Not that Benjamin was in the market for a wife, he reminded himself. Soon enough, he’d be too busy with Parliament to have time for distractions of any kind. This was his last one.
“Did you solve your friend’s problems?” he asked gruffly.
She grinned up at him, brown eyes sparkling behind gold-rimmed spectacles. “I am arranging an event to celebrate her latest success.”
“Complete with an enormous bellows to spray the entire crowd?” He gave a little shudder.
“Not this time,” she said with a laugh. “Customers must make do with glass vials.”
“I am certain the event will be a success,” he said in seriousness. “With your eye for detail, I’ve no doubt you are a phenomenal hostess no matter what the event.”
“It’s a calling,” she said with a grin. “There’s nothing I cannot organize.”
He stared at her in silence for a moment. Shewouldmake a phenomenal hostess. The sort that might make an equally phenomenal duchess. If such were an option.
“Would you ever leave Cressmouth?” he asked suddenly.
“Leave?” Her eyes widened with obvious alarm. “Why would I wish to?”
“What if it wasn’t a permanent change?” he pressed. “Would you not even go on holiday somewhere, once in a while?”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t like to be far away. Cressmouth has everything I need.”
“It cannot compete with London,” he said a bit more defensively than he intended.
London was where his mother and father had lived. The now-empty Silkridge residence contained the few happy family memories he’d ever had. It was the only place that had ever felt like home.
“London?” she stammered with the same level of terror as if he had saidsnake pit. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable. Everything I’ve ever heard makes it sound like the opposite of Cressmouth. It’s so big, so far away, so overwhelming…”
He could not fault her there. The city was indeed the opposite in many ways. Some of its characteristics negative, some of them marvelous. But his question had been answered, and the answer was no. His home would make her miserable. He would much rather keep her happy.
“How about you?” she asked. “Will you return to holiday in Cressmouth someday?”
Return to a place that contained her, only to have to leave her behind over and over again? A village that symbolized everything he could not have, now more than ever? He would not survive such a nightmare.
“I’m afraid not,” he said quietly.
Noelle bit her lip as if swallowing words she wanted to say. She cast her gaze downward.
“What is it?” he demanded.
With a sigh, she lifted her eyes to his. “I know why you’re leaving this time. You’re a duke. You have a duty to Parliament.”
He gave a curt nod.
Her next words were a whisper. “Why did you leave last time?”
“Because I wanted to stay.” The hoarse admission wrested from his throat.
Her eyes widened. “You wanted to stay… with me?”
Before he spilled any more unintended confessions, he pulled her close and slanted his mouth over hers.
She yielded to him immediately, grasping his shoulders as though she feared he would pull away.
He never wished to stop. This was what he needed. The woman he missed every minute they were apart.
He had left her before due to the same sensation she instilled in his heart even now:fear. Fear that if he let himself be vulnerable again, he still couldn’t keep her. It was not a risk he wished to take. Not a heartbreak he wished to live through. Yet each kiss only made him want to claim more than her mouth. He wanted to taste her skin, to know her body, to meld as one.
