There. Right there; making you look like a woman who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty for something she believes in.
“Hold still,” he said, reaching toward her face.
This is a mistake. You’re crossing a line you agreed not to cross.
But his thumb was already brushing across her cheekbone, wiping away the streak of soil with gentle precision. Her skin was warm beneath his touch, softer than he’d expected, and the way her breath caught made something tighten low in his chest.
For a moment, they simply stood there in their ruined clothes, surrounded by the garden they’d built together, staring at each other with an intensity that had nothing to do with herbs or soil or any of the practical reasons they’d given for this project.
Then, Sybil did something that surprised him completely.
She giggled.
Not a polite laugh or a nervous titter but a genuine, delighted giggle that transformed her entire face and made her look years younger.
“What?” he asked, his thumb still resting against her cheek.
“You,” she said, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “The Duke of Vestiaire covered in dirt and looking completely satisfied about it. If your daughters could see you now.”
If my daughters could see us now. If anyone could see us now.
“They’d probably think I’d taken leave of my senses,” he admitted.
“Have you?”
The question was asked lightly, teasingly, but something in her tone suggested she genuinely wanted to know the answer.
Have I? Have I lost my mind over a woman who was supposed to be nothing more than a convenient solution to my problems?
“Probably,” he said quietly, his gaze dropping to her mouth.
Definitely.
Her giggle had faded, replaced by something warmer, more complex. The air between them seemed to thicken, charged with possibilities neither of them had quite acknowledged yet.
Step back. This wasn’t part of the arrangement.
But his feet remained planted in the soil they’d worked together, his thumb still tracing the curve of her cheek, his entire world narrowed to the woman in front of him and the growing certainty that their carefully practical marriage was becoming something else entirely.
Something that felt dangerously like the beginning of everything he’d never known he wanted.
Chapter Eighteen
The melody escaped Sybil’s lips before she even realized she was whistling—a cheerful little tune that seemed to dance through the morning air as she made her way to the breakfast room.
When was the last time I whistled?The thought struck her with surprise. Years, certainly. Perhaps not since before Emmie’s death when the world had still seemed full of possibilities rather than obligations.
But this morning felt different somehow. Lighter. As though the weight she’d been carrying for so long had shifted just enough to let her breathe properly again.
The garden.It had to be the garden. She could already envision the herbs flourishing under her care, the satisfaction of creating something useful and beautiful with her own hands. And the way Hugo had worked beside her, his usual stern demeanor softening as they’d labored together in the dirt…
“My goodness, Sybil, you sound positively cheerful this morning.”
Rosalie’s amused voice startled her from her reverie. Hugo’s eldest daughter sat at the breakfast table, already dressed for the day in a morning dress of pale yellow that complemented her auburn hair perfectly.
“Do I?” Sybil settled into her chair, accepting a cup of tea from the footman with a smile. “I hadn’t realized.”
“You were whistling,” Rosalie observed with barely concealed delight. “Quite melodiously, actually. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you whistle before.”
