When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. “I will go to London.”
Henry’s brows rose. “To find a wife?”
“To attend to business,” Wilhelm said, but he did not bother to make it sound convincing.
Henry’s mouth curved. “Of course. Business.”
Wilhelm stood, reaching for his coat. “You are insufferable.”
Henry’s smile softened, and for a moment the teasing fell away, leaving only sincerity. “You are not wrong for wanting, Wilhelm. You are only wrong if you pretend want will not eventually demand its due.”
Wilhelm did not answer. He left the tavern with the wind cutting sharp against his face, the night air cold enough to sting, and yet his mind burned with thoughts that had nothing to do with winter.
He waited two days before he announced his intentions to travel to town. Two days in which he tried to work as though nothing had shifted, watching Madeline with quiet attention, no longer pretending she was simply another employee in his household.
He saw her in the corridor speaking with Mrs. Hayward, her posture attentive, her voice low and steady. He saw her in the schoolroom, bent over Tessa’s work, patient and encouraging.
He saw her at dinner—seated at his own table becausehe had asked her to join them, because he had wanted her there—taking small, careful bites as though food itself might betray her.
Each time he watched her, he felt that same vicious pull of desire and anger, because it was obscene that a woman should have been taught to shrink at a table.
He did not touch her, nor did he allow himself the luxury of lingering in her presence. He told himself he was doing the honorable thing. Yet at night, when the house quieted and his own rooms offered no distraction, his mind betrayed him with images.
Madeline’s mouth curved in laughter, Madeline’s gloved hand brushing snow from his sleeve, Madeline’s eyes lifting to his as though she understood him more than anyone had a right to.
It was not only lust. Lust would have been simpler, but this felt like hunger that had learned patience.
On the morning when he finally spoke, the breakfast room was bright with winter light. A thin frost clung to the windowpanes, turning the outside world into a pale blur. Tessa sat with her hair braided neatly, cheeks still pink from the cold she seemed to carry everywhere now, and Madeline sat across from her, hands folded neatly, posture composed, her gaze attentive in thequiet way that made Wilhelm feel watched even when she said nothing at all.
He cleared his throat.
Madeline’s eyes lifted immediately. Tessa looked up at him a heartbeat later, spoon suspended midair.
“We will be leaving for London tomorrow,” Wilhelm said.
The words sounded authoritative. He had practiced them in his mind enough times that they came out as though he had always intended this, yet he saw what they did the moment they landed.
Tessa’s eyes widened with immediate excitement. “London?”
Madeline went still. She had not been fidgeting before, but the change in her countenance altered subtly. Her shoulders tightened and her fingers pressed slightly into each other. Wilhelm noticed it at once, because he had grown attentive to her in a way born of care. He wanted to know how his words landed, whether they troubled her, whether he had caused her pain.
“Yes,” Wilhelm replied, watching her closely as she spoke, his posture straightening as though the decision had already begun to settle its weight upon his shoulders. “There is business that requires my presence.”
Tessa leaned forward at once, elbows nearly touching the table, eyes bright with anticipation. “Will we see the shops?”
“Yes.” Wilhelm inclined his head, one hand lifting briefly as if to still the rising energy before letting it fall again.
“And the park?”
“Yes.” His mouth curved just enough to soften the word, though his fingers tightened together behind his back.
“And the big streets with all the people?”
Wilhelm’s jaw set, the muscle jumping once as his gaze flicked, unbidden, toward Madeline before he could stop himself. His shoulders drew back instinctively, as though bracing against a crowd he had not yet entered, the image forming too clearly of her amid it, surrounded, exposed in a way she never was within these walls.
Tessa continued eagerly, hardly pausing for breath. “Will we go to the river and see the boats?”
“If time permits,” Wilhelm said.
