Carefully, as if handling something fragile, he eased his arm from around her and rolled onto his back, creating a small space between them. She shifted, her brow creasing, and he almost abandoned the effort. Almost drew her back. Almost succumbed to the simple, forbidden desire to be needed in this way.
Instead, he slid to the edge of the bed and sat up, rubbing a hand over his face. His body ached pleasantly from too little sleep and too much restraint. His mind felt like a room with too many doors flung open.
It is nothing.It was a moment of weakness. She needed warmth. You offered it. You will see her safely to Cheltenham, leave her in her cousin’s care, and ride back to town. She will have her freedom. You will have your order.
He rose quietly, careful not to jostle the mattress. She rolled into the warm space he left, burrowing into the pillow that still held his scent. The sight tore at him.
He forced himself to turn away.
At the small washstand, he poured water into the basin and splashed it on his face until the chill bit straight through the haze of the night. The man who looked back at him from the spotted glass was the same as always—controlled and uncompromising.
He did not look like a man whose heart had just stuttered in someone else’s arms.
Good.Keep it that way.
Gwen would be gone from his life soon enough. That had always been the understanding. Whatever tenderness the night had tempted from him must be folded away, like a letter one chose not to send.
He dried his face, straightened his cuffs, and slid his mask of cool composure back into place.
By the time she woke, he would be ready.
Gwen woke up slowly, blinking against the thin morning light that crept between the curtains. Victor had taken the chair nearest the hearth, boots on, coat on, hands resting on a notebook that lay open on his knee.
He had not written a single figure. Instead, he watched her.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, her hair mussed, her eyes still heavy with sleep. For a moment, she looked disoriented, like a girl roused from a dream. Then memory returned. He saw it in the way her shoulders rose to her ears.
“Good morning,” he greeted.
She glanced instinctively at the other side of the bed, as if making sure they had not been discovered by some invisible chaperone. Finding only rumpled sheets, she exhaled.
“Good morning,” she returned.
He felt her husky voice in places he preferred not to think about.
“There is water for washing,” he said. “And I will ask the innkeeper to send up breakfast.”
She hesitated, her fingers twisting in the coverlet. “Victor.”
He steeled himself.
“I have been thinking,” she admitted. “About my mother.”
Of course.
He closed the notebook. “Go on.”
“I cannot leave her,” she sighed. “Not like this. Not knowing what he will do when I am gone. It feels like abandoning her to his temper.”
His frustration flared, swift and sharp. “We discussed this,” he reminded her. “She has chosen to remain. You cannot save someone who refuses to step out of the fire.”
“She may not step out, but I can stand beside her,” Gwen insisted. “If I go, he will have no one else to torment. I know he hurt her even with me there, but I also know he turned some of his attention to me. Now, there is only her.”
Victor’s jaw clenched. He rose, needing to move. “So you mean to return? To that house? To that man?”
She lifted her chin. “To my mother. Yes.”
Ice slid through his veins, so cold it tempered his anger. “You are willing to walk back into a situation you already know is intolerable?”
