Wilhelm stared at her for a long moment, and Madeline’s pulse began to quicken again. The air changed when he looked at herlike that, as though the conversation had slipped from duty into something else without either of them meaning it.
He rose slowly from the armchair, and the movement drew her gaze up his body before she could stop it. The Duke was too tall, too broad to ignore, and the lamplight caught in the silver at his temples in a way that made him look both powerful and tired.
Madeline’s throat went dry.
He took a step toward her and stopped close enough that she could smell the faint trace of soap and winter air on him, and her body responded with humiliating eagerness, heat unfurling low in her belly.
Wilhelm’s voice lowered. “Even so,” he said, eyes fixed on hers, “none of the women I have met have mattered to her the way you do.”
Madeline’s pulse thudded hard. “Your Grace…”
“She talks about you,” he continued, and there was something rough in his tone that sounded uncomfortably like jealousy, though that was impossible. “She watches for you. She listens for you in the corridor.” His gaze dipped briefly to her mouth, and Madeline’s breath caught as if she had been touched. “You are not merely a governess to her.”
Madeline forced herself to swallow because her throat had gone tight. “I am only trying to help her be happy,” she managed, and her voice trembled despite her effort.
Wilhelm’s mouth relaxed, and he leaned closer, just slightly, close enough that Madeline could feel the warmth of him, could feel the way his presence filled the space around her until there was no room for reason.
“You make it difficult,” he murmured.
Madeline’s heart hammered. “Difficult?”
His gaze held hers with a dangerous steadiness. “To think of anything else,” he said, voice low and raw. “Of anyone else.”
For a heartbeat, Madeline forgot how to breathe. She forgot the house, the title, the rules, the risk, and she felt only him. It was hard to concentrate when the Duke stood so close her skin seemed to recognize his heat. Her body leaned toward him before her mind could stop it. Desire rose inside her like a tide she could not hold back.
Wilhelm’s hand lifted slowly, and Madeline’s entire body froze as if bracing for impact, because she knew, in that moment, that if he touched her, she would not be able to pretend she did not want it.
His fingers hovered near her cheek and Madeline’s pulse surged so hard it made her dizzy.
And then, from the doorway, a polite cough cut through the air like a blade. Both froze.
Madeline’s head turned quickly, breath snagging, and she saw the butler standing at the threshold, posture impeccable, expression carefully blank, though the faintest tension at his mouth suggested he had seen far more than he wished.
“Your Grace,” the butler said evenly, eyes fixed somewhere safely above Madeline’s head. “Would you like your usual drink brought to your study?”
Wilhelm straightened abruptly. It was as though a cord had been pulled inside him. His hand dropped at once and his face rearranged itself into cold authority in the space of a breath.
“Yes,” he said, voice clipped. “Bring it.”
“At once, Your Grace.” The butler bowed and withdrew without another sound, leaving behind a silence that now felt mortifying rather than intimate.
Madeline’s cheeks burned. Her chest rose and fell too quickly, and she could not look at Wilhelm without feeling the echo of his almost-touch on her skin.
She stood too fast, the book slipping slightly in her grasp. “Goodnight, Your Grace,” she said, and the words came out harsher than she intended, because she could not stay in that room a moment longer without doing something foolish.
Wilhelm’s gaze snapped toward her. Something strained and fierce hovered there, as if he wanted to speak, to stop her, to explain himself, but his jaw locked and he said nothing.
Madeline did not wait for permission. She dipped into a quick curtsy, then turned and fled. Her skirts whispered across the carpet and her heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her throat.
She did not stop until she reached the corridor, until the library door was behind her and the air felt cooler, safer, and even then, she had to press a hand briefly to the wall, breathing through the trembling in her limbs as though she had run a mile rather than merely crossed a hall.
Madeline swallowed hard and forced her feet to move again. She coaxed herself into taking one step after another, back toward her room, back toward the only place she could be alone with the wild, treacherous truth of her body.
She had come to Kirkford Hall to survive. She had not expected to begin wanting.
CHAPTER 17
“Enough.” The word left Wilhelm’s mouth in the silence of the library, low and rough, spoken to no one at all.
