Edward did not answer; he simply waited.
“It began with my sister,” Beatrice continued. “She had opinions—bright, bold ones—and was dismissed at every turn. Laughed at. Ignored.” She swallowed. “Then Mama… her thoughts were always softened, altered, or scolded away in company. I watched her swallow her opinions until she hardly recognized them as her own.”
“And mine…” Her throat tightened. “Mine were treated as though they were nothing more than the chatter of a young girlwho didn’t understand the world. I couldn’t bear to swallow my opinions.”
Edward’s jaw tightened.
“So I wrote,” she said. “First in anger, then in hope. At my desk late at night, by candlelight, when everyone was asleep.” Her voice lowered. “Miss Verity gave me a voice no one could interrupt or dismiss.”
She looked into the flames.
“What began as essays on manners and hypocrisy became something… bigger than me. A way to speak the truth when the truth was unwelcome.”
The room fell utterly silent.
After a long moment, Edward murmured, “Beatrice…”
The way he said her name sent a warm shiver down her spine.
“You surprise me,” he admitted. “Constantly. Just when I think I understand you, I realize I don’t. Not even a fraction.”
She laughed weakly, nerves prickling beneath her skin. “Surely I’m not so mysterious.”
“Oh, but you are.”
She felt his gaze before she dared to meet it. And when she did, her breath caught.
There was no charm there now. No rakish amusement. Only sincerity. And something that made her heart stammer in her chest.
She looked away.
“Tea,” she said, too briskly. “I should… finish my tea.”
They both reached for the same cup, and their fingers brushed.
The touch was light, but it shot through her like a spark traveling along a taut line. Her breath hitched, barely audible, but she felt it burn all the way to her cheeks.
Edward stilled, and Beatrice withdrew her hand first, as if the porcelain had scalded her.
“I—sorry—I thought that one was mine.”
“It can be,” he murmured, not taking his eyes off her.
Her pulse fluttered wildly. She forced herself to look away, staring at the embroidery on the shawl to steady herself. “Thank you. For… earlier. For being honest with me.”
“You deserved that honesty.”
She nodded, though she felt strangely unsteady, as if the floor beneath her chair had shifted just an inch to the left.
“I should check on Pip before I go to bed,” she declared, rising too quickly. Her skirts rustled, and the firelight grazed the hem. “She’ll be waking up soon for her midnight feed.”
Edward rose as well. “Of course.”
He didn’t move to follow her, but she could feel his gaze tracking her steps toward the door. It heated her from the inside out, a slow spreading warmth that pooled low in her stomach.
She paused in the doorway, pretending to adjust the shawl so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge the tremor in her breath.
It’s only the fire.The warmth of the hearth. That is all.
