A clock somewhere in the house chimed two. Afternoon, then. Hours yet before evening. Before, he would be required to emerge for dinner and face her across the table with polite distance, pretending the space between them was not charged with everything they could not acknowledge.
Assuming she even attended dinner. She had taken meals in her chambers the past two evenings, claiming exhaustion. Or perhaps—more likely—claiming anything that would spare them both the exquisite torture of proximity.
He could not blame her.
Would not blame her.
Though some selfish part of him wanted desperately to see her face, even if only to confirm she was equally undone. To know he was not suffering this particular madness alone.
Tobias forced himself back to the ledger. Picked up another pen. Attempted to salvage the page with strategic blotting, though Edward’s notes were irrevocably ruined. Much like everything else.
The following morning arrived with grey skies and drizzle that matched Tobias’s mood with depressing accuracy. He had slept poorly—three hours, perhaps, stolen in intervals between bouts of staring at his ceiling and reliving every moment of that kiss in excruciating detail.
“The drainage issue in the lower fields has worsened, my lord.”
Pemberton stood before the desk, rain dripping from his coat despite the short walk from the estate office. His expression suggested this was not the first time he had delivered this particular piece of information.
Tobias blinked, attempting to surface from the fog that had taken up permanent residence in his skull. “The drainage. Yes. You mentioned.”
“Yesterday, my lord. And the day before.”
“Of course.” He scrubbed a hand across his face, feeling the rasp of stubble he had neglected to shave properly. “What do you recommend?”
Pemberton launched into technical explanations involving ditches and water flow and soil composition. Tobias heard approximately one word in five, his attention fracturing despite every effort to remain present.
Because outside the study window, just visible through the rain-streaked glass, a figure moved through the gardens.
Amelia.
She walked alone, no shawl despite the weather, her mourning dress already dark with moisture. What was she doing out in such conditions? She would catch a chill, and Henry needed her, and?—
“My lord?”
Tobias wrenched his gaze back to Pemberton. “Forgive me. You were saying?”
The estate steward’s expression suggested he was beginning to question whether his employer had suffered some sort of head injury. “I was saying that the work should commence immediately, before the autumn rains worsen the situation.”
“Then commence it.” Tobias stood abruptly. “Is there anything else requiring immediate attention?”
“Several matters, actually?—”
“Compile a list. We shall address them this afternoon.”
He did not wait for Pemberton’s response before striding from the study. His feet carried him through corridors with unerring precision, as though his body knew where it was going even as his rational mind screamed at him to stop.
The library. Always the damned library.
He should not go there. Should return to his study and focus on drainage and fences and all the minutiae that comprised a viscount’s responsibilities. Should absolutely not seek out the room where everything had changed, where the ghost of their kiss lingered in every shadow.
And yet.
The door stood ajar, precisely as it had that night. Tobias pushed it open slowly, half expecting to find the space empty, abandoned, just another room in a house full of rooms he would spend his life avoiding.
But she was there.
Amelia stood before the window where he had found her reading three nights ago, her back to the door, rain streaming down the glass like tears. Her shoulders held a rigidity that spoke of composure maintained through sheer force of will.
She had not heard him enter.
