Chapter Eight: Whispers and Flames

Part 1: Whispers

The ball lingered in the minds of the town's elite for days after. Whispers spread like spilled wine across silken linens: the young wife of Lord Ramon Everhart had stunned the entire room. Some said she outshone the mistress. Others whispered she had bewitched Lord Ben Fairchild, the Viscount of Renwick. And while they whispered, Jenny listened.

She listened to the way people looked at her now. With curiosity. With speculation. With questions they hadn't dared ask before.

And she knew: her silence had power.

Ramon could not sleep.

Since the ball, the image of Jenny in rose silk haunted his thoughts. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her standing in the candlelight, the rubies on her throat burning like temptation.

He had tried to push her from his mind. Told himself he only desired her out of guilt. That Evelyne needed him more.

But guilt had never made him jealous.

The memory of her dancing with Ben smiling, laughing, radiant gnawed at him.

He poured himself a drink. The fire crackled, mocking.

He remembered the night he'd gone to her room drunk, how she'd looked under the moonlight. Her body, her breath, the way she had surrendered without a word.

He had touched her as though she belonged to him.

She was his wife.

But now, she belonged to the room.

To the ball.

To them.

And he hated that.

Jenny sat at her writing desk, eyes focused on a name she had copied down from a letter she'd intercepted in the household's outgoing post: Evelyne Marchand.

No title. No nobility.

The letter had been addressed to someone named Reverend Basil Marchand in Norchester a parish town hours away.

Reverend. Not Count. Not Lord.

And yet Evelyne had let everyone believe she was born to aristocracy.

Jenny stared at the name, her mind alive. What else was a lie?

She folded the paper and tucked it into her journal. There was work to be done. Secrets to uncover. But she would play it slowly.

She had learned by now that in this house, timing was a blade.

The next afternoon, a letter arrived addressed to Jenny in elegant, unfamiliar script.

"To Lady Everhart, Forgive the boldness of my words, but I've not stopped thinking of our dance. Your grace haunts my thoughts and your laughter, my silence. May I call upon you sometime this week? Yours, Benjamin Fairchild."

She read it twice.

Then again.

He was nothing like Ramon. Where her husband brooded and withdrew, Lord Ben smiled openly. He asked questions. He listened.

She dipped her quill.

"Lord Fairchild, I would be delighted to receive you. With kind regards, Lady Everhart."

She sealed it with wax before she could change her mind.

When Ben arrived the next day, Ramon was nowhere to be found. Evelyne was suspiciously absent.

Jenny received him in the winter salon, where the fire burned low and the air smelled faintly of orange peel.

Ben bowed with exaggerated flourish. "I feared you might refuse."

"I almost did," she said, smiling despite herself.

"You shouldn't," he said, eyes locking onto hers. "I'm not one to chase shadows."

They talked for an hour. He told her of his travels, his horses, his inability to take court politics seriously. She told him nothing of her pain, but he noticed it anyway.

"I've heard some speak of you," he said quietly. "What they say doesn't match what I see."

Jenny tilted her head. "And what do you see?"

"A flame pretending to be a flicker."

She looked away.

He didn't press.

He simply handed her a small bouquet of winter roses blush white with scarlet tips.

"They reminded me of you," he said.

She said thank you. But she thought of the choker Ramon had sent her through Evelyne.

And which one had meant more.

That evening, Ramon returned earlier than expected.

He walked in just as Jenny was handing the footman Ben's flowers to be placed in a vase.

His steps paused.

"Visitors?" he asked, voice too casual.

"Yes," she said, calmly. "Lord Fairchild. We had tea."

He nodded once. "You're becoming quite the hostess."

Jenny didn't reply.

He took another step forward, eyes flicking to her dress. It wasn't revealing, but it clung to her like a second skin.

"You wore that for him?"

"I wore it for myself."

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

The silence stretched.

Then he turned and left without another word.

Evelyne cornered her the next day in the upstairs corridor

"Quite the performance at the ball," she said sweetly. "You looked almost... legitimate."

Jenny met her gaze, calm and unblinking.

"And you looked almost noble."

The smile on Evelyne's lips faltered.

Jenny stepped closer. "Tell me, Evelyne. Does your father still preach at St. Jude's? Or did he finally retire?"

Color drained from Evelyne's face.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course not." Jenny smiled faintly. "Just idle conversation."

She walked away without looking back.

That night, Ramon found himself staring at Jenny from across the dining table.

Evelyne spoke, but he didn't listen.

Jenny's eyes were fixed on her plate, but her presence was thunder.

Her silence screamed. Her grace mocked him.

He stood suddenly. "Jenny. A word."

She followed him into the library, quiet and composed.

He shut the door behind them. "What is this?"

"What is what?"

"This act," he said, jaw tight. "This performance. The new gowns. The suitor. The glances."

"It's not an act," she said. "It's survival."

"You're my wife."

She raised an eyebrow. "Only when it suits you."

He stepped closer. "And you think flaunting yourself for Ben Fairchild is the answer?"

She met his eyes, fierce. "You flaunt Evelyne in front of the whole world."

He blinked.

Silence.

And for a moment, Ramon saw the woman before him not as the girl he married out of duty, but as something more.

A rival.

A storm.

He backed away.

"I'm going for a ride," he muttered.

She watched him go.

The next morning, she received a letter from Norchester.

She locked her door before reading.

"Dear Lady Everhart, I regret to inform you that Miss Evelyne Marchand is not presently registered as a noblewoman. She was indeed born Evelyne Marchand, daughter to Reverend Basil Marchand, who passed away some years ago. Her mother remains in the parish, a seamstress by trade."

She paused, then continued,

"Evelyne left town nearly ten years ago. No titled records exist under her name."

Jenny folded the letter with shaking hands.

It wasn't just suspicion anymore.

It was truth.

And truth was dangerous.

She tucked it deep into her journal.

A flame pretending to be a flicker, Lord Ben had said.

No longer.

She would not flicker.

She would burn