Her voice was velvet over steel. “When we are alone,” she murmured, “you will tell me if that kiss was only for their benefit.”
She meant it as a strategy, but the question had teeth. She heard the edge in her own voice and didn’t pull it back.
His eyes darkened, not with shadow but with certainty.
“When we’re alone,” he said, his voice low and unflinching. “I will tell you everything you already suspect. And more.” Then, with deliberate care, he closed the carriage door with quiet finality, the echo of their conversation lingering in the air like the last line of a play. For a moment, he stood still, watching the soft sway of the curtains within, knowing she watched him too.
No words passed between them now. None were needed.
The moment was sealed, the illusion complete, and yet, something far more real had taken root.
He turned, crossing to his mount with the calm precision of a man who knew his role, even as the script began to change.
*
Ravenstock Manor laybehind them, its calm façade guarding the women who had stayed behind to keep the illusion intact. This moment belonged to Georgina and Alex alone, and the final stitch in their tapestry of deception. Alex swung into the saddle of his mount, choosing to ride alongside rather than share the carriage, keeping with the pretense of a lover parting ways.
As the horses set off at a steady pace back toward Ravenstock, Georgina allowed herself a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She settled back into the seat, her hands resting in her lap, the warmth of Alex’s touch still echoing in her palms.
Through the small carriage window, she caught sight of him riding just behind the wheel, his posture erect, his jaw tight with thought, his gaze never straying far from her.
Neither of them spoke until they crested the ridge that offered one last view of the mine below. The yard lay shadowed beneath the lowering sky, the carts now idle, the workers slowly dispersing like actors after the curtain had fallen.
“They will report exactly what they saw,” Alex called from his saddle, his voice cutting clean through the wind. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“They saw what we wished them to see,” Georgina replied through the open window. Her voice held both pride and a quiet thrill. “Which is precisely the same as seeing nothing at all.”
He met her gaze with a glint of shared satisfaction. “Let them think themselves the wiser.”
“They won’t suspect our next move,” she added softly.
“No,” Alex agreed. “They’ll be too busy congratulating themselves.”
The sun dipped lower behind them, casting the hills in amber light. The shadows lengthened across the road, stretching like fingers toward the horizon. But Georgina sat steady in the fading glow, her thoughts clear, her purpose sharper than ever. Determination. Possibility.
And the quiet certainty that what lay between them now was stronger than strategy, and far more dangerous to those who sought to divide them.
They rode on, leaving the hallowed ground of the mine behind them, but carrying something far more dangerous than any secret the Order could claim: Hope. And the unmistakable spark of a partnership forged not by necessity, but by choice, between two hearts no longer content to stand apart.
Chapter Ten
Asteady drizzletapped against the library windows, the kind of rain that never quite stopped, that lingered like a question waiting to be answered. The air inside carried a damp chill, despite Mrs. Hemsley’s best efforts to coax a fire into the hearth, but its glow did little to soften the mood. It was the sort of autumn morning made for unpleasant truths. Even the crate seemed reluctant, its wood swollen with moisture, as if it had absorbed the truth of what it held inside.
When it first arrived from the solicitor’s office, it had seemed unassuming. Now, with its contents spread across the library table, it loomed, not in size, but in what it might reveal. A life reduced to papers and records, each scrap a breadcrumb on a path she had once refused to follow.
Georgina stood at the edge of the table, her fingers brushing a brittle sheet of paper, though her thoughts were far from ledgers and receipts. They lingered on last night. On Alex.
He had looked at her as if she were not merely part of this fight, but essential to it. His kiss, steady, certain, utterly unguarded, had left no room for doubt. She had wanted it. She didn’t regret it. No. She wanted more.
Not flirtation. Not indulgence. But the kind of desire that was honest, undeniable, and lasting, if they were brave enough to name it. The kind of desire that didn’t vanish with the daylight.
The memory warmed her now, unexpected in the morning’sgloom, a quiet ember that refused to fade. There would be time, later, to decide what it meant. To ask what came next. But now was not for longing. It was for reckoning. Quiet, necessary, and overdue.
She drew a breath and looked down at the pile before her. This time, nothing would escape her.
The table was covered with papers and ledgers spread out in messy layers. A life once carefully ordered, now taken apart, sheet by sheet. Receipts curled at the corners, trade notes faded. Yet while the rest lay scattered and worn, Rowland’s methodical records sat in a neat stack on the edge of the library desk, just as he’d left them nearly a year ago, as if they were still waiting for him.
She shifted closer, her fingertips grazing the paper, the parchment, and the brittle edges of the past. She crushed aside the invoice from the grocer and picked up a folded paper with Rowland’s careful handwriting. Her breath caught, not from grief, but recognition. But the sweep of his handwriting brought him back for a moment, quiet, meticulous, and calculating as ever.
