“You provoke me,” he grunted.
“You started it, Your Grace.”
“These games have rules.”
“Do they?” Her voice held the faintest thread of derision. “Then we shall see who knows them best.”
He stepped the smallest fraction closer.
The garden held its breath. She did not retreat.
He was conflicted, two voices hissing at once in the back of his head.
This is not a good idea. End it.
Break her calm. Just once. See what lies beneath.
Victor had always preferred certainty. He managed his estates with precision. He ended affairs neatly after seven nights. He gave no one the chance to imagine that his heart might be loaned along with his body. He did not chase women in hedged paths to see how their mouths shaped a gasp.
But at that moment, he remained where he stood, one step nearer than was wise.
“You should go in,” he urged, though the words lacked conviction.
“You should, Your Grace,” she returned. “I am not the one who will be missed.”
The rebuke sat neatly on the cool curve of her lips.
Instead of responding, he adjusted his gloves, a habit learned in boyhood when he had been required to hold still under a lash of words. The movement steadied him.
“You enjoy provoking,” he noted. “Perhaps because you think it keeps you safe.”
“Safe is a relative term.” She looked toward the orangery. “Is that orange blossom I smell?”
“It is.”
“I thought so.”
Victor knew that he should have encouraged her to go to the orangery. But for some reason that he had not yet rationalized, he did not.
He advanced the smallest step—not looming, not threatening, merely present. Tension thrummed like a string from the depths of his torso to the soft place beneath her ear.
For a heartbeat, her eyes widened. Triumph, clean as a knife, slid through him. Then, she composed herself, as if she had remembered who exactly she was arguing with.
“Good,” he said softly. “You are not easily shocked, but you are easily startled.”
“I am not.”
“You are,” he insisted, moving a finger’s breadth closer. He could see the lace of her mask, could see the sheen on her lower lip. “Allow me to warn you; curiosity will lead you into trouble.”
“Curiosity keeps me from stupidity,” she countered. “Trouble is often instructive.”
“Not this variety,” he said.
He knew that he should have left it there.
He did not.
Instead, without really thinking about it, he reached out, took one pale strand of hair that had strayed from its pins, and lifted it with two fingers as if considering a specimen. “Hold still.”
