Chapter Twenty-Six
Felix’s pulse echoedin his ears as loud as a cannon, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Not when she stood in front of him, silent, rigid. Every instinct screamed that if he reached for her, she might vanish like smoke.
Maisie. Here.
Her name beat against his ribs like a furious drum. She hadn’t aged—no, that wasn’t it. She had changed, ripened. The sharp-boned beauty he remembered had given way to something softer, richer. More dangerous to his heart. Her eyes—those impossible, whisky-dark eyes—met his at last.
Still, she said nothing.
The butler hovered. The footman offered her his arm. The rain drummed like a thousand hoofbeats behind him, but inside the house, everything fell into a still, aching hush.
“Lady Spencer,” the footman repeated.
Felix flinched. That name again.
His throat worked. “Maisie,” he said, low, not quite trusting himself. The sound scraped out of him, raw. “It’s… you.”
Her lips parted.
He waited another moment. Two. The silence carved him open.
Raphi’s voice rose behind him, a hesitant murmur trying to stitch the moment back together. “Yes, Lady Spencer. Of course. She’s theaunt of the Marquess of Stonefield.”
No. That wasn’t right.
His fists curled at his sides from the punishing restraint it took not to reach for her. Not to touch her. To demand: Where have you been?
How could she have allowed so much time to pass?
“Maisie?” was all that came out. He wanted to say more—Why didn’t you write? Why are you pretending you don’t know me?But the words clogged in his throat. “My Maisie!”
James stepped forward, ever dutiful. “Lady Spencer, the landau is ready.”
And still, she said nothing.
The click of Mrs. Rachel Pearler’s heels sounded down the corridor. “What is the matter?”
Felix couldn’t speak. His ears rang with her silence.
Maisie—Lady Spencer—just ogled him as if he were a stranger. As if he hadn’t once touched her hair with reverence, hadn’t kissed the hollow of her throat like it held his every hope.
What could it mean, this name she wore like armor?
Please, no.It couldn’t be what Alfie had wondered. Or Raphi. Or every awful thought he’d tried to shove down. Had she found someone else?
He’d been hers. Hadn’t she once been his?
“I…” He swallowed. “You don’t recognize me?”
The butler shifted. The footman’s arm hovered, forgotten.
Raphi made a sound—a soft, sorry breath.
But Maisie only blinked.
And then, finally, she said the words. “Faivish?”
Felix swayed. The ring of his true name in her mouth—half-prayer, half-wound—nearly dropped him to his knees.
