But his eyes kept finding their way back to her, again and again, until he was forced to acknowledge the truth he had been avoiding.
He was not in trouble.
He was already lost.
***
The ladies withdrew after dinner, leaving the gentlemen to their wine and their cigars. Daniel fulfilled his duties as host, leading the conversation through the safe territories of farming and politics and the eternal question of road repairs, but his mind was elsewhere.
In the drawing room. With her.
"Miss Whitcombe is a charming addition to the neighbourhood." The vicar's voice broke through his distraction once more. "I understand she has become quite a fixture at the Hall."
"She visits Rosanne frequently, yes."
"Only Rosanne?"
The question was pointed enough to demand a pointed response. Daniel set down his glass with careful precision.
"She is my sister's friend. Nothing more."
The words came out sharper than he had intended; too sharp, too vehement, betraying more than they concealed. The vicar blinked, clearly surprised by the force of the denial. Around the table, the other men exchanged glances that Daniel pretended not to see.
"Of course, Your Grace," the vicar said mildly. "I meant no implication."
But the damage was done. Daniel could see it in their faces—the speculation, the curiosity, the barely suppressed interest that his reaction had ignited. He had meant to quash the rumors before they could begin; instead, he had fanned them into flame.
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor.
"Shall we join the ladies? I believe they mentioned something about music after dinner."
The transition was too quick, an obvious retreat, but Daniel could not bring himself to care. He needed to escape this room, these knowing looks, the suffocating awareness that he had revealed far more than he had intended.
The gentlemen followed him to the drawing room, and Daniel paused in the doorway to compose himself before entering.
Lillian was standing by the window.
She was alone, slightly apart from the other ladies, her silhouette outlined against the dark glass. The candlelight caught the curve of her cheek, the line of her neck, the soft gleam of her hair. She was looking out at the night, or perhaps at her own reflection, with an expression he could not read.
As though sensing his gaze, she turned and their eyes met.
The room seemed to contract around them; the chatter of the other guests fading to a distant murmur, the space between them shrinking until Daniel could feel the weight of her attention like a physical touch. She did not smile and she did not look away. She simply waited, as though expecting something from him that he did not know how to give.
"Daniel!" Rosanne's voice cut through the moment like a bell. "Come and settle a debate. Mrs. Garrett insists that the late duchess preferred Handel, but I am quite certain she favoured Mozart. You must tell us which is correct."
He forced himself to turn away from Lillian, to respond to his sister with appropriate attention, to rejoin the social performance that the evening demanded.
But even as he answered Rosanne's question, Mozart, definitely Mozart, their mother had found Handel tedious, he could feel Lillian's gaze on the back of his neck.
She had seen it. The unguarded moment. The naked wanting that he had been so careful to conceal.
She had seen it, and she had not looked away.
***
The guests departed in stages; first the tenant families, then the vicar and his wife, then the Garretts with their effusive thanks and their thinly veiled observations about the suitability of Miss Whitcombe as a companion for Lady Rosanne.
At last, only Lillian remained.
