His lips met hers—tentative, searching. Maggie let out a shuddering breath, breathing him in: rain, woodsmoke, and something wholly his own. She leaned closer, her arms moving of their own accord to wind around his neck, drawing him in.
It’s been so long since I’ve wanted anything,she thought.Not since—
The thought sliced through her like cold water.
He doesn’t know who I am. Everything he knows about me is a lie.
She jerked back, the pianoforte stool clattering to the floor. Neil started, nearly losing his balance. His eyes were wide, his lips parted, a flush on his cheeks she’d never seen before.
“I—” Maggie stammered, words failing her.
Neil rose abruptly, stepping back as though to restore the distance between them.
“I should never have put you in such a position, Miss Winter,” he said crisply, his composure returning like armour. “Forgive me.”
Forgive you?she thought.There is nothing to forgive.
All she could manage was a strangled breath. Then her nerve broke. She darted past him, out into the darkened hall, leaving her candle flickering alone atop the pianoforte.
Only her own heartbeat followed her into the dark.
Chapter Twenty
There was no talk of Emma coming down to breakfast that morning, nor would Neil have permitted it if there had been. The household seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement: this morning was not one for the presence of a child.
In truth, Neil had half a mind to forgo breakfast himself. He could have taken his tea and a crust while out with Simon, or in his study, with only the rain-streaked windows for company. But that, he decided, would have been cowardly. A duke did not retreat from his own table. And besides, if he absented himself, they would whisper—that he was ashamed, that he regretted the previous day’s scene at the fair.
He would allow no such suspicion.
So he came.
Neil entered the dining room with the careful poise of a man walking onto a battlefield. His anger had cooled since the fair, but it had not subsided; it sat just beneath the skin, simmering like water that would not quite come to boil.
Everyone was already seated—Aunt Harriet at her accustomed post at the far end of the table, composed and formidable as ever, and his own chair at the head waiting, conspicuously empty. Lord and Lady Farendale occupied seats midway down, side by side and unspeaking, their eyes fixed studiously upon their plates.
Lady Constance had taken a place near his aunt—not beside him, as had once been her habit, but at the farthest possible remove. She was rigid in her chair, her spine as straight as the line of her jaw. She did not look up when he entered.
The silence was so complete that Neil could hear the faint sigh of the floorboards beneath his boots, the soft scrape of hischair legs against the polished wood as he sat. Even the faint rattle of the teacups sounded indecently loud.
In the past few days, the Farendales had filled the breakfast table with chatter—empty pleasantries, self-satisfied laughter, and the careful orchestration of Lady Constance’s charm. This morning, blessedly, there was none of that.
Neil was not hungry. He took only a slice of bread and butter, the motion deliberate, and waited while Crawford filled his cup. The butler’s composure was immaculate; his expression betrayed nothing of what he must have felt, standing amid that frozen tension. Crawford had been in service long enough to sense discord and ignore it entirely.
Aunt Harriet, of course, did not share that discipline.
“You have dark circles under your eyes, nephew,” she observed, her tone perfectly conversational but carrying far too clearly through the hush. “Did you sleep poorly?”
Neil lifted his gaze to her and smiled thinly. “Indeed I did.”
Her shrewd eyes narrowed, calculating. He could almost feel her probing for the reason—whether he’d spent the night tormenting himself over the scene with Lady Constance.
He had not.
He had spent the night awake because of Maggie.
He could still feel the ghost of her lips against his, still see the way she had looked at him—startled, tender, unguarded. He had not meant to touch her. He had meant only to listen, to thank her, perhaps even to reassure her. And yet his hand had moved of its own accord, his body betraying him.
And when she had leaned into him—
