“Be careful,” he urged.
“You are very fond of instructing me,” she teased.
“I’m a gentleman.”
“That is a dreadful admission.”
“It is my only excuse, Gwen.”
She hesitated, her fingers on the gate. “I do not know what will happen,” she muttered. “With my stepfather. With the nunnery. With any of it.”
“I understand,” he said simply.
The words settled over her like a cloak warmer than any wool.
She did not thank him because the gratitude rose too high in her chest and would have choked her. Instead, she nodded once in a small, almost fierce acknowledgment.
“Good night, Your Grace,” she said.
“Good night, Lady Gwendoline.”
She slipped out into the dark, her feet sure on the path. The passage behind the houses took her back the way she had come, the familiar shadows closing around her. She should have been afraid. Instead, she found herself smiling.
The smile surfaced again and again as she moved, unbidden and impossible to suppress.
Perhaps Victor was not the cold, unfeeling wretch the gossips whispered about. Perhaps they just spoke of the mask he wore to keep people from creeping too near.
She knew him to be arrogant, exacting, and cold as everyone did. But she also knew him to be gentle, thoughtful, and unexpectedly patient. It was that contrast that warmed her in a very dangerous way.
She reached the servants’ entrance of Fenwick House and slipped inside. The corridor was dark. No one was lurking nearby. Her heart finally began to calm.
She paused at the foot of the back stairs, one hand on the banister, and let herself think clearly for the first time since his mouth had met her own.
She did not want to stop meeting him.
Whatever lay ahead, whether nunnery or flight, she knew there would be precious little sweetness in it. So, if these nights were the last pleasure she would ever know in this world, she would take them.
CHAPTER 11
“Your Grace. You are awake early.”
“I am not awake early,” Victor said sharply. “The sun is late.”
His valet froze mid-bow, holding the shaving water as if one wrong angle would end the world.
Victor knew he was being unreasonable. He also knew he could not stop.
“Shall I return in a moment?” the valet asked carefully.
“No. Leave it. I will shave myself.”
The valet hesitated only a second before setting the basin down and retreating.
The moment the door shut, Victor let out a breath he had not realized he had been holding.
It did nothing to ease the tension within him.
Everything felt wrong. Out of step. As if the air itself had shifted mocking degrees in the night.
