He should leave. Should retreat before she noticed his presence. Should absolutely not speak the words forming on his tongue.
“You’ll catch your death, wandering the gardens in this weather.”
She went utterly still. A heartbeat passed. Two. Then she turned slowly, and the look on her face nearly drove him to his knees.
Not anger. He could have borne anger.
Instead, her eyes held exhaustion wrapped in something that looked desperately like a combination of hope and fear. Her lips—those lips he had tasted, had claimed, had marked himself upon irrevocably—parted slightly, as though she might speak.
But no words came.
They stood frozen in tableau, rain hammering against windows, the fire crackling in the grate, and between them stretched a chasm neither seemed capable of crossing.
“Tobias—” His name emerged barely above a whisper.
“Forgive me.” He was already backing toward the door, coward that he was. “I should not have... I merely saw you from the window, and I thought... that is...”
He thought what, precisely? That he might check on her welfare? Ensure she had not contracted pneumonia from her solitary wandering? Confirm that she was as wrecked by their kiss as he was?
All of it. None of it. Everything impossible and forbidden.
“I shall leave you to your reading.” He turned before his resolve could crumble. “Please. Take care not to overtax yourself.”
The door closed between them with a soft click that sounded obscenely loud in the library’s quiet.
Tobias leaned against the corridor wall, breathing hard, his heart thundering against his ribs with enough force to crack them. Four days now. Four days of this exquisite torture, and he was no closer to restoring the distance that had once seemed so easy to maintain.
If anything, he was drowning.
CHAPTER 27
“Lady Amelia, you honour me with your presence.”
Ashbourne stood the moment she entered. Perfect manners. Perfect timing. Perfect everything, which was silently grating on her in ways she couldn’t explain. His bow hit precisely the right angle—respectful without scraping, familiar without presuming. As though he’d measured it with a protractor.
She let him take her hand. Guide her to the settee by the window, where the sun blazed through as if it had some sort of point to prove. All that light and she felt cold straight through to her bones.
“Lord Ashbourne. Kind of you to call.” The words came out on their own. Years of training did that—made you say things whether you meant them or not. “Your journey was pleasant, I trust?”
“Exceedingly so.” He settled across from her. Not too close. Never too close. “Though I confess the destination held considerably more appeal than the road.”
There it was. The compliment delivered smooth as silk. Any other woman would’ve blushed prettily, murmured thanks, felt flattered.
Amelia felt nothing.
Well. That wasn’t entirely true. She felt something—a vague sort of appreciation for technique, the way one might admire a particularly well-executed minuet whilst being utterly bored by the dance itself.
She reached for the teapot. “Sugar?”
“Two lumps, if you please.”
Pour. Pass. Smile. Accept his thanks with another smile. Through the doorway, she could hear Mrs. Boldwood discussing dinner with Cook, someone’s footsteps on the stairs, and Henry’s laugh floating down from the nursery where Mary had taken him.
And somewhere—somewhere in this cursed house—Tobias.
Her hand shook. Just slightly. Just enough that tea sloshed against porcelain with a sound that seemed obscenely loud.
Stop thinking about him. Stop stop stop.
