He fell silent for a moment, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond the room. “I should not have let the day go as it did,” he added at last.
Henry studied him. “Because of Tessa?”
Wilhelm shook his head once, drawing a slow breath. “Because of me.”
He had not intended to speak of Madeline tonight. He had come for distance, for a moment in which he was not surrounded by servants who watched his moods like weather and a child who deserved more than his stiffness. Yet Henry sat opposite him with the ease of a man who had never been afraid of truth, and Wilhelm found his restraint thinning beneath the weight of his own thoughts.
“She has no guile,” Wilhelm said finally. “She has no fear of appearing… warm. She laughs with Tessa so easily. She speaksto her as though she is a person worth listening to, not a problem to be managed.”
Henry’s mouth tightened, thoughtful. “You are a man who has spent so long denying yourself every small thing that you no longer recognize what you want until it is already lodged beneath your skin.”
Wilhelm’s nostrils flared. He hated how precise that sounded, how neatly Henry’s words pressed against a place he had spent years fortifying.
“You were flirting with her,” Wilhelm said flatly.
Henry blinked, then smiled faintly. “I was being agreeable.”
“You were praising her,” Wilhelm replied, his tone clipped now. “Lingering. Making sport of it.”
Henry’s amusement dimmed, curiosity sharpening in its place.
“She is under my protection,” Wilhelm continued. “And I do not care to hear my governess spoken to as though she were a diversion.”
Henry studied him for a moment. “Is that what troubled you?”
Wilhelm went still. He could have dismissed it with rank, with the cold authority that made men retreat. Instead, he found himself too tired for pretense.
“I did not like it,” he said simply.
Henry’s brows lifted, something like surprise flickering across his face. “You did not like me speaking to her.”
Wilhelm’s jaw tightened. “No.”
A beat passed.
Henry nodded slowly, as though humoring him. “I see. I apologize then. But please tell me you recognize this as jealousy.”
“What? No.”
“Yes, Wilhelm. And you look at her as though you would like to swallow her whole.”
Wilhelm went still. He could have lied, dismissed it with the cold authority that made men retreat. But Henry had known him too long, and Wilhelm was bone-deep tired, in the way that came from years of duty with no softness to temper it.
“I will not ruin her,” Wilhelm said, and the words came out rougher than he intended.
Henry’s amusement faded, replaced by something more serious. “You are already thinking in terms of ruination.”
Wilhelm’s jaw clenched. “Because it is the truth. She is not of my world. She is in my home because I hired her, not because society approves of her being near me. If I touch her as a man touches a woman he wants, she will pay the price, not I.”
Henry watched him a long moment, then said, “And do you want her?”
Wilhelm’s throat tightened. His mind flashed, traitorous, to Madeline in the snow, cheeks flushed, hair loosened by wind, her eyes bright when she looked at him, as though she forgot for one unguarded second that he was dangerous. He remembered the feel of her gloved hands on his shoulders when she steadied him on the sled, light contact that had struck him like a brand. He remembered her voice reading to Tessa by the fire, soft and expressive, the way her mouth shaped the words, the way her throat moved when she swallowed, the curve of her neck when she tilted her head to bring a character to life.
Desire settled low in him, not sudden but constant, a pressure he had been carrying since the first time he had seen her and realized that she was not timid. It waited, patient and relentless, like a tide.
“Yes,” Wilhelm admitted quietly.
Henry let out a slow breath. “Then listen to me. You have two choices, and neither of them is pretending you do not feel it.”
