She wondered whether he was angry with her—but no, of course he wasn’t. He was overcome with emotion, and he didn’t want her to see. Should she respect that? Leave him in peace? She glanced back at the door through which they had come. Maybe the right thing was to leave him up here on his own, to allow him to grapple with these emotions.
That’s not the way a wife would treat her husband, though.
She was still struggling to determine exactly what he wanted from her in the role of his wife—what he thought that ought to look like. But since she could do nothing but guess, she would have to give him what she thought he needed and hope that she was doing the right thing.
So instead of turning away, she walked up behind him and put a hand on his arm.
He tensed but didn’t turn to look at her.
“I hope it’s all right that I’m speaking like this,” she said. “I know how difficult it is to grapple with these feelings. It’s very personal. I feel the same way about the loss of my mother. I think if someone tried to force me to talk about that when I wasn’t ready to, I would be very upset with them. So, I’ll never come into the attic again unless you invite me, and I am sorry I pressed you on the subject. I understand now why you didn’t want anyone else up here. It makes perfect sense.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Arthur murmured. “In fact, I’m glad you convinced me to come up here because I hadn’t done so in years. And there is truly no point in having these things up here if I’m never going to visit them, is there?”
“It’s a complicated question,” Isabella said gently. “I know that.”
“Be that as it may, I don’t want you to question whether you’ve done something wrong today,” Arthur replied. “You haven’t. I’m glad we’re up here.” He turned back to her. “I’m glad that both of us are up here. I’m glad you convinced me to come and visit these things, and I’m glad that you came with me.”
Her heart beat a little faster. “Really, you are?”
“I know that things haven’t been easy between the two of us, Isabella,” Arthur said. “But I hope you know what a wonderful addition you’ve been to my life, and today is one more example of that fact. I wouldn’t have come up here again—maybe ever—if not for you, so thank you for convincing me to do it.”
He rested a hand briefly on her shoulder, and she felt almost dizzy with the shock and delight of it. To have him choose to touch her like this—it was something that she would never get used to, and she knew it. It was something that would always fill her with unexpected joy.
He pulled her close, and it was as if the rules of the world had been rewritten.This isn’t something he does, Isabella thought helplessly.This isn’t something he wants. Not with me.
But apparently, she had been wrong about that because he was drawing her ever closer, and then his arms were winding around her body, and his lips were on hers, and she felt joy crashing through her like a wave.
He had kissed her.Waskissing her. How could this be? He had been nothing but clear about the fact that he didn’t want to share these sorts of moments with her, and now, here they were in one another’s arms—she could hardly make sense of it.
But she didn’t need to make sense of it. All she wanted was to live inside this kiss, to see how deep this moment could go. She kissed him back with everything she had, reveling in the fact that although she had never done this before, her body seemed to know the steps of this particular dance.
And then he pulled away.
She searched his face, worrying. Had she done something wrong?
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said. His tone was suddenly sharp, the openness of a moment ago having disappeared. He turned away from her again, and this time, she knew that approaching him wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
The moment had ended, and there might never be another one like it.
CHAPTER 26
Isabella didn’t sleep a wink that night. She sat in her window seat, trying to sort out her emotions about the kiss. Trying to understand everything that had happened, and to piece together the reasons why it had happened. And perhaps, if she was very lucky, to think of a way to make it happen once again.
Now that she’d had a kiss, she longed for another. She knew, too, that she had been wrong to think that Arthur had no interest in her. He might think it was wrong for the two of them to be that close—though why he could have thought so, she wasn’t sure. They were husband and wife, weren’t they? This was what was supposed to happen between them. But Arthur had always been full of mystery, and it was clear that he didn’t want to permit himself to experience happiness. Their marriage wasn’t the only way in which he was depriving himself, either. He had kept all the mementos of his parents locked away in an attic, refusing to visit them for years and years. Maybe he was doing the same thing with his heart. Maybe he had locked his feelings away and was refusing to acknowledge them for some reason. And just as she had persuaded him to return to the attic, maybe it was herduty to help him find the way back to the feelings he’d locked away as well. Maybe she would be the one to guide him in that way.
It would be a privilege if that was true. She would be thrilled to have the opportunity to help him trust himself again.
As dawn broke, she felt excited and confident. He would join her for breakfast as he always did, and the two of them would talk about what had happened last night. Isabella was no fool—she knew that he wouldn’t be likely to want to talk about it at first—but she would convince him, just as she had convinced him that it was right to go into the attic. She would get him talking, and eventually, he would have to admit that the kiss had been lovely, and that another one would be lovely as well. She knew he felt that way. It wasn’t possible to share a kiss as passionate as the one they had shared last night if you weren’t enjoying it. She was confident of that fact.
She dressed in one of her nicest everyday gowns, a blue one that she knew he admired her in—she had caught him looking at her a little bit longer the last time she’d worn it. She took her time with her hair, making sure her appearance was perfect. There could be no flaws today. She needed him to look at her and understand at once what he had found so appealing about her yesterday. She needed him to be drawn in.
Isabella paused before the looking glass for one last moment before going down to breakfast. She had done as well as she could on her appearance, she thought—the best thing shecould do now was to go down to breakfast and approach the conversation they needed to have with confidence.
She thought she might get there before him—even though she had taken her time getting ready, she was early because she had been awake all night—but to her surprise, Arthur had beaten her to the table. Seeing him there gave her a little shock of pleasure. Had he been similarly disturbed last night? And he looked so good—perhaps he, too, had made a special effort today. Maybe this conversation would be easy. Maybe he was also eager to say the things she wanted to say.
She took her seat and helped herself to bread and chocolate. Now that she was here, sitting across from him, she found herself almost impossibly nervous. She had known what she wanted to say—she’d rehearsed it in her head—but the idea of saying it out loud now was intimidating. She swallowed hard. Perhaps he would be the one to speak first. After all, what had happened last night had to be addressed. To simply ignore it was not an option.
Arthur cleared his throat. “How did you sleep?”
