Her steps had grown almost careless by the time the path opened onto a small circle near the far hedge. Here, thegardeners had failed to tame the ground, and Victor had instructed his man to make use of the failure.
A low table stood within a ring of candles set in glass chimneys. A rug lay over the damp earth, and on it a pair of cushions that would take a lady’s weight without swallowing her. The air smelled of beeswax and a shy hint of cinnamon that his cook applied to pears when she wished them praised.
Victor stopped Gwen and untied the silk. He watched hungrily as it slid away. She blinked once, and he saw the moment when the quiet of the place washed over her like a hand smoothing a wrinkled page.
“A picnic,” she breathed.
“A modest one,” he confirmed. “Sit.”
She obeyed, though he saw the way she kept her back too straight and her hands too neat. This was the posture of a woman who expected orders to strike as soon as beauty offered distraction.
He knelt behind her as if to reach for a plate, then set his hands lightly on her shoulders.
The shock zapped through her like a plucked string. He felt it without seeing her face. She stiffened first from innocence rather than resistance, her breath catching like a girl unaccustomed to any hands but her maid’s. But his touch remained gentle,measured, and her rigid frame slowly gave way to a tremble she could not entirely disguise.
Her muscles tensed beneath silk. He massaged the left shoulder first, then the right, then the place that her stays had held too strictly for too many hours. She sucked in a quick breath.
“Breathe,” he said.
“I am breathing,” she whispered.
“Not enough.”
He felt the next breath lengthen. Her ribs moved as they ought, not under orders but according to their design. He moved his hands outward and downward, never touching the bare line of her neck, never crossing the boundary of her bodice.
Silk warmed under his palms. He learned the shape of tension and the way it released. She had no practice at surrender, yet her body understood instruction, just as a skittish mare settled when a rider had real hands.
Victor sat beside her when ease at last replaced rigidity. He did not crowd her. He let the space between them breathe.
“You are sensible,” he offered. “You are still deciding whether this is a trap.”
“It is sensible to assume that it might be,” she reasoned, before letting out a small laugh that sounded like a curtain stirred by air. “Though I suppose a trap would not come with sugared violets.”
“Some do,” he said. “The better sort.”
She looked down at her gloved fingers, then at the quiet circle of light. He could have let the silence linger. Instead, he chose to test the thread between them.
“I have heard stories,” he admitted. “About you.”
She went still again, but differently, as if a hand had risen to her face, and she refused to blink. “What stories?”
“That you are careless of propriety,” he replied. “That you have been seen where a lady should not be seen, and that you are often said to be where you never were. That you prefer the company of gentlemen you do not know to the dull conversation of the ones you do. That the ton has sent you a net of whispers, and you step through it because you like the game.”
Her cheeks flushed, but her lips thinned. “Thatisa pretty tangle. Did you knot it yourself?”
“I do not waste rope when others will provide it,” he answered. “I ask because I dislike using the wrong measure.”
“What measure do you require?” she asked.
“The true one,” he said. “So I know which danger is yours and which belongs to those who would name you foolish in order to call themselves wise.”
She looked away. The candlelight traced the edge of her cheek and left her eyes to find their own shadow.
Victor waited. Patience was his trade. He had learned it in fields, in ledgers, in the slow correction of old errors committed by older men. He could wait for a woman’s answer without urging it into life before its proper hour.
At last, she spoke. “You want the story.”
“I wantyourstory,” he corrected. “Not theirs.”
