My Husband Hid Me In The Country Because Of My Scars — Until I Crashed His London Ball

Part 1

The rain hammered the leaded glass of our manor like a handful of gravel thrown by an angry child.

Robert fastened the final brass button of his traveling coat in the drafty foyer that smelled perpetually of wet hounds and old ash.

He avoided the guilt-framed mirror by the door.

He avoided the doorway to the library, too, where he knew I was waiting for him.

It was not hatred that kept his gaze averted, but a rotting, hollow guilt that tasted faintly of bile at the back of his throat.

I leaned against the doorframe, supporting my uneven weight on a thick ashwood cane.

I wore practical tweed the color of wet mud, tightly buttoned up to my chin.

The high collar was a deliberate choice, though it did little to hide the puckered, shiny expanse of burn scar creeping up the left side of my jaw.

It was a brutal souvenir from a house fire years ago.

The tragedy had also crushed my left hip beneath a falling timber, leaving me to walk with a violent, dipping limp.

Robert refused to look at the woman whose dowry had saved his family from absolute ruin.

He claimed the debates in the House of Lords were pressing and the London season was demanding.

He told me the physicians agreed the damp air of the country was better for my ruined joints.

He insisted the stairs of his London townhouse would be sheer agony for a crippled woman like me.

I watched him with my mud-brown eyes, refusing to give him the satisfaction of playing the victim.

I pointed out that the gaslight of the capital was terribly unforgiving to a wife with a ruined face.

He flinched, claiming it was purely a matter of logistics and that he had arranged for his cousin Sarah to act as hostess.

Sarah was a widow with expensive tastes, a desperate need for a patron, and two perfectly symmetrical, unblemished cheeks.

She wore too much jasmine water and laughed loudly at jokes she did not understand.

I suppose that is all the aristocracy requires to pour tea and present a flawless front to the world.

Robert finally snapped, his temper fracturing as he shouted that he was sparing us both the humiliation of the whispers and the pity.

I reminded him that I had survived a burning roof collapsing on my body to pull my sister from the ashes with my bare hands.

I asked him if he truly believed the whispers of men who wore corsets and powdered their faces held the power to humiliate me.

I told him to go to London, take Sarah, drink his champagne, and let them envy his flawless companion.

I just reminded him exactly whose money paid for the carriage taking him there.

The heavy oak door clicked shut behind me, leaving him alone with his cowardice.

He fled into the storm, entirely relieved to pretend he was a whole man married to a whole life.

Three days passed in the suffocating damp of the country estate.

I sat by the fire with my ruined leg propped on a velvet stool, staring at the estate ledgers.

The numbers painted a vivid picture of a man who was as careless with my family’s money as he was with his vows.

He had taken the harvest projections instead of the domestic accounts.

If he attempted to pay his Mayfair tailor and Sarah’s modiste with the winter feed budget, the estate would bounce the drafts by Tuesday.

I realized then that I was entirely tired of waiting for the ghost of my husband to leave my house.

I packed the correct leather-bound ledger into the pocket of a severe, midnight-blue velvet gown.

I did not order the family carriage with the velvet seats to soften the agonizing journey.

I endured the rattling vibrations of the public train that sent spikes of torment through my hip with every passing mile toward the capital.

I arrived in Mayfair just as midnight approached and the frantic desperation of the Harrington ball peaked.

The heat in the grand ballroom was stifling, thick with the scent of melting wax, roasted meats, and heavy cologne.

I did not sneak in through the servant’s entrance.

I forced the massive mahogany double doors open, sending a rush of cold night air sweeping down the grand staircase.

The string quartet faltered into a messy, confused dwindling of discordant notes.

I stepped into the glaring gaslight, my hair pulled back ruthlessly with heavy silver pins to expose every shiny ridge of my scar.

The heavy velvet of my dress was tailored with a military cut, transforming me into a monolith of judgment.

I gripped a thick shaft of black walnut capped with a snarling silver lion’s head.

The room fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

I looked down at the glittering aristocracy of London with the flat, heavy gaze of an auditor reviewing a disappointing account.

I took a step forward, bringing my cane down onto the marble with a sound like a gunshot.

I dragged my ruined left leg down to the next step.

The descent was agonizingly slow, forcing every single person in the room to watch my uneven, laborious progress.

The whispers began, terrified gasps questioning what sort of creature had invaded their sanctuary.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and locked eyes with Robert across the crowded floor.

The path opened instantly, the elite scrambling out of my way as if I carried a plague.

Sarah clung frantically to Robert’s arm, her sponge-sugar pink silk trembling against his broadcloth coat.

I stopped three feet away, letting the cold scent of the storm cut through her cloying jasmine perfume.

I did not yell or demand a sudden tearful declaration of devotion.

I reached into my pocket and withdrew the small leather-bound ledger.

I held it out to him, my knuckles rough and unpowdered.

I told him he had taken the wrong book, my tone utterly conversational.

I explained that I had decided if he was going to spend my family’s money to dress his cousin in silk, he was going to look the monster in the eye while doing it.

He took the ledger, his face burning under the gaslight, while I prepared to turn my ruined body around and leave him to his flawless, empty world.