Across from him, Clara froze, her fork suspended mid-air.
It was done.
Later, in a dim corridor between drawing rooms, she found him.
Clara offered a bitter laugh.“Six weeks?”she said.
He didn’t flinch.“You deserve more than speculation.”
“You did it for me?”
“I did it for us.”
She shook her head.“You did it because you are incapable of standing still.Incapable of considering the wishes of others.”
He took her hand.“I did it because I am tired of pretending I do not care.”
She tried to pull away.He held her fast.
“I want you for my wife.You have captured my heart, Clara.”
He kissed her.
This time, she kissed him back.
Their mouths met with hunger and heat.She melted into him, fingers fisting his coat.His hand found her waist, sliding lower, over the curve of her hip.
Her breath hitched.The candlelight flickered over their tangled silhouettes.Her thigh pressed against his.Her mouth parted under his kiss, deepening it, drawing him in.
He groaned.
Then—
She pulled back.
“I can not,” she breathed, voice hoarse.“Not yet.”
He stepped away, hands up, the scent of her still in his lungs.
“I understand.”
She looked at him.Truly looked, and for a moment, he saw not the wary society beauty, but the woman behind the armor.Brave, bruised, and far more than the world had ever allowed her to be.
“Do you?”she whispered.
“I do now.And I will wait.”
She nodded once and turned, retreating into the shadows.Crispin remained alone, heart pounding, his emotions burning through him like a fever he could not ignore.
He no longer doubted what he wanted.Or who.
Chapter14
Morning came too bright, too loud, an assault on Clara’s frayed nerves.A flurry of tapping fingers, rustling silks, and the scent of triumph clung to her mother, thick and unrelenting.Clara, by contrast, sat motionless at the breakfast table, her fingers curled too tightly around her teacup.A scream caught beneath her ribs as the world celebrated a future she had not chosen.
Lady Shipley practically glowed as she waved the latest copy of The Mayfair Whisper.“There it is in print!”
Clara sat motionless, her toast untouched beside a pot of Earl Grey, the steam curling upward like a sigh she could not release.Her mother’s voice carried on in the background, buoyed by triumph, but Clara heard little of it.Her mind was adrift, still caught in the shadows of the night before, the echo of his touch, the heat of his breath, lingering like a secret she could not confess.A tide of fear and longing pulled at her thoughts, threatening to unmoor her completely.The kiss had awakened something—raw, dangerous—and it left her grappling with a torrent of emotions.
