“At any rate,” Hugh went on, his voice drawing closer, “the attempt failed, and Tony up and married Georgie.”

“Quite a disaster for you, wasn’t it?” the same unfamiliar voice said with a laugh.

No, Elinor pleaded, pressing her back against the wall of the study in agony. No, please.

“It was indeed,” Hugh replied, the door from the kitchens squeaking loudly as it opened. “So I set my sights elsewhere. Tried various other methods of ruination. Did you see a certain article earlier in the year raging against them?”

“I did,” the other man said. “Quite well written, if a bit heated. Oh, that was you, was it?”

Elinor hissed through her teeth, her heart crashing through her stomach and nearly down to her toes.

“I wrote as I found,” Hugh told him without much concern, or, apparently, regret. “If they could write so much against Society as a whole, why shouldn’t I?”

“Ah, the power of the press,” Edmund chuckled. “I understood that article was quite the topic of conversation in Society for some time.”

Someone grunted.

“It ought to have been. It was meant to be inflammatory,” Hugh said. “They deserved it.”

They what?

No, this wasn’t the man she had fallen in love with. This wasn’t her darling Hugh, the one who had kissed her so passionately and with such adoration thenight before. This wasn’t the man who had waltzed her beyond her dreams and gave her wings to fly.

This was the reptile she hadn’t thought about in days. This was the monster she’d fought so violently against in London.

This was the man she hated.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and found, to her surprise, a pair of tears leaking out from the corners and racing down her cheeks. She dashed them away at once. This was no time for that.

“Well, I cannot wait to tell Joan,” Edmund chortled stupidly. “She’ll never believe it.”

“Tell her whatever you like,” said Hugh. “It makes no difference to me.”

Enough was enough, and Elinor could not bear one moment more. She wiped at her tears again and pushed off the wall, then strode out of the study, her hands still balled at her sides.

Her brother saw her first, and something in her expression must have warned him off, for he was quick to depart with whomever they had been walking with, abandoning Hugh to face Elinor alone.

Coward.

Hugh saw Elinor and broke out into the sort of smile that only a few minutes ago would have had her knees buckling. Now, it only fueled the ever-growing fire within her.

“How dare you,” she ground out between clenched teeth.

His smile froze, then faded. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sure you do,” she spat. She shook her head, words and emotions swirling in her mind, struggling to find their way into coherency. “I… I believed you.”