He did not think of her as spoiled. He did not think of her as frivolous. He did not think of her as anything she had once accused him of assuming.
He thought of her as brilliant. As infuriating. As impossible. As entirely too necessary.
He thought of her lips—light against his, surprising and sweet and far too vivid in his memories. He thought of the moment earlier that evening when the air between them had thinned, charged and dangerous, and how her eyes had widened with the same startling awareness that had seized him.
He had wanted to kiss her again.
And that terrified him more than the impending scandal.
Because the moment the door opened—whenever that might be—his life would change irrevocably. He knew what honor demanded. He knew what society expected. And he knew that Jillian, proud and brilliant and stubborn, deserved far better than being forced into a match merely because of circumstance.
But he also knew—without hesitation—that he would do what he must.
For her.
For himself.
For the truth neither of them had been willing to name until now.
He shifted slightly, easing her more comfortably against him, and winced as the cold radiated from the floor into his back. The moon had moved across the sky; hours had passed. Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed distantly. Footsteps echoed faintly far down the corridor—muffled, uncertain, and growing slowly louder.
His breath caught.
“They are looking for us,” he whispered under his breath, though Jillian did not stir. “It has begun.”
He tightened his arm around her one last time—one final, private moment before the door would fly open, before gasps would echo, before reputations would be ruined, beforehonor's path became unavoidable—and allowed himself a brief, unguarded truth.
He did not regret holding her.
He only regretted the moment it would end.
The footsteps drew nearer. Lantern light flickered beneath the door.
And Miles knew, with absolute certainty, that the next few seconds would change everything.
Chapter
Ten
Jillian awakened not all at once but in a slow, creeping wave of awareness that began with the chill of the stone floor beneath her and ended with the mortifying discovery that she was still wrapped in Miles Fairfax’s coat. The dim corridor outside hummed with faint movement—voices, footsteps, the unmistakable rustle of many people crowding into narrow, drafty spaces—and as her thoughts struggled to knit themselves into order, reality sharpened into something sharp enough to bruise.
They had been found.
A lantern still burned near the doorway, abandoned by whichever searcher had first cried out in shock. The light pooled across the uneven boards and cast elongated shadows that seemed almost mocking in their stillness. Jillian sat upright too quickly, the world spinning for a moment as blood rushed back into her limbs. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, a tangled cascade she could not possibly tame with dignity. Her gown was rumpled, the hem dust-smudged, the bodice creased from hours of leaning against Miles’s side. Even the borrowed coat, warm and comforting in the darkness, now felt like a glaring symbol of her own recklessness.
Her first instinct was denial—swift, panicked, stubborn.It cannot be that bad. It cannot.They were at Fairhaven, in the country, surrounded mostly by family or people on the fringes of society who had little to do with the rigid scrutiny of London. Gossip spread more slowly in winter. Guests came and went without much fanfare. And truly, no one had seen anything… scandalous. They had simply been asleep. Fully clothed. Both of them chilled half to death and desperate for warmth. Surely even the most determined busybody could not twist the truth into something else.
She clung to that thought. Pressed it close. Tried to make it feel true.
But with every passing moment the weight in her stomach grew heavier.
Because this was not London, but it wasFairhaven, and Fairhaven was never merely a house. Fairhaven breathed gossip. It cultivated scandal as though it were a thriving greenhouse specialty. Guests would not merely shrug and sayhow unfortunate.They would speculate. They would whisper. They would give each other knowing looks. They would connect dots that had never existed. And by the time the next coach rolled toward the coaching inns, the entire countryside would know that Lady Jillian Hale had been found tucked against a Fairfax cousin in an abandoned wing at one o’clock in the morning.
“Oh, heavens…” She pressed both hands to her face, feeling her cheeks burn with humiliation. “What has happened?”
She knew precisely what had happened.
But she could not allow her mind to settle on the image of herself half-asleep in Miles’s arms, nor the memory of his warmth against her, nor the accidental intimacy of his hand braced at her waist. She could not relive the moment before sleep claimed her when she had allowed herself to rest against him with far too much trust. Or that, in the darkest parts of herself, she had hoped that perhaps his impeccable honor might allow him some liberties. But it was of no use. She could not allow herself to linger on the recollection of how safe she had felt, how quietly steady he had been, how startlingly gentle.
