"I see."
She followed the butler through the familiar corridors, her heart beating harder with every step. The morning room door stood open, and she could hear Rosanne's voice within, but she paused at the threshold, suddenly uncertain.
What would she say to him? Whatcouldshe say? The careful distance that had governed their interactions had been shattered by yesterday's events, and she did not know how to rebuild it. She was not even certain she wanted to.
"Lillian!" Rosanne's voice broke through her hesitation. "There you are. Come in, come in. I have ordered the most wonderful tea, and Mrs. Gerald has made her famous cakes, and..."
She stopped, her gaze moving past Lillian to something, someone, behind her.
Lillian turned.
Daniel stood in the corridor, close enough that she could have reached out and touched him. He was dressed with his usual precision, not a hair out of place, his expression schooled into careful neutrality. But there was something in his eyes, a tension, an uncertainty, that she had never seen before.
"Miss Whitcombe." His voice was formal, but his gaze held hers with an intensity that made her breath catch. "I wonder if I might have a word. Before you join my sister."
"Of course, Your Grace."
She followed him to a small sitting room a few doors down; a space she had never seen before, decorated in shades of green and gold, with windows that looked out over the east gardens. He closed the door behind them, and suddenly they were alone, separated from the rest of the world by walls and silence.
"About my note," he began.
"There is no need to explain."
"I feel there is." He moved to the window, his back to her, his shoulders rigid beneath his coat. "My behaviour yesterday was…… Unprecedented. I frightened you."
"You did not frighten me."
"I imposed upon you in a manner that was not..."
"You saved my life." Lillian's voice was firm, cutting through his halting explanation. "You acted on instinct, without thought for your own safety, because you..."
She stopped, uncertain how to finish the sentence.
"Because I what?" He turned to face her, and she saw the struggle in his expression; the war between control and something deeper, something that refused to be contained. "Because I could not bear the thought of losing you? Because the idea of you being hurt, of you beinggone,was more terrifying than anything I have ever experienced?"
The words hung in the air between them, raw and exposed.
"Yes," Lillian whispered. "Because of that."
Silence.
Daniel's hands were clenched at his sides, his jaw tight with the effort of maintaining his composure. He looked like a man on the edge of a precipice, unsure whether to step back or to leap.
"This cannot happen," he said finally. "Whatever this is, whatever I feel, it cannot happen."
"Why?"
"Because I do not know how to feel things safely. Because every emotion I have ever witnessed has been destructive; it has been a weapon, wielded to wound and to control. Because I am terrified that if I allow myself to care for you, I will become the very thing I have spent my life trying to avoid."
Lillian absorbed this, her heart aching for the fear she heard beneath his words.
"And what is that?" She asked softly. "What are you trying to avoid becoming?"
"My father." The word came out like a confession. "My mother. Both of them, consumed by passion, destroying everything they touched. They loved each other, Miss Whitcombe, they loved each other with a ferocity that bordered on madness. And that love brought nothing but pain."
"Love does not have to be destructive."
"Does it not?" He laughed; a hollow, bitter sound. "I have seen no evidence to the contrary. Every love I have ever witnessed has ended in ruin."
