.
Emery could only nod, helpless, caught in the rhythm Samira gave her. That helplessness undid her. Samira wanted to see more of it, to draw more from her. She bent close, her lips brushing the shell of Emery’s ear. “Come for me,” she urged. “I want to feel you. I want to hear you.”
The words seemed to tear through Emery. She broke apart, gasping Samira’s name, hips jerking wildly as her orgasm surged through her in waves. Samira held her through it, fingers stroking, coaxing, milking every last tremor until Emery was limp, trembling, her face buried in the pillows.
Samira slowed, gentled, withdrawing only when Emery softened fully against the mattress. She leaned in, kissing her temple, tasting the salt of sweat on her skin, and tugged the blanket higher around her shoulders. “Now we can sleep,” she whispered with a satisfied smile.
Emery gave a weak laugh, breathless, her chest still heaving unevenly. “You are truly something else.”
Samira’s hand lingered at her cheek, stroking lightly. Her throat tightened with the words that wanted out, and finally she let them go. “I love you,” she whispered, tender as a prayer.
Emery, half-drifting already, smiled faintly, her hand tightening around Samira’s. “I love you too.”
***
The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel drive, familiar as breath. Emery had not been to her family’s country home in over two years, not since she and Samira had settled into the Oxford townhouse Emmett had placed in their care. The estate rose ahead, its stone facade softened by ivy, windows glinting with late afternoon light. Once, she had dreaded returning here. Now, as she stepped down, she only felt a quiet tug in her chest, as though some long-unused thread was being pulled taut again.
Elizabeth was already waiting on the steps, skirts bunched in her hands, her face bright. She had grown taller, sharper since her first season, but when she barreled forward to seize Emery’s hands, she was still the same younger sister Emery had held by the shoulders on her presentation day.
“You look well,” Elizabeth declared, searching her face with mock severity. “Better than I expected, living in town with no one to remind you to put honey in your tea in the mornings.”
Emery laughed, the sound spilling freer than it once might have. “Believe it or not, I’m the one having to remind Samira to take her meals.”
At the mention of her name, Elizabeth’s eyes softened, her smile slipping into something almost conspiratorial. “And you’re happy?”
The question caught in Emery’s chest. She looked out over the lawns, green and endless, the oaks lining the drive like sentinels, and let the truth rise unguarded. “The happiest I’ve been in a long time.”
Elizabeth squeezed her hand until their knuckles blanched. “Then nothing else matters.”
Inside, the house smelled of beeswax and old books, the same as it always had. Emery passed the portrait hall where her late father’s likeness hung—kind eyes forever trapped in oil. She paused for a moment, dipping her head in quiet greeting.
As dusk fell, Elizabeth dragged Emery out to the gardens, chattering about roses and neighbors and her own plans for the winter. Emery followed, smiling, but her thoughts drifted toward Oxford, toward the townhouse window where Samira would be bent over her books by lamplight, shawl draped around her shoulders, lips pursed in concentration. This estate had been home once. It always would be, in some fashion. But now, Emery knew where her true hearth lay.
Now, late into the evening, she and Elizabeth lounged in the drawing room. The fire had burned low, a small pool of coals glowing in the grate. Elizabeth lay sprawled across the settee in the careless way only she could, one slipper dangling off her toes, a half-finished embroidery hoop sliding toward her lap. Emery sat in the armchair opposite, long legs stretched out, a glass of port balanced between her fingers.
“You’re quiet,” Elizabeth said, not looking up from her needlework.
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s always dangerous.”
Emery smiled faintly, but before she could reply, the sound of footsteps on the marble hall floor stilled her. The door swung open.
Their mother stood framed in the doorway, her presence as crisp as the starched fabric of her gown. Lady Walsh had not changed. Hair pinned with uncompromising precision, lips drawn into a line that softened for no one. Emery had not seen her all day. She had half-expected, half-hoped, that the distance might make her return easier. It did not.
“Elizabeth,” their mother said coolly, “it is late. Why are you not retired?”
Elizabeth straightened, the slipper falling to the carpet with a soft thud. “I wanted to sit with Emery.”
Lady Walsh’s eyes shifted, settling on Emery at last. They sharpened immediately. “Of course you did. And I suppose your sister encouraged this impropriety.”
Emery set down her glass. “I hardly think speaking by the fire qualifies as impropriety, Mother.”
“Do not spar with me.” Her mother’s voice was calm, but it had that steel edge Emery remembered too well. “You parade yourself across London, flouting every expectation we worked to uphold, and then arrive here as though nothing has transpired.”
Elizabeth bristled. “She has done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong?” Lady Walsh’s gaze flashed to her younger daughter before returning to Emery. “She has set the ton ablaze with whispers yet again. Do you not understand what you risk? What you drag this family into with your recklessness?”
Emery forced herself not to look away. Her hands clenched against the armrests, but her voice came out even. “I understand very well. More than you think.”
Her mother’s expression did not falter. “Then why, Emery? Why persist in humiliating us?”
Something hot rose in her throat, words that had pressed against her ribcage all season. She swallowed them for now. Instead, Emery said only, “Because I would rather endure their whispers than live a lie.”
The silence that followed was thick, Elizabeth staring between them, her mother’s jaw taut as if every muscle were fighting not to crack.
Lady Walsh’s mouth tightened, her voice clipped. “I cannot— will not —approve of this. Do you understand me, Emery? You embarrass yourself, and you disgrace this family.”
Emery rose from her chair, meeting her mother’s gaze across the firelit room. For once, there was no tremor in her voice. “And yet the Queen does approve. She smiled upon us at her own ball. And I daresay her opinion carries more weight in society than yours ever will.”
The words landed like a blow. Lady Walsh inhaled sharply, anger flashing across her features.
Before the silence could curdle, Elizabeth shot upright on the settee, cheeks flushed. “You cannot speak to Emery like that anymore, Mother. Not as if she were still a child to be scolded. She has earned her life. And so have I.”
“Elizabeth—” Lady Walsh began, but Elizabeth pressed on, chin high.
“If you cannot stomach her choices, then so be it. But you will not belittle her in her own home, or mine.” She folded her arms, fierce in a way Emery had rarely seen her. “Emmett, Emery, and I—we will gladly keep to the London townhouse. We are not without refuge.”
The weight of the declaration settled over the room. The crackle of the fire seemed louder than before.
Lady Walsh’s eyes flicked from one daughter to the other, searching for weakness, for hesitation. She found none. Emery’s heart thudded, steady and sure for the first time in years.
“Then you mean to set yourselves against me?” Lady Walsh whispered.
Emery spoke quietly, but her voice carried. “No, Mother. We only mean to carry on with our lives. With or without your approval.”
Elizabeth’s hand found Emery’s, her grip steady and grounding, a silent anchor. Emery didn’t look down, didn’t even acknowledge it with a squeeze of her own—because all her focus was fixed forward. On her mother. For once, she refused to flinch.
Lady Walsh’s eyes lingered on her daughter’s face, expression hardening, lips pressed so thin they looked carved from marble. “Fine,” she said at last, the word clipped, a reluctant concession. “If that’s what you want.”
She did not wait for an answer. With a stiff rustle of skirts, Lady Walsh turned, spine straight as ever, and left the drawing room. The silence she left behind felt heavier than her presence had. Emery’s chest rose with a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Elizabeth squeezed her hand again, firmer this time, and only then did Emery allow herself to blink, to feel the tremor she had kept so carefully at bay.
***
My dearest, Samira
The house is intolerably quiet without you. Even the pianoforte refuses me. Its keys fall dull beneath my hands, as if they too wait for your return. I walk the halls and catch myself listening for the sound of your voice, for the way you scatter light into every corner simply by being in it.
For now, I stay here with my mother and Elizabeth. My sister is a comfort. I had forgotten how easy it is to laugh with her, how quickly she can drag me out of myself. But she has acquired a new dog, some excitable creature with no respect for polished floors or quiet evenings, and I detest it. Elizabeth insists I shall grow fond of him, but I suspect we are destined to be adversaries. As for my mother, she remains herself. Still sharp, still unsatisfied, though she no longer lets the sharper barbs about me or about us slip past her lips. I take that small mercy where I can. It is a strange peace, one I did not imagine we would ever arrive at, and yet it makes me long for you all the more, so that I may share it with you.
You are in the very heart of the palace, surrounded by gold and grandeur, yet I cannot help but hope you still think of me here among the trees and roses. I imagine you moving through those chambers with your chin lifted, that calm dignity you wear like armor, and I am filled with pride so fierce it almost hurts. They see only the brilliant doctor. I see the woman who has undone me utterly, who makes even silence feel full when she shares it with me.
I am terrified by how much I miss you. It is as though my skin itself longs for your touch. The fire burns in the hearth, but I am cold without the weight of you beside me. Come back to me soon, Samira. I love you beyond reason, beyond caution, beyond all the careful walls I once built around my heart.
Yours always,
Emery
***
The air inside the clinic smelled of carbolic and boiled linen, sharp enough to sting the back of Samira’s throat. Outside, the bells of Oxford tolled the hour, but in here, time moved to the rhythm of heartbeats, pulses, the rasp of lungs. Samira bent over a young man’s arm, guiding the curved needle through flesh with hands steady from practice and sleepless nights of study. The sutures lay neat, tidy, each knot firm but not strangling. She could feel Dr. Robby’s gaze on her, weighing each movement.
When she tied the last stitch, she exhaled slowly, snipping the thread. “There,” she murmured. “That should hold.”
The patient, pale but calm, whispered his thanks. Samira smiled gently, pressing his shoulder before stepping back. She peeled off her gloves, flexing her cramped fingers.
“Well done,” came Dr. Robby’s voice at her side, warm but measured. His eyes crinkled as he looked down at her finished work. “Efficient. Clean. Not a single wasted movement.”
Samira’s cheeks flushed. She forced herself to school her features, to keep from letting that pride show too openly. “Thank you,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt.
He tilted his head, studying her with that same perceptive gaze he always carried. “You do realize what tomorrow is, don’t you?”
Her heart jolted, a thrum of anticipation racing through her ribs. Of course she knew. Every hour hunched over case notes, every bleary-eyed night at her desk, every whispered doubt she had endured. It had all been leading to this.
“Congratulations, Dr. Mohan,” he said at last. The words were even, deliberate, as though they had belonged to her all along.
For a moment, the din of the clinic receded: the harsh coughs in the corner, the rustle of linens, the metallic clatter of instruments, all faded beneath the weight of that single title. Dr. Mohan . It rang in her ears, steady as a heartbeat. Her father’s hopes. Her own dream. A truth forged through years of surviving whispers, of smiling through dismissal, of steadying her hands while classmates doubted she belonged.
Her throat tightened, and she swallowed hard. “Dr. Mohan,” she repeated softly, as if trying the sound on her own tongue, grounding herself in it. The syllables tasted like triumph. Like arrival.
A small smile tugged at her lips, not for the ton, nor for her mother, nor for the endless parade of suitors she once endured. This was different. This was hers. For once, she did not feel like the Diamond of the Season, or the dutiful daughter of House Mohan. She felt exactly what she was, and what she had always meant to be: a physician.
Later that evening, she stepped out into the courtyard, the heavy oak door thudding closed behind her. The ivy that crept up the stone walls gleamed wet, and the roses at the edge of the garden bowed low with the weight of droplets clinging to their petals.
Samira drew in a long breath, filling her lungs with the scent of rain and earth, as though she could anchor herself to this moment forever. Her hands trembled, not from fatigue but from the reverberation of the words still echoing inside her chest. Dr. Mohan . The title hummed through her like a struck bell, its resonance too deep to quiet. She almost expected the sound to carry beyond her, rolling into the night sky itself.
She closed her eyes and thought of her father. She saw him as he had so often been: perched at his desk, spectacles sliding down his nose, ink smudging his fingers because he had been too absorbed in reading to notice. His voice echoed in her mind, warm and teasing, telling her she was cleverer than her tutors, that her curiosity would be the very thing that carried her through the world. He had believed in her when few others had, even when her own mother insisted that education was nothing compared to a marriage match.
A lump rose in her throat. She imagined him here now, smiling the way he only ever smiled for her, pride softening the stern lines of his face. She imagined the light in his eyes, the playful scolding he would give her for ever having doubted herself. You see? I told you you could do it. I always knew.
Her chest tightened painfully, not with sorrow but with a fullness so complete it bordered on ache. The years of whispers, the sharp looks at assemblies, the way her professors had dismissed her with patronizing words, all of it seemed to fall away in the hush of the courtyard. It was worth it. Every sleepless night bent over her books. Every moment of biting her tongue while others questioned her. Every sacrifice she had made. Samira opened her eyes and looked up at the pale light of the moon above, its edges blurred by a lingering veil of cloud. For years she had chased this dream. And now, at last, she was standing in it.
Her hand brushed absently over her skirts, still damp at the hem from the rain, and she whispered aloud to the quiet courtyard, as though her father might hear it carried on the night air: “Dr. Samira Mohan.”
The words left her lips steady this time, not tentative. They settled around her like a mantle. A truth earned. A truth claimed. The courtyard seemed to hush with her. She tipped her head back, and for the first time in years, she did not feel the weight of expectation pressing down on her shoulders. She felt light. Strong. Whole.
Tomorrow, she would walk into the clinic as Dr. Mohan. Tomorrow, the work would continue, harder, more relentless, perhaps more scrutinized than ever. But tonight, for this small moment beneath the rain-washed sky, she allowed herself to simply be.
And it was enough.
***
My beloved, Emery
You write as though I might forget you amidst the grandeur of the palace, but I assure you, no golden ceiling nor marble corridor has half the power to distract me as much as your absence does. The hours here are long, filled with patients and courtiers alike, and still I find my thoughts drifting back to you in every pause. Your voice, your smile, your ridiculous habit of dramatizing your suffering when I leave you alone for even a day.
I laughed aloud when I read your complaint about Elizabeth’s new dog. If he is truly so dreadful, I can only imagine how ferociously he must adore you. Animals have a way of finding our softest places, whether we welcome it or not. I promise to make peace between you two when I return; consider it my newest medical trial. As for your mother, I am glad of her silence, even if it is not approval. You have borne so much of her censure alone, Emery. If her words can no longer wound as they once did, it is only because you have already proven stronger than them.
I count the days until I return to you. Until then, let this letter serve as proof: you are thought of every hour, missed in every room, and loved—so wholly, so stubbornly—that even the palace itself feels dull without you. I ought to be reviewing case notes, yet my hand insists on writing to you instead. Perhaps that is a kind of medicine too, the balm of reminding myself that you are waiting, that you are mine. The palace gleams with every luxury, but none of it feels as precious as our quiet mornings. I would trade the entire collection of marble halls and painted ceilings for the sight of you, tousled and warm in our bed, grumbling at me for rising too soon. You are right: they see the physician, the dutiful scholar, but you alone see the woman who wants nothing more than to come home to you.
I walk the corridors with my head held high, but my heart beats only for the next time I will see you across a room, or better, across our own table. Wait for me, Emery. And know that you are my courage, my undoing, and my peace.
All my love,
Samira
***
The bedroom at Aldridge was still half-lit by the fire, the sheets rumpled from where they had already taken each other once. Samira lay back against the pillows, her skin hot and flushed, every nerve already alive under Emery’s mouth. Her thighs trembled where they were braced around her shoulders, silk pooled at her hips, the fire casting soft shadows that seemed to flicker in rhythm with her heartbeat.
Emery licked a long, deliberate stripe through her folds, the heat of her tongue making Samira’s hips jerk helplessly off the mattress. A broken sound escaped her throat, high and needy, and she clutched at the sheets with one hand while the other tangled in Emery’s hair. She could feel the wet slide of her own arousal coating Emery’s mouth, each pass leaving her wetter, more desperate.
“Emery—” Her voice fractured, catching on a gasp when Emery sucked lightly at her clit, just enough to send sparks flashing behind her eyelids. Samira tried to press closer, grinding down, but Emery’s hands pinned her hips to the mattress, holding her still.
Her tongue teased in maddening patterns, slow circles, shallow flicks, broad strokes that almost gave her what she needed, only to veer away at the last moment. Samira whined, writhing, the sheets already damp beneath her. Every time the heat coiled tighter in her belly, Emery eased back, leaving her teetering on the edge without release.
“Please,” she gasped, voice breaking on the word. The plea tasted like surrender, raw and humiliating, but Emery gave her no mercy. Instead, she pressed a reverent kiss against her swollen clit, then dragged her tongue lower, dipping just inside her entrance before pulling away again.
“You’re so ready for me already,” Emery murmured against her. “Ready to take me.”
Samira’s thighs quaked, trembling beneath the strain of restraint. She arched against the pillows, breath tearing from her in ragged, uneven pants, the crest of release hovering always just beyond reach—taunting, unbearable. The ache coiled low in her belly, the pressure mounting until it felt almost cruel, a promise of more that refused to break.
Only hours earlier, Emery had revealed to her one of her more… intimate possessions. Now that secret was no longer theoretical but real, strapped snug around her hips: a thick length of polished, pliant material that gleamed faintly in the lamplight. Firm enough to command, supple enough to move with her, it was pressed between them with every shift of Emery’s body. The harness clung tightly to her waist, black leather kissing her skin. Samira’s gaze flicked down only once, but the sight alone nearly unraveled her. Heat flooded her cheeks, her whole body singing with want.
The very thought of it, the thought of Emery inside her, claiming her in this new way, made Samira’s lips part on a helpless, broken sound. Her hands clutched at the sheets, at Emery’s shoulders, anywhere she could find purchase, her nails dragging hard enough to leave faint crescents in skin.
Her body betrayed her, trembling and soaking, every nerve screaming for relief. Shame threatened to claw at her, shame for how wet she was, for the needy noises spilling out of her throat, for how easily Emery was undoing her, but it was drowned out by pleasure, by the molten tension winding higher and higher. She was shaking now, tears pricking hot in her eyes from sheer frustration. Emery’s tongue stroked lazily over her again, slow enough to make her sob. She had never been teased like this before, never pushed so far past composure.
“Not yet,” Emery’s voice hummed against her, lips brushing her swollen skin. The words burned, cruel and tender all at once.
Samira whimpered, twisting her fingers tighter into Emery’s hair, her body arching as though to offer itself up whole if only she would give her release. But Emery’s mouth returned to its slow torment, lapping and sucking with aching restraint, dragging her higher only to let her fall back again, keeping her on the knife’s edge until Samira thought she might break apart without ever reaching the end.
When Emery finally pulled away, Samira nearly sobbed at the sudden absence. Her thighs quivered, slick and swollen, the cool air rushing in against skin that still burned for more. She looked down in a haze, chest heaving, just in time to see Emery wipe her mouth with the back of her hand before dragging her fingers through the mess she’d made of her.
Samira gasped, her hips twitching at the touch, but Emery only gave her a low, satisfied hum. She gathered more of her arousal deliberately, coating her fingers in the wetness that glistened in the firelight. Then Samira’s breath hitched as Emery reached for the waiting harness at the side of the bed. Emery’s eyes flicked up, dark and certain, while her slick fingers traced the length, spreading Samira’s slick over it in slow strokes until it shone.
Samira’s fingers trembled where they rested against Emery’s thigh, but her hunger carried her forward. Slowly, deliberately, she urged Emery back until her shoulders touched the headboard, surrendering space for Samira to move. Then she lowered her head, lips parting, and took the tip into her mouth. Her tongue flicked lightly at first, teasing, before sealing her lips around the length and drawing in a slow, steady pull. She tasted herself there, faint but undeniable, where Emery had smeared her slick, the flavor sparking a blush across her cheeks. Samira swirled her tongue over the ridge, lingering at the head before tracing lower, wet heat coating every inch she touched.
She wasn’t timid. Not tonight. She wanted Emery to feel it, the certainty in her movements, the way her mouth worshipped with intention. She wanted to prove she wasn’t afraid. To show her, without hesitation, what she craved.
Emery groaned above her, the sound raw, guttural. “Christ, Samira…” Her hand slid into dark hair, not forcing, but guiding, trembling faintly as she tried to hold herself back. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
Samira answered not with words, but by sinking lower, letting the length fill her mouth, stretching her lips until her throat protested. She closed her eyes, moaning around it, letting the vibration travel through the length. Emery’s sharp inhale told her exactly how much that sound undid her. She pulled back, saliva slicking the length, before pushing forward again, deeper, until her nose brushed the base and her jaw ached. The lewd wet sound of it filled the room. She forced herself to swallow around it, and Emery cursed, her hips giving a helpless roll forward into Samira’s mouth.
“God, look at you,” Emery rasped, her voice breaking, half a growl. “My perfect girl. Fuck, you’re filthy.”
Samira’s lashes fluttered as she gazed up at her through the fringe, cheeks hollowing as she worked her mouth along the length. Emery’s hand fisted tighter in her hair, guiding just slightly, the tremor in her arm betraying how close she was to losing control.
“That mouth, meant for this. You don’t even know what you’re doing to me.” Emery’s words came ragged now, broken between gasps as Samira set a rhythm, sliding forward until her throat clenched, pulling back with strings of spit clinging to her lips.
Samira moaned again, greedy, sucking harder, dragging her tongue along every inch before taking it deep once more. Emery’s hips twitched forward without thought, her jaw tight, head tipping back with a groan that sounded like surrender.
“ Fuck —Samira,” she groaned. “If you don’t stop, I won’t make it to your cunt.”
Samira pulled back at last, spit shining her lips, a thin strand connecting her mouth to the strap before breaking. Her chest heaved, her throat raw, but the look on Emery’s face, jaw tight, eyes dark with want, was worth every aching breath.
Emery’s hand shook slightly as she brushed the damp strands of hair back from Samira’s cheek. “Darling…” Her voice was ruined, deep and hoarse. “You are incredible.”
Instead of answering, Samira leaned forward and licked the length once more, leaving it wetter, gleaming in the dim light. She wanted Emery to see. To know she was ready. She kissed the head one last time, then looked up through her lashes, whispering, “Will you take me now?”
Emery groaned, low and feral, her restraint shattering. She straightened, steadying Samira with a firm hand under her chin, tilting her face up for a searing kiss that tasted of spit and desperate hunger. Then she guided Samira back against the bed, pushing her down with a sure hand on her shoulder.
Samira’s pulse thundered as Emery climbed over her, positioning herself between her spread thighs. The head of the length nudged against her swollen folds, slick already from Emery’s mouth, now smeared with the wet heat Samira had added herself. The pressure alone made Samira whimper, her body twitching with need.
The first slow push made her gasp, her body straining. It was too much and not enough, stretching her open in a way that felt both alien and inevitable. Emery kissed her through it, lips soft and coaxing against hers, murmuring praise between shallow thrusts.
“You’re perfect,” Emery whispered, her voice rough, reverent. “Taking me so well already.”
Samira whimpered, clutching at her shoulders, her hips rising instinctively to seek more. She hadn’t known it could feel like this, so full, so overwhelming, every nerve sparking. When Emery paused to let her adjust, Samira shook her head, desperation burning in her throat.
“I want—I want more,” she begged, her voice cracking. “Emery please .”
Emery’s gaze flickered, torn between restraint and the same ravenous hunger coursing through Samira. She withdrew slowly, almost tenderly, before driving back in deeper. Samira cried out, her back arching, her nails raking lines into Emery’s shoulder blades.
“Yes,” she gasped, eyes squeezing shut. “Like that, harder.”
Something inside Emery gave way. Her thrusts grew urgent, rough, her hips snapping forward with force that made Samira’s entire body jolt against the mattress. Each stroke hit deeper, grinding against the spot inside her that sent shocks of pleasure ricocheting through her. The bed creaked, the sheets tangled around their limbs. Samira clung to her like she would drown without her, legs locked tight around Emery’s waist. She welcomed the sharp drag of fabric against her back, the sting of friction, anything that grounded her in the storm of sensation.
“Don’t stop,” Samira pleaded, her voice breaking into a sob. “Please don’t stop.”
Emery groaned raggedly against her neck, her words muffled by sweat-slick skin. “You’ll ruin me, Samira. You already have.”
The thrusts grew brutal now, the length sliding effortlessly with how slick Samira had become. Her cries rose higher, desperate, her body bucking helplessly, chasing each stroke. She could feel herself unraveling, the wave cresting fast and merciless.
“Emery, I—” she stammered, unable to form words.
“Come for me,” Emery growled, her pace relentless, grinding her down into the bed. “Scream for me. Let them all hear whose you are.”
Samira’s orgasm tore through her like lightning splitting the sky, her body convulsing around the length inside her. Her cry was raw and unrestrained, clutching Emery so tightly she thought she might bruise her. Wetness gushed out of her, slick flooding between them, soaking Emery’s thighs, the sheets, everything. Her body still pulsed with aftershocks when Emery began to withdraw, gentle now, her lips soft at Samira’s temple as though she meant to soothe her into rest. But Samira wasn’t finished.
“No,” she rasped, her hand snapping to Emery’s wrist, holding her there. Her voice was hoarse, wrecked, but steady. “Again. Please don’t stop.”
Emery froze above her, eyes searching her face. Whatever she found there, Samira’s parted lips, the wet shine in her eyes, the sheer desperation trembling through her body, it was enough. She must have looked undone, completely at her mercy.
A slow smile curved Emery’s lips, dark and hungry “Greedy girl,” she whispered, her lips curling. “So eager to be ruined twice in one night.”
Samira shuddered at the words, spreading her thighs wider, lifting her hips as invitation. “Please,” she begged again, her pride burned away by hunger.
With a low moan, Emery drove back inside, harder this time, unrestrained. Samira gasped, the sensation sharper, more brutal now against her overstimulated nerves. She cried out, nails clawing at Emery’s back, dragging her down to kiss her again, messy and biting.Emery obliged, devouring her lips, her jaw, her throat, all while her hips snapped forward with bruising force. The length slid deep, hitting the spot inside her over and over until Samira sobbed into her shoulder, clutching her like she might shatter apart if Emery let go.
“You’re still dripping,” Emery growled, her voice breaking. “Still begging me. You’ll take everything I give you.”
“Yes,” Samira gasped, her voice ragged, eyes squeezing shut as her body rocked with every thrust. “Give me more.”
And Emery did. Her pace grew relentless, the bedframe knocking against the wall behind them, the air filled with the slick, filthy sound of their pleasure. Samira’s moans climbed higher, wild and broken, her body writhing under the assault of sensation. Each thrust struck deep, pushing her closer and closer to the edge she thought she had just fallen from.
Her legs locked around Emery’s waist, forcing her deeper still. “Don’t you dare stop,” Samira cried, tears streaking down her temples. “I’ll break if you stop—”
Emery kissed her, swallowing the plea, her hand sliding down to press hard against Samira’s clit. The combined touch made Samira scream into her mouth, her body jerking wildly, her orgasm tearing through her with incredible force. Hot release poured between them, but Emery didn’t stop. She fucked her through it, merciless, until Samira was sobbing her name over and over, her voice wrecked, her body trembling so violently she could hardly cling to her anymore.
Only when Samira slumped, utterly spent, did Emery ease her pace, slowing to languid thrusts before finally slipping free. She kissed her lips tenderly as Samira lay boneless against the sheets, her body still trembling faintly with aftershocks. Emery propped herself on one elbow beside her, brushing damp curls from her face with careful fingers. Samira’s lips were swollen, her skin flushed, her chest still rising in uneven waves.
“So beautiful,” Emery whispered, pressing a reverent kiss to her temple. She smoothed her hand down Samira’s side, coaxing her to relax further, whispering praise between each touch. “So good for me.”
Samira hummed drowsily, eyes slipping shut as Emery trailed soft kisses across her cheeks and jaw. For a few minutes, they stayed like that, tangled together, Samira cradled against her chest, Emery stroking circles into her back until her breathing steadied.
But the sheets were damp, her skin sticky with sweat, and Emery knew Samira would feel it once the haze ebbed. She kissed her forehead once more before murmuring, “Let me run you a bath.”
Before Samira could protest, Emery slid an arm beneath her knees and another under her back, lifting her with ease. Samira made a soft, surprised sound but looped her arms around Emery’s neck anyway, nestling into her shoulder. She carried her across the room, the cool floorboards creaking underfoot, until they reached the adjoining bath. Emery set her carefully on the padded bench beside the tub, then knelt to draw warm water, steam beginning to curl into the air. She glanced up at Samira, who was watching her with sleepy eyes, and smiled, a soft, almost disbelieving smile.
“Stay right there, Darling,” she said gently. “I’ll have you in the water in a moment. Then we’ll get you back in bed where you belong.”
***
The copper tub gleamed in the candlelight, each flame mirrored in rippling gold across its curved surface. Steam curled upward, veiling the chamber rafters in a soft haze. Rain pattered against the tall windows, blurring the gardens into watercolor shadows beyond. The air smelled faintly of lavender, warm and soothing.
Samira reclined against the sloped end of the tub, her skin flushed from the heat, water lapping gently at her collarbones. Across from her, Emery leaned back with lazy grace, one knee bent, bare legs brushing against Samira’s beneath the surface, an unspoken tether. Emery reached for the ladle resting on the rim. She filled it and tipped it slowly, letting warm water pour over Samira’s shoulder in a shining cascade. Rivulets traced down her skin, glistening in the candlelight before disappearing beneath the bath.
When Emery’s hand slipped through the water to find her, fingers curving gently around Samira’s shin, sliding upward to her knee, the touch felt as reverent as it was intimate. “You know,” she murmured, “after Nicholas passed, I never thought I’d feel happy in this house again.”
Samira tilted her head, her smile softening into something tender. “And now?”
“Now,” Emery whispered, leaning forward across the narrow space until their foreheads touched, “I feel like my chest could burst with how happy I am.”
Samira’s breath caught. Their lips met, tentative at first, water rippling softly around them with the shift of her body. But the kiss deepened quickly, heat unfurling as Samira slid closer through the water, hands rising to cup Emery’s jaw. The sound of rain and the faint lap of water became a rhythm beneath them.
When Samira pulled back just enough to look at her, droplets sliding from her dark hair down the slope of her shoulders, Emery’s lips quirked into a grin.
“Doctor Mohan,” Emery murmured, the title rolling off her tongue like silk. “Mm. I rather like the sound of that.”
Samira flushed, though her answering smirk was equal parts shy and bold. “You’re mocking me.”
“Never.” Emery’s hand cupped the back of her neck, pulling her down into a kiss that was languid, reverent. “I am thoroughly enamored with you. And if I’d known you’d taste this sweet after earning the title, I’d have lobbied for your professors to pass you years ago.”
Samira laughed against her lips, but the sound faltered into a sigh as Emery’s mouth parted hers, as fingers traced her spine beneath the water. “ Emery —” she warned softly, though it came out more like a plea.
“You’ve stitched wounds. Set bones. Out-argued every learned man in Oxford. And yet…” Emery nipped her lower lip, making Samira gasp. “Here you are, trembling in my arms.”
Samira’s hands pressed to Emery’s shoulders, grounding herself, though her body leaned in helplessly, wanting more. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re exquisite, Doctor Mohan.” Emery’s voice dropped low, husky. “Say it again. Let me hear you admit it’s yours.”
Samira’s pulse skittered, heat rising in her chest. She bent until her lips brushed the shell of Emery’s ear, whispering, “It’s mine.”
“Good.” Emery’s hands slid lower, under the water, over the curve of her hips. The bathwater was still warm and fragrant as Emery lounged back against the porcelain edge, arms resting loosely along the rim, her hair damp and curling in dark strands that clung to her temples. Her gaze was heavy-lidded, wanting, the kind of look that always made Samira’s stomach swoop.
Samira rose from the water, droplets sliding down the curve of her body, and Emery’s breath caught audibly. Without a word, Samira swung one leg, then the other, until she was straddling her in the bath, their breasts pressed together, their slick skin gliding with each shift. Emery’s sharp inhale ghosted against her cheek.
“God, Samira,” Emery rasped, her voice low and ruined already. “Do you know how badly I want you like this?”
Samira smiled wickedly, brushing her lips over Emery’s but not yet kissing her. “I believe I have an idea,” she whispered.
Her hands braced on Emery’s shoulders as she rolled her hips forward, pressing her slick folds down against Emery’s stomach, then lower, grinding against the sharp ridge of her thigh. Emery groaned, clutching at her hips, guiding her closer. “You’re wet everywhere. My brilliant girl, riding me as if I hadn’t just ruined you earlier."
Samira gasped, burying a moan against Emery’s mouth. “You make me like this. You —no one else.”
Their mouths collided, open and messy, teeth clashing, tongues sliding. Emery kissed like she was drowning, like Samira was the only air she had left. Her hands squeezed Samira’s ass beneath the water, pulling her harder against her thigh. Samira rocked there, friction shooting sparks straight through her, water splashing up around them.
“Say it again,” Emery demanded between kisses, her voice rough. “Say I’m the only one.”
Samira gasped as Emery’s thigh flexed beneath her, pressing hard against her clit. “You are,” she moaned, rolling her hips faster. “The only one. Always the only one.”
Emery groaned, her head tipping back against the porcelain. “Fuck, look at you—grinding down like you’ll die if you stop. Making such a mess of me.”
Samira bit at her throat, sucking marks down her pale skin as her hips moved in frantic, hungry circles. “You like it,” she whispered hotly, teeth grazing over Emery’s collarbone.
“I fucking love it,” Emery groaned, her hands sliding up to cup Samira’s breasts, pinching her nipples until she whined. “Ride me harder, love. Let me feel how desperate you are.”
Samira obeyed, rocking harder, chasing that tight coil of heat in her belly. Every shift of Emery’s thigh against her clit made her cry out louder, until her sounds echoed in the tiled chamber, loud and unrestrained. Emery urged her on with filth spilling in her ear, how beautiful she looked like this, how perfect she felt, how she wanted to watch her come apart.
“You’re close,” Emery growled, sucking at her neck. “I can feel it—your cunt’s fluttering against me. Come for me, Samira. Paint me with it.”
Samira moaned raggedly, her nails scraping down Emery’s shoulders. Her hips bucked wildly, erratic, and then the wave broke. She cried out, shattering with a rush of wetness, grinding helplessly through her orgasm until she slumped forward, trembling, her forehead pressed to Emery’s.
Emery kissed her, softer now, swallowing the broken whimpers spilling from her lips. “That’s my girl,” she murmured against her mouth. “So perfect for me. So fucking perfect.”
Samira laughed breathlessly, still shaking, still clinging to her. She kissed her again, deep and languid, tongue stroking lazily against Emery’s as the aftershocks fluttered through her. Emery cradled her head, stroking damp hair back, whispering filthy praise and reverent nonsense alike until Samira’s body finally began to relax against her.
The water lapped lazily around them, their bodies fitting together in the narrow porcelain tub, Emery leaning back against the slope, Samira sprawled across her chest. Samira’s heartbeat was still fluttering, wild as a bird, but Emery’s was steady beneath her ear. For once, Samira allowed herself to simply rest there, Emery’s hands stroking idly across her back. The world beyond the bath, beyond the Aldridge estate, beyond the murmurs of the ton, felt impossibly far away.
Here, there was only warmth. Only the lingering shudder of release in her body. Only Emery’s steadying arms, her lips pressing feather-light against her damp hair.
***
The bedroom was warm with the soft glow of a single lamp, the rain still tapping faintly against the high windows. Emery guided Samira from the bath, her own bare feet damp against the rug as she reached for a thick towel.
“Stand still,” Emery murmured, voice husky with weariness and want alike. She unfolded the towel and wrapped it around Samira, drawing the cloth slowly over her damp skin. Every pass was sweet, Emery’s hands lingering at Samira’s shoulders, her arms, her thighs, until Samira was nearly shivering again, but from something other than cold.
“You’re fussing,” Samira teased gently, though her voice betrayed how much she relished it.
“And you’re radiant,” Emery countered, brushing a kiss against her damp temple. “Indulge me.”
She sat Samira down at the dressing table, pulling a smaller towel through the cascade of wet dark hair. Emery’s fingers soon followed, combing through the tangles, parting strands with a patience that startled even herself. She reached for the small jar of cream, warmed it between her palms, and began to smooth it through Samira’s hair, working from root to tip. The faint, sweet scent of it filled the air, mingling with the rain and the last of the chamomile steam from the bath.
Samira let her eyes drift half-closed, lips parting in a soft sigh at the soothing glide of Emery’s fingers. “You’ll spoil me like this,” she whispered.
“Good,” Emery said simply, leaning down to kiss the curve of her shoulder, the slope of her neck. “You deserve spoiling.”
When the last strand gleamed, Emery moved to lotion, uncapping the porcelain jar, dipping her fingers, and smoothing it across Samira’s skin. She began with her arms, tracing the long lines with circular strokes, pausing every so often to press her lips to the newly softened skin. Down her legs, across her calves, her thighs, her stomach, each touch a blend of practical care and quiet worship. Samira, undone all over again by the intimacy of it, reached for Emery’s jaw, pulling her into a kiss that deepened, sweet and slow. Emery tasted faintly of rosewater, her lips soft but intent, and Samira sighed into her mouth, her body yielding under every patient caress.
By the time Emery finally drew the blanket up over them in bed, Samira smelled faintly of coconut and chamomile, her skin glowing, her hair shining under the lamplight. Emery gathered her close, kissing her once more, the kind of kiss that promised forever.
“Now,” Emery whispered against her lips, smiling as Samira curled into her chest, “perhaps you’ll finally sleep.”
Samira chuckled softly, nestling closer. “Not if you keep kissing me like that.”
Emery only answered with another kiss, slower still, until at last Samira melted fully into her arms and the rhythm of their breathing became one.
***
The parlor smelled faintly of polish and smoke, the remains of a fire crackling low in the grate. Emery lounged in an armchair with her legs tucked beneath her, a book resting idly in her lap, though she hadn’t turned a page in ten minutes. Parker sat by mantelpiece, arms crossed and smirk firmly in place.
“You know,” Parker drawled, “I never thought I’d see the day you went domestic. Little townhouse in Oxford. A lady waiting for you in bed. It’s downright wholesome, Walsh.”
Emery arched a brow, trying not to rise to the bait. “You make it sound like I’ve been chained to the hearth. I’ll have you know I’m still very scandalous.”
“Scandalous?” Parker scoffed. “You spend your evenings fetching shawls and making tea for Samira?”
Emery feigned indignation, though warmth crept unbidden to her cheeks. “She works at indecent hours. Someone must ensure she doesn’t collapse over her books.”
Parker’s grin widened. “You, domestic? I’ll never recover.”
“And what of you? I heard whispers you’ve been scarce at your usual haunts. Surely you’re not one to talk of being tied down.”
That grin faltered, just a fraction. Parker shifted, glancing toward the fire. “Not anymore.”
Something in her tone set Emery upright, book forgotten. “You and Lady Wynn…”
Parker’s jaw flexed. “Not seeing one another.”
The silence stretched, heavy. Emery leaned forward. “You’re going to have to give me more than that, Parker. You’re not one to walk away from scandal.”
For a long moment, Parker didn’t speak. Then she blew out a breath, rubbing a hand over her mouth. “It’s not about scandal. It’s about her. Mel’s with child.”
Emery stilled, the words sinking like stones. Parker’s gaze stayed fixed on the fire, uncharacteristically unguarded.
“She deserves a family, stability, the whole tale,” Parker went on quietly. “Not whispers, not half-truths, not me. She deserves better.”
Emery’s throat tightened as though the words lodged there might never come free. She rose from her chair and crossed the small space, her hand finding Parker’s arm, a steady weight against the tension she could feel thrumming there. “Did you love her?” she asked quietly.
Parker’s mouth twisted into a wry smile, one that flickered and fell almost as soon as it formed. “I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice rough. “I think that’s the worst part.”
The honesty in it hollowed something out in Emery’s chest. For once, she had no quick comfort, no ready wisdom. Only the echo of her own long-buried fear, that devotion might always demand too much, that society’s chains could strangle even the bravest heart. Her fingers tightened gently on Parker’s arm, the gesture carrying the words she could not shape aloud. I understand. I’m sorry. You are not alone.
The silence that followed was thick but not unbearable. The fire in the hearth cracked softly, flames sinking low, casting shadows that seemed to bend around Parker’s form. Her arms were still folded tight, her gaze fixed on the glowing embers as though daring them to sputter out. Emery watched the subtle shifts, the clench of her jaw, the slope of her shoulders drawn inward, as though she were trying to shield something raw and fragile at her center.
Emery stayed beside her, the weight of her hand still anchoring them both, until the silence felt less like absence and more like shared ground.
“Parker,” she said gently.
“I don’t need a lecture, Emery.”
“I wasn’t offering one.” She did not press, not yet. She simply sat, her hands folded loosely in her lap until Parker finally flicked her eyes toward her.
“I know how much this hurts,” Emery said. “Pretending it doesn’t won’t make it any less so.”
Parker huffed out a laugh, sharp and humorless. “What am I meant to do with it, then? Walk around London looking like a fool? I’m the one who should have known better than to get involved.”
“You cared for her,” Emery said simply. “There is no shame in that. You deserve more than this. You always have.”
Parker’s lips parted, as if to argue, but no sound came. The fight in her eyes dimmed into something rawer, something closer to grief. She leaned back against the chaise, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m so tired, Emery. Tired of pretending I don’t want what I want. Tired of acting like it’s enough.”
Emery shifted closer, her shoulder brushing Parker’s. “You are not alone in that.”
For a long moment, neither spoke. The fire crackled low, shadows shifting across the room. Then Parker exhaled, ragged. “She’ll have her child. She’ll have her family. And I’ll just be here.”
“No.” Emery’s voice was sharp enough that Parker turned her head. “You are more than that. You’re my friend. My family, in every way that matters. And you will not spend your life believing you are less simply because the world refuses to see you fully.”
Parker studied her, something unreadable flickering in her gaze. Then, at last, she gave a single nod. Not agreement, perhaps. But acknowledgment. Emery squeezed her hand once more before letting go. They sat together in silence, side by side, the fire warming their faces. Emery knew she could not erase Parker’s hurt, but she could sit with her in it.
The silence stretched between them, but Emery didn’t mind it. In the glow of the fire, with Parker’s profile half in shadow, she felt herself pulled back to another time, years ago, when she had been the one splintering apart. Back then, she had been so young, so frightened. One misstep, one whispered scandal, and the world had seemed ready to swallow her whole. She remembered the nights she spent shaking, unable to breathe for fear of what would come. And she remembered Parker. Always Parker. The one who would knock on her window and haul her out into the night air when the walls of her chamber pressed too close. The one who had taught her how to laugh again, how to spit in the face of fear instead of shrinking from it. The one who told her, with a certainty Emery couldn’t muster for herself, that she would survive.
It had been Parker who showed her how to be brave, even when bravery felt like a foreign language. Parker who’d steadied her hands, who’d forced her chin up when she wanted to bow her head. Emery had learned how to bear the weight of the world because Parker had refused to let her collapse under it.
And now here Parker sat, brittle and hurting, her strength turned inward against herself. Emery felt the coil of determination in her chest: she would not let her friend sit in the ashes of heartbreak alone. She owed Parker more than she could ever repay, but she could start here, by being what Parker had once been for her.
“You’ll always have me,” Emery said, her voice firmer now, steady as a vow. “No matter how many years may pass. That will never change.”
The words seemed to land somewhere deep. Parker’s shoulders loosened at last, the stiff line of her jaw easing as though she’d been carrying a weight too long. For a moment, she just looked at Emery, and found nothing wavering in her friend’s face. Only the quiet conviction that had always been there. And with that, Parker’s lips curved into a smile. Not her usual smirk, not the cutting grin she used to wield like a blade, but something smaller. Softer. Honest.
“Damn you,” she muttered, shaking her head as if to disguise the warmth behind her eyes. “You always know what to say.”
Emery huffed a laugh, relief unspooling inside her, and leaned back into the chaise. Their shoulders touched, familiar as breathing, and for a while they simply sat there in the glow of the fire. The room was hushed, the crackle of the flames filling the silence where words were no longer needed.
It struck Emery then, how the world outside might change a hundred times over, how people might whisper, or lovers might come and go, but this, here, was unshakable. Parker beside her, their bond weathered by time, sharpened by loss, softened by loyalty. She let her head tip against Parker’s shoulder, just as she once had as a girl too frightened to face the Season alone. Only this time, she wasn’t afraid.
And in the firelit quiet, Parker reached across and squeezed her hand once more, wordless, but enough.
***
The terrace glowed faintly with the last embers of daylight, the stone balustrades still warm from the sun. Beyond them, fields stretched into a dusky horizon, scattered with fireflies that blinked like stray stars fallen to earth. The Walsh estate had always been stately, austere even, but now, almost two decades later, it felt wholly different. Not a monument to duty or lineage, but a home, reshaped slowly, deliberately, by the life Emery had chosen.
And at the center of it all sat Samira.
She was curled beside her on the chaise, bare feet tucked beneath her, a book forgotten in her lap. Her hair, longer now, spilled like ink over her shoulder, catching what little light the fading sky offered. Emery turned her head just enough to take her in. the slope of her nose, the curve of her cheek, the little crease that appeared between her brows when she read too intently.
Emery had traced the crease with her fingertip countless times in bed, smoothing it away with kisses. The years had only deepened her beauty, softened nothing. There were faint lines at the corners of her eyes now, etched by laughter, and a gravity in her gaze that came from years of tending patients, of carrying others’ burdens. But when Samira smiled, like she did now as a breeze teased at the ends of her hair, she looked exactly as she had that first night Emery had dared to really see her. Radiant. Untouchable. Entirely hers.
God, how many nights had she feared she would never have this?
Her chest ached with the memory of it, the seasons spent convinced that love was only for other people, that all she could hope for was companionship softened by pretense. How different the world looked now. How different she looked now, reflected in Samira’s gaze each morning when she woke.
Samira turned her head, catching her staring. A small, secret smile touched her lips, one that Emery swore was reserved only for her. “Staring again?” she murmured.
“Again,” Emery admitted without shame. “And likely again tomorrow. You say it like you’re surprised.”
“I’m only amused,” Samira said, opening her eyes just long enough to meet hers. “Years later, and still you look at me like I’ve bewitched you.”
Emery brushed her thumb over the arch of her brow, reverent. “I think perhaps you have.”
Samira’s laugh was soft, warm, the sound that had come to define home more than any house or hearth. Emery kissed her then, their lips moving together not with the urgency of stolen moments but with the intimacy of a love built to last. When they broke apart, the evening had gone fully quiet, the kind of stillness that carried only the hush of crickets and the far-off murmur of the river.
“I never thought we’d have this,” Emery admitted, her voice breaking the silence, soft but steady. “Not really. I thought—perhaps a season, perhaps a handful of nights before the world came crashing in. And yet…” She tightened her hold around Samira, kissing her hair. “And yet here we are. Years. And it feels as though it’s only the beginning.”
Samira lifted her head, her gaze steady, her eyes gleaming in the half-light. “That’s because it is.”
Emery drew in a breath that felt like it filled her whole chest, her whole life. She smiled, a true thing, stripped of irony, stripped of fear.
The years had not dulled her hunger for Samira, but they had transformed it. What once burned like fire now smoldered, steady and enduring, the kind of flame that could warm a lifetime. There was still heat, yes—heat enough to leave her breathless—but there was something more precious now. The peace of knowing that Samira would be here tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.
She looked out across the darkening grounds, the windows of the house glowing golden behind them. Inside, Elizabeth’s laughter rang faintly down the halls, lighter now that she was grown and freer. Even their mother visited from time to time, less sharp-tongued these days, careful in ways Emery never thought she could be. And though London still whispered, of course it did, what mattered most had endured the storm. She and Samira.
Emery tightened her arm around her, pressing a kiss into her hair, breathing in the faint scent of rosewater and ink. Samira hummed, content, her body fitting so naturally into her own it was hard to remember a time before it.
She thought suddenly of Nicholas—their rainy afternoons, his wry smiles, his quiet hopes for her. She wished he could see her now. She wished he could see that, against all odds, she had found what he always said she deserved.
Samira tilted her head back, her eyes catching the very last streaks of twilight. Emery couldn’t stop herself from kissing her again, longer this time, until Samira sighed into it, melting into her side. When they pulled apart, Samira rested her forehead against hers, her smile still there, quiet and sure.
Emery let out a breath that felt like it had been waiting years to leave her. “I love you. I think it may be the truest thing I have ever known.”
Samira brushed her thumb across her cheek, tender. “I love you too. More than anything.”
And Emery believed her.
The night deepened around them, and they stayed like that, two silhouettes against the glow of the house, the fields whispering with the sound of crickets, the world no longer something to fear but something they had claimed together.
***
By Special Contribution to The London Post — written by Viscountess Emery Walsh
When I returned to society at the beginning of the Season, I expected little of it. I thought myself beyond all of this—the music, the spectacle, the endless weighing of worth across the ballroom floor. I believed my part in such things had ended long ago. But what I found was not an end, but a beginning. I had forgotten that life is rarely content with the roles we script for ourselves. It was not the waltzes or the whispered wagers that unraveled me. It was the glance across the room I had not expected. It was the conversations that lingered long after the ball had ended. It was the quiet persistence of a heart I had long believed incapable of opening again.
What I learned was this: there is no shame in desiring joy. No disgrace in claiming the person who makes the world feel possible. Love may cost us the approval of others, but it gives us something far greater: the courage to belong fully to ourselves. I write now, not as a widow or a sister or even as a viscountess, but as a woman who finally dared to say yes to her own heart. I urge you, whoever you are, do not wait as long as I did. Do not bury yourself in silence for the sake of propriety. The world will talk regardless. Let it. This Season taught me that love does not wait for our permission. It arrives uninvited, ungovernable, and for all its risks, it is irresistibly worth the fall. Love arrives where it will, whether we deem ourselves ready or not.
Because what remains, when the music fades and the candles burn low, is not their judgment. It is the hand you hold. The voice that calls your name. The love you chose, freely and without apology. I am grateful for the Season, not for its gowns or its triumphs, but for the way it changed me. And for the hand I now hold without fear.
With respect,
Emery Walsh
Notes:
Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, and shown love to this fic! It has really meant the world to me to write this story. Before I posted this, I didn't have a single pitt yuri oomf, and now I know so many of you. It’s literally making me emotionalllll ughhhhh all I’ve ever wanted to do was create fun stories like this and share it with a community who loves these characters as much as I do. Thank you all so much mwah mwah. I’m so excited to keep writing for these characters.
And fear not! The regency universe is far from complete…. We still have Parker’s story to explore :)
A special thanks to my gf who helped me plan and beta this fic from the moment of its creation! Every love story I write will always be a love letter to you.
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