They were inches apart. Close enough that Edmund could count gold flecks in her hazel eyes, could feel the warmth of her breath against his mouth. Could see in her expression not fear but anticipation. Challenge. A courage that matched the storm howling around ancient stones.
“Isadora,” he breathed. Her name on his lips felt like prayer and confession combined.
She lifted onto her toes, closing the distance by fractions. Her eyes fluttered half-closed. Edmund’s hand tightened at her waist, drawing her flush against him. He could feel her heart racing to match his own.
His head bent toward hers. Her fingers tangled in his waistcoat. Their lips were a breath apart, the space between them charged with ten years of denial about to shatter?—
Thunder cracked directly overhead with apocalyptic force.
The windows rattled violently. Something in the chimney shrieked as wind tore through ancient stone. The entire library seemed to shake, nature itself intervening at the precise moment Edmund’s control would have finally, completely broken.
They froze. Still pressed together but no longer moving. The thunder’s echo rolled away across the moors, leaving them in sudden silence broken only by rain and crackling fire.
Isadora drew in a sharp breath. Reality crashed back.
Edmund’s hands fell away as though burned, though every fiber of his being screamed to pull her back. To finish what they’d started despite the storm’s warning.
She stepped back. Just enough to create distance that felt simultaneously insufficient and insurmountable. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, lips still parted, eyes wide with awareness of how close they’d come.
“Goodnight, Edmund,” she said softly.
His name on her lips—the first time she’d used it since their wedding. The intimacy of it, spoken in that breathless voice with her eyes still dark with barely banked desire, nearly undid what little control he’d salvaged.
Edmund stood there, every muscle locked against the urge to close the distance again. His hands clenched at his sides. Jaw tight enough to ache.
She didn’t move toward the door. Didn’t flee. She simply stood there in the firelight, watching him with eyes that saw too much. Promised too much.
The storm raged on outside. Lightning illuminated her face before plunging them back to shadows. Thunder answered, more distant now.
And in the library of Rothwell Abbey, surrounded by ghosts of Christmas past and wreckage of ten years’ isolation, Edmund Ravensleigh and his wife stood separated by mere feet that felt like miles—connected by a moment interrupted and a truth finally spoken.
CHAPTER 21
“You’re staring again.”
Tobias’s voice cut through Edmund’s concentration and the latter looked up darkly. Tobias was grinning as though he found the situation particularly funny.
“You keep staring,” he went on.
Edmund didn’t bother denying it. Simply took a long swallow of port and returned his attention to the drawing room doorway where Isadora had disappeared moments before. He’d been unable to stop staring at her, the grace of her movements, the twinkle of her eye. “I was merely observing.”
“Observing.” Tobias settled into the chair opposite with the sort of knowing smile that had irritated Edmund since their school days. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Because from where I’m sitting, it looked remarkably like a man who can’t tear his eyes away from his own wife.”
“She was laughing with Lillian. I was ensuring appropriate decorum.”
“Ah yes. Decorum. That explains why you’ve been ‘ensuring’ it for the past three days with the dedication of a man possessed.”
Edmund’s jaw tightened. Three days since the library. Three days since he’d confessed the truth about James’s death and nearly kissed his wife in front of a roaring fire while thunder shook the rafters. Three days of exquisite torture as he tried—and failed—to maintain the careful distance that had served him so well before she’d touched his scar with those gentle fingers.
“I have no idea what you’re implying.”
“Don’t you?” Tobias leaned forward, voice dropping. “You watched her through the entire Christmas luncheon yesterday. Tracked her movements like a hawk following prey. And when she reached for the salt at precisely the same moment you did, I thought you might actually combust from the contact.”
Edmund had thought the same thing. That brief brush of fingers had sent electricity racing up his arm, made his breath catch in a way that had nothing to do with seasoning requirements.
“Your imagination runs wild, old friend.”
“My imagination is perfectly sound. What’s wild is the way you’re torturing yourself.” Tobias rose, moving to the sideboardto refill his glass. “You care for her. It’s written across your face every time she enters a room. Why not simply?—”
