“Aaron.” His name on her lips was barely a breath.
“I try to stay away. Try to be the gentleman you deserve. But then I saw you with him, with any man who might take you from me, and I …” He spun her again, using the movement to pull her impossibly closer. “I lose all reason. All control.”
They stared at each other, the ballroom fading away. There was only Louise in his arms, her eyes wide with something that might have been hope or might have been heartbreak. Only the rapid rise and fall of her breath, the pink flush spreading from her cheeks down to the neckline of that torturous dress.
“You unravel me,” he whispered.
The music ended. The spell broke.
Louise stepped back immediately, dropping into a perfect curtsy that somehow felt like goodbye. “Your Grace.”
She turned and walked away, her spine straight and head high despite the whispers that followed her path.
Aaron stood alone on the dance floor, watching her disappear into the crowd, knowing he had just made everything infinitely worse and infinitely more honest.
“Well.” Ernest appeared at his elbow, offering a fresh glass of champagne. “That was subtle.”
Aaron drained the glass in one swallow. “Not right now, Ernest.”
“The entire ton is going to be talking about this tomorrow.”
“Enough.”
“She’s magnificent, by the way.” Ernest’s voice turned serious. “Don’t let your fear of becoming your father cost you something real.”
Aaron turned to stare at his oldest friend. “What do you know about?—”
“I know you’ve spent your entire adult life avoiding any woman who might actually matter. I know you think wanting someone the way your father wanted his mistresses makes you weak.” Ernest gripped his shoulder. “And I know that you’re nothing like him.”
“You don’t understand?—”
“I understand that you just practically declared yourself in front of three hundred witnesses.” Ernest squeezed his shoulder once more. “The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
Aaron stood frozen for a moment, watching the space where Louise had disappeared. The entire ballroom seemed to pulse around him, conversations resuming, music starting again, the world moving forward while he remained suspended.
Blast it.
He set his empty glass on the tray of a passing footman. “Excuse me.”
Ernest’s eyebrows rose. “Where are you going?”
But Aaron was already gone.
CHAPTER 18
“Running away seems to be a habit of yours.”
Louise spun from the window to find Aaron silhouetted in the library doorway.
The Ashworth library was dimly lit, only a few candles flickering against leather spines, but she could see the tension in his shoulders, the careful way he held himself just inside the threshold.
“I needed air.” She turned back to the window, pressing her palm against the cold glass. Outside, snow had fallen again, soft flakes drifting through the light spilling from the ballroom below.
“In the library?”
“Books don’t stare. Or whisper. Or judge.” She heard him step further into the room, the door clicking shut behind him.“Everyone whispered about us. About how I am an unmarried woman living under your roof.”
“Is that why you ran? Because of what people might say?”
