Page 41 of How Not to Marry a Duke

She unwrapped the pot and set it beside the chocolates. The orchid was pale pink, its petals delicate as tissue paper.

Florinda stared at it and felt her composure begin to crack.

He had remembered. A small observation from their weeks together, catalogued and retained and transformed into a gift sent through his fiancée's hands. He had given Penelope the task of delivering his affection because he could not deliver it himself.

"How thoughtful." The words came out steady, pleasant, normal. "Please convey my thanks."

"I shall." Penelope leaned forward, her face earnest. "I wanted to thank you, actually. For being so kind to me at Carthedge. I know it cannot have been easy—being injured, being far from home, being trapped with strangers⁠—"

"You were not strangers. Not by the end."

"No." Penelope's smile was genuine, achingly so. "No, we were not. You are the first friend I have made since—" She stopped. "Well. Since everything became complicated."

The letter beneath the cushion. Penelope's trusting face. Frederick's words, seared into Florinda's memory: I am to marry another woman.

"I value your friendship," Florinda said. The words tasted like ash. "More than I can say."

"As I value yours." Penelope reached across and squeezed her hand. "We shall see each other often, I hope. Once you are well. Once I am—" A shadow crossed her face. "Once everything is settled."

Once she was married. Once she was the Duchess of Carthedge. Once Frederick stood before God and made vows that would bind him forever to a woman he did not love.

Florinda smiled. It was the hardest thing she had ever done.

"I should like that very much."

* * *

Penelope stayed for an hour.

She spoke of the wedding preparations—the gown being made in London, the flowers being ordered from the Carthedge gardens, the guest list that grew longer with each passing day. She spoke of the Dowager's opinions and Lord Ashworth's demands and the endless small decisions that must be made when a duke took a bride.

Florinda listened. She nodded in the appropriate places. She offered suggestions when suggestions were wanted and sympathy when sympathy was required. She was everything a friend ought to be.

Beneath the cushion, the letter did not move. Florinda felt it there—felt it pressing against her hip like a brand, marking her as the worst sort of woman. The sort who smiled at her friend whilst concealing proof of her friend's fiancé's betrayal.

No. Not betrayal. Frederick had done nothing wrong. He had written words he never intended her to see. He had kept his feelings locked in a drawer, and he would have married Penelope without ever speaking them aloud, and Florinda would have spent the rest of her life believing herself unloved.

That would have been easier. Ignorance would have been a mercy.

"I should go," Penelope said at last, rising from her chair. "Frederick will worry if I am gone too long. He fusses, you know. Pretends he does not, but he does."

"He is conscientious."

"He is." Penelope paused at the door. "Take care of yourself, Florinda. And do write. I shall be desperately lonely otherwise."

"I shall write," Florinda promised. "Every week."

Penelope smiled—bright and warm and unsuspecting—and then she was gone.

* * *

The door closed.

Florinda sat motionless in the silence. The orchid bloomed pink and innocent on the table. The chocolates gleamed in their box. Outside, she heard the sound of Penelope's carriage departing—wheels on gravel, horses' hooves, the creak of springs as the vehicle turned toward the road.

She pulled the letter from beneath the cushion.

The pages were creased now, crushed where she had hidden them. She smoothed them flat against her knee and read the words again—the jagged handwriting, the crossed-out lines, the raw and terrible honesty that Frederick had never meant her to see.