"You saved my life," she said softly.
"Anyone would have done the same."
"Perhaps. But you were not just anyone. You wereyou." She took a step toward him, then another. "And I think…..I think that matters."
He turned to face her, and Lillian saw the struggle in his expression; the war between the walls he had built and the emotions that threatened to breach them.
"Miss Whitcombe..."
"Lillian." She was close enough now to touch him, though she did not. "You called me Lillian. When you thought I might be hurt."
"That was...I should not have..."
"You should have. You should call me Lillian." She held his gaze, refusing to look away. "And I should like to call you Daniel. If you will permit it."
The silence stretched between them, taut as a bowstring.
"This is not wise," he said finally.
"No. It is not."
"There are a thousand reasons why this, whatever this is, cannot end well."
"I know."
"Then why..."
"Because I am tired of being wise." Lillian's voice was barely above a whisper. "And I think, perhaps, you are too."
He did not answer. But something in his expression shifted, a crack in the wall, a glimpse of the man beneath the duke, and Lillian knew, with sudden certainty, that she was not imagining this.
Whatever this was between them, it was real.
And it was not going away.
***
That evening, a note arrived at Hartfield.
Lillian was in her room, having finally submitted to her mother's insistence that she rest after her ordeal, when the maid brought it in on a silver tray.
The Wyntham seal. The familiar angular handwriting.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she broke the seal and unfolded the paper.
Miss Whitcombe,
I must apologise for my behaviour this afternoon. I was not myself.
Wynthorpe.
Lillian read the note once. Twice. Three times.
Then she turned it over, looking for more; for some acknowledgment of what had passed between them, some explanation of his wild fear, some hint of what he truly felt.
There was nothing.
But the paper smelled faintly of sandalwood. And when she held it to the candlelight, she could see where the pen had pressed too hard on the wordmyself, leaving an indent that spoke of emotion forcibly restrained.
