He would stare at a seventeenth-century Earl with such piercing intensity that one might think he was searching for a hidden map, when in truth, he was simply trying to remember how to breathe without reaching for her.
Or he would snap open his gold pocket watch, the metallicclickingsounding like a gunshot in the vaulted hallway. His thumb would trace the intricate casing with a frantic, rhythmic motion, his eyes tracking the second hand as if the movement of time were the only thing keeping him tethered to the damn floorboards and preventing him from pulling her into the nearest alcove.
If she entered the drawing room to fetch the boys for their lessons, the transition was seamless and mildly cruel. He would rise before she had even fully crossed the threshold, his movements jerky and hurried, his voice ringing out to a phantom servant in the hall as if he were performing for an audience of ghosts.
“I find I must inspect the stables,” he would announce to the empty air, his tone loud and devoid of warmth. Or “I have to consult with Mr. Jones regarding the vintage of tonight’s wine.”
He was a man fleeing a ghost, his retreat marked by the sharp, decisive strike of his boot heels against the parquet. Each step was an attempt to outrun the memory of her skin beneath his hands.
He hated the way he moved. In fact, he reminded himself of his father. When he looked in the mirror, he saw the same stiff neck, the same cowardly refusal to look the truth in the eye. That was the most abhorrent fact of all. He was becoming the very man he had vowed to surpass, a man who traded passion for propriety and called it duty.
He secretly hated that Imogen did not chase him. There was a dark, selfish part of his soul that wanted her to break the silence, to cry out, to demand an explanation for his sudden frost. Instead, she responded in kind, retreating into the invisible, protective shell of her own station with an ease that suggested she had been preparing for this abandonment her entire life. She became a fixture of the house, as silent as the furniture and twice as still, a masterpiece of stoic endurance.
When she heard the heavy thud of his footfalls approaching the nursery, he noticed that she did not look up. She did not offer the polite, deferential nod that was his due, nor did she acknowledge the way his shadow darkened the doorway. Instead, she bent her head lower over her embroidery hoop, her spine a rigid line of defiance that irked him more than any shouted insult. Herneedle became a weapon. It did not glide through the linen; it stabbed.
Push, pull, pierce.It may as well be my heart,he thought, leaning against the doorframe just out of her line of sight.
He watched the flash of the silver needle, disappearing and reappearing through the fabric with unnecessary, violent force. She was illustrating a woodland scene, but the way she worked, she looked as though she was sewing a shroud.
They moved through the sprawling estate like two ghosts haunting the same hallways, two spirits bound to the same stone but existing in different dimensions. They became experts in avoidance, a choreography of near-misses and averted eyes. The boys seemed hardly to notice, but for the adults, the effort of not-seeing was more exhausting than any labor. They timed their breaths and footfalls with such precision that they never had to share the same pocket of air, as if a single shared inhalation might ignite the atmosphere between them.
On the surface, the house was restored. The clocks were wound to the second, the silver was shining until it mirrored the hollow faces of the inhabitants, and life returned to its disciplined, hollow cadence. Yet, the quiet was a lie, and Ambrose knew it.
The silence that stretched between them in the hallways was not the silence of peace, nor the quiet of an ended conflict. It was a pressurized thing, thick and heavy with the things they had not said and the touches they could not repeat. It was like the heavy, sulfurous stillness that descends upon a forest in the height ofsummer, a breathless, terrifying pause just before the sky cracks open and the storm unleashes all hell.
And Ambrose, staring at the closed door of his study, knew he was the one holding the flame.
One crisp afternoon, a full week after Philip had been cleared to leave his bed, Imogen took the boys into Mayfair for new supplies for their lessons. The twins were in especially high spirits, the grimness of their respite buried under the excitement of a rare outing.
“Look, Miss Lewis! A kaleidoscope!” Arthur cried, pressing his face against the glass of a toy shop window. “Have you ever seen such a thing? It is magnificent!”
“Quietly, Lord Arthur. We are in public,” Imogen reminded him gently, though her heart warmed to see the spark of mischief back in his green eyes. “As happy as I am to see you this way, you cannot bounce about the stalls.”
“Yes, Miss Lewis,” he said, though the smile did not leave his lips. “Can we get one?”
“Of course,” she said as she ushered them into the shop. “Let us have a turnabout the store to see what we may be able to find for Philip, too.”
“Oh yes, Miss Lewis!” He cried, the pink of his cheeks back, and only accenting those blue eyes that reminded her so much of his uncle.
“If you boys will mind the shopkeeper for just a moment, I will step next door to see about some mittens.”
“Yes, Miss Lewis!” They said enthusiastically.
While the boys were occupied with a display of lead soldiers, Imogen stepped into a nearby glover’s shop to replace a pair of worn mitts before the frosty winter was to set in. She was inspecting a stack of fine kidskin gloves when the scent of heavy floral perfume reached her. It was a cloying, familiar aroma that made her stomach turn.
Of all the shops in London…
“I told you, husband, the lavender shade is far too common this Season,” a sharp, familiar voice clipped.
Imogen froze. Julia Terrell, the Countess of Presholm, was standing not three feet away, looking as if she had been carved from ice and spite. Beside her stood Lord Presholm, whose eyes immediately began a slow, predatory crawl over Imogen’s frame. While they lived just next door to Welton House, the walls did well to hold them.
Here, in public and in the open, she felt impossibly vulnerable and bare under their harsh gaze.
“Oh my, what do we have here? Oh yes, it is you, Imogen,” Julia said, her voice a poisonous purr. She looked Imogen up and down, clearly noting the better quality of her wool cloak, a gift several weeks ago now from Ambrose and after the lake incident. “I hardly recognized you. Have you been sleeping? You look positively chartreuse.”
“Well enough,” Imogen ground out. “Thank you, My Lady.”
“How… unexpected to see you in this shop. I trust you find your newarrangementagreeable?”
