"Then perhaps you have not witnessed the right kind of love."
She took a step toward him, then another. He watched her approach with wide eyes, but he did not move away.
"There is another kind," she said. "A quieter kind. It does not burn but it warms. It does not consume but it sustains. It is not a weapon, but a shelter."
"You speak of it as though you know."
"I do not know." Lillian stopped, close enough now to see the rapid pulse beating in his throat. "But I believe. And I think…..I think you might believe it too, if you allowed yourself."
Daniel's breath was coming faster now, his control visibly fracturing. "You ask too much of me."
"I ask nothing of you. I am simply telling you what I see." She held his gaze, refusing to look away. "I see a man who has spent his life building walls because he was afraid of what might happen if he let anyone inside. I see a man who has convinced himself that feeling nothing is safer than feeling anything. And I see..." She paused, gathering her courage. "I see a man who feels far more than he admits. Especially when it comes to me."
The words cut through the space between them.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Daniel moved—not away from her, as she had expected, buttowardher. He stopped when barely a breath separated them, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, smell the sandalwood and leather that she had come to associate with him.
"You are dangerous," he said softly.
"Am I?"
"You make me want things I had sworn never to want. You make mefeelthings I had sworn never to feel." His voice dropped to a whisper. "You make me wonder if perhaps, perhaps, the walls I have built are not protecting me at all. Perhaps they are only keeping me imprisoned."
Lillian's heart was pounding so hard she was certain he could hear it.
"And if they were?" she asked. "If you were to tear them down? What then?"
He did not answer. But something shifted in his expression; a softening, a yielding, the first crack in a wall that had stood for decades.
"I do not know," he admitted. "I have never...I have no idea how to..."
The door opened.
"Your Grace! Miss Whitcombe! Excuse my intrusion but Lady Rosanne is most eager for you to join her and I have been looking in every room for you."
Daniel stepped back from Lillian, the moment shattering like glass.
"Of course," he said, his voice carefully controlled. "We should not keep her waiting."
Daniel walked past Lillian toward the door, and for a moment she thought that was the end of it—that he would retreat behind his walls once more, pretending that nothing had passed between them.
But at the threshold, he paused.
"Miss Whitcombe."
She looked up.
"Tomorrow." His voice was strange, almost tentative. "Rosanne mentioned you wished to ride. If you are still interested, I would be willing to…..I could..."
"Accompany me?" Lillian finished, when his words faltered.
"If that would be acceptable."
A pause. A heartbeat. An eternity.
"That would be most acceptable, Your Grace."
