He allowed himself a small smile, that rare, slanted thing that only ever appeared for her. “I wouldn’t dream of interfering with you and your crusade for order among village shrubbery.”
She gave him a look. “You’re mocking me.”
“Never.”
She squinted. “You are.”
Now, he stepped closer, not too close but close enough that her presence warmed the space between them. “You want to rebuild our duchy. You’ve thought of things I haven’t. You’ve seen what I missed. That doesn’t deserve objection, Evelyn. That deserves admiration.”
Her mouth parted slightly, surprise flickering there before she masked it with a scoff. “Well, don’t go writing sonnets about me just yet.”
His gaze lingered.
I already have in the quiet corners of my mind.
But he only said, “I wouldn’t insult you with verse. You’d correct the meter.”
She grinned, delighted. “I absolutely would.”
He didn’t say that watching her storm into his study like that, so utterly breathless and entirely herself, had made his heart ache in that slow, bewildering way it had begun to whenever she was near. He didn’t say that loving her was the most reckless, inevitable thing he had ever done.
Instead, he reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Don’t let your friends drink all the tea.”
She blinked up at him then laughed and turned for the door, her steps already lighter. She was already halfway to the door when she unexpectedly paused, almost as if she had forgotten something in that long list of hers. Robert barely had time to process the sudden shift in her movement before she crossed the floor in a few light steps and threw her arms around him in a spontaneous, breathless hug.
“I know you don’t like surprises,” she whispered, her cheek briefly brushing against his chest, “but this one felt important.”
Then, before he could utter a word, before he could think to raise his arms and hold her properly, she pulled back just enough to press a swift, soft kiss to his cheek.
It was fleeting.
But itshatteredhim.
He felt it like an arrow loosed from some hidden part of her, a thing she hadn’t quite meant to reveal and perhaps didn’t realizeshe’d given. Her lips left behind a trail of fire and her scent, that ever-present mix of something wild and something comforting, lingered like a secret.
She turned on her heel, skirts swishing, and with a flick of her wrist and a grin tossed over her shoulder, she called out, “Don’t touch anything in here! I’ve just managed to learn your system of… terrifying order!”
And then, she was gone.
He stood rooted, a quiet man felled by something far mightier than steel or flame. He reached up, slowly, and touched the spot on his cheek where her lips had landed.
Then, he sat back in his chair, utterly still, except for the ghost of a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. The ledger before him was forgotten. His ink had dried again. But Robert didn’t care. Not when his whole world had just flown out the door like a bird on the wing, laughing, and left his heart fluttering in its wake.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Something in him snapped.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t thunderous. It was silent, a shifting of earth beneath stone, a fault line giving way. All the walls he had spent years constructing, all that logic, iron restraint, that quiet fortress of grief he never let crumble, began to fall apart, one careful stone at a time.
She had kissed his cheek. Not because she had to. Not out of duty or politeness or some wifely obligation. She had done it like it was the most natural thing in the world, as if he deserved affection.
He had spent years convincing himself that he could not ever feel this. That love was too great a risk. That the heart he’d once given freely had already been burned to ash when his parents and brother were taken. That loving again meant risking ruin again. But then she had held him and kissed him and laughed as she left him behind.
And now, Robert could not sit still.
He pushed back from his desk with sudden purpose, the chair skidding quietly across the rug. His long strides carried him across the room in seconds, out the study door, down the hall where her laughter still echoed faintly.
He didn’t think. Heran.
