Her eyes were wide, luminous in the firelight. His hands still gripped her waist, unable or unwilling to release her. Every instinct screamed at him to kiss her again, to damn propriety and honour and every reason this was wrong.
“This shouldn’t have happened,” he said hoarsely, though his body refused to move away from hers.
“I know,” she whispered, though her lips still trembled from the taste of him. Her fingers uncurled slowly from his shirt, leaving damp creases in the fabric that would mark this moment long after they’d parted. “But we both knew it would.”
The truth of it hung between them: heavy, damning, undeniable. How many nights had he lain awake imagining precisely this? How many times had he watched her across rooms and wanted nothing more than to close the distance, propriety be damned?
And she had known. Heaven help them both, she had known.
Thunder rolled again, softer now as the storm began to move east. Rain still fell but with less fury, as though even the heavens had exhausted themselves against the inevitability of what had passed between them.
Tobias released her slowly, his hands sliding away, though every fibre of his being protested the loss. Cold air rushed between them where moments ago there had been only heat. He took one step back. Then another.
Creating distance that felt like death but was absolutely necessary.
“I should not have...” He stopped, dragging a hand through his wet hair, which left it standing in wild disarray. Water drippedonto his face, mingling with something that might have been rain or might have been the beginning of tears he refused to acknowledge. “Forgive me. Even though I do not, could not, deserve it.”
“Was it?” Her voice emerged barely above a whisper, but it carried across the space between them with devastating clarity. “Are you sorry you kissed me, Tobias? Or are you sorry you want to do it again?”
He flinched as though struck. Every word he should say—apologies, assurances of his honour, promises it would never happen again—died on his tongue.
Because she was right.
He wasn’t sorry he’d kissed her. He was sorry he had to stop. Sorry, he couldn’t sweep her into his arms and carry her upstairs and show her exactly how thoroughly he’d fallen. Sorry that duty and honour and his damned reputation stood between them like walls he could never breach.
He turned towards the door before his resolve could crumble entirely. His hand closed around the handle, wet leather squeaking against brass.
“You deserve better than this,” he said without looking back, his voice rough with emotions he could not name. “Better than stolen moments and forbidden kisses. Better than a rake who can barely manage his own life, let alone offer you the respect you’re owed.”
“And if I don’t want better?” The question stopped him cold. “If I want…”
“Don’t.” The word came out sharper than intended. He forced himself to turn, to meet her gaze one final time, though it cost him everything. The firelight caught tears pooling in her eyes, tears he’d put there. Tears he wanted desperately to kiss away.
“Don’t finish that sentence. Not tonight. Not when I’ve already proven myself weak enough to compromise you in your own home.”
“This is my home?” The bitter laugh that escaped her held no humour. “I think we both know that’s a pretty fiction, my lord. I am a guest here. A mere responsibility you inherited along with the title.”
“You are not a mere responsibility.”
“Then what am I?”
Everything. The answer rose unbidden, absolute and terrifying.You are everything I never knew I wanted and everything I can never have. You are the reason I ride into storms and the reason I can’t sleep. You are my brother’s widow and my nephew’s mother and the only woman who has ever made me wish I were someone better.
You are mine in every way that matters, and I can never claim you as mine.
But he could not say that. Could not give voice to the truth that would destroy them both.
“You are my brother’s widow,” he said instead, each word torn from somewhere deep and bleeding. “You are Henry’s mother. You are a woman who deserves every happiness this world can offer, and I am the last person who can give it to you.”
He pulled open the door before she could respond. Before he could see her reaction. Before his control shattered completely and he crossed that room again to take what they both wanted and neither of them could afford.
The corridor beyond was dark and cold after the library’s warmth. Water still dripped from his coat, leaving a trail across the polished floors. Somewhere overhead, the storm continued its retreat, thunder growing distant.
Tobias did not look back. Could not. If he saw her face, if he heard her voice… he wouldn’t be able to leave.
He made it perhaps twenty paces before he heard it. Soft. Broken. The sound of quiet weeping that she had held back whilst he remained.
Every instinct screamed at him to return. To comfort her, to apologise properly, to gather her into his arms and promise that somehow, impossibly, they would find a way through this mess.
