“Among other things.” He cut a piece of pheasant with precise movements. “How was your afternoon, aunt? I trust your beast didn’t cause too much mischief.”
Louise’s fingers tightened around her fork. He had turned away from her mid-conversation, as though she had said nothing at all.
“Buttercup was a perfect gentleman,” Lady Merrow replied, her sharp eyes darting between Aaron and Louise. “Thoughhe attempted to steal Cook’s roast. One cannot blame him for having excellent taste.”
Emily giggled and launched into a story about Buttercup’s kitchen adventures. Louise forced herself to smile, to nod at the right time, but her throat had grown tight.
He’s already forgotten about it.
The kiss, the way he had held her, the desperate hunger in his touch. Nothing but a momentary lapse, already erased.
She tried once more when dessert arrived. “The weather seems to be improving, Your Grace. Do you enjoy riding when the roads are clear?”
“When time permits.” He did not look up from his syllabub.
“Perhaps Emily might enjoy learning. She’s asked about horses.”
“Miss Whitfield can arrange lessons, if appropriate.” His tone remained perfectly polite. Perfectly distant. As though Louise were a stranger making idle conversation at a dinner party rather than a woman he had kissed senseless mere days ago.
Louise set down her spoon. Her appetite had vanished.
This is how it will be,she told herself.
The kiss had been an aberration. A natural consequence of proximity and danger, nothing more. Any man and woman thrown together in such circumstances might have succumbed to a momentary attraction. It meant nothing about his feelings, and it should mean nothing about hers.
She repeated this to herself as Emily described her plans for tomorrow’s lessons. Repeated it as Lady Merrow made gentle jokes about Buttercup’s theatrical sighs.
Physical attraction is natural. It will pass.
Emily yawned, and a maid appeared to escort her to bed. Louise kissed her sister’s forehead and watched them go, acutely aware of Aaron rising from his chair.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said. “I have estate matters to attend to.”
He left without looking at Louise.
Lady Merrow watched him go, then turned to Louise with knowing eyes. “He’s not very good at this, I’m afraid.”
“At what?”
“Feeling things.” Lady Merrow sipped her wine. “He’s had so little practice, you see.”
Louise said nothing. What was there to say?
“Patience, my dear,” Lady Merrow said softly. “Walls that take a lifetime to build don’t crumble in a day.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Louise kept her voice carefully neutral, focusing on her hands clenched tightly in her lap.
Lady Merrow’s laugh held gentle disbelief. “If you say so, my dear.”
Louise excused herself shortly after, pleading a headache.
In her room, she pressed her forehead against the cold window and stared out at the moonlit garden.
But her lips still remembered the press of his mouth, and her skin still tingled where his hands had touched her, and no amount of logic could quiet the ache in her chest.
CHAPTER 13
“Ishouldn’t be more than two hours, Thornton. Have the carriage brought round.”
