“A cat?” Isabella echoed.
“A little grey one,” Ellie clarified. “It was walking near the back garden. I followed it because I thought it might let me pet it. Then it went inside the old greenhouse.”
Isabella exhaled shakily. “Oh, Ellie…”
Ellie’s gaze lowered guiltily.
“It looked abandoned. And there was a window… the glass was broken a little. I saw the cat through it. I tried to reach inside, and… and then…” her voice wavered.
Isabella wrapped her arms tightly around her. “My sweet girl… You must never run off alone like that, especially not into places that look unsafe. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Ellie whispered. “I’m sorry, Bella.”
Isabella pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I know you are, but you frightened me terribly.”
Ellie nodded and leaned into her sister, and Isabella stroked her curls, fighting the swell of emotion rising in her chest.
And as the carriage continued its way home, her thoughts returned, unwanted, to the Duke—the way his fingers brushed hers when he passed the cloth to her and the heat that flared between them at that slight touch.
Had he felt it too? He certainly had not reacted if he had.
It was a mistake.
His words cut through her chest again like a hot knife through butter, causing a dull ache to accumulate in her chest.
And then the memory of the kiss surged forward—the one they had both agreed to forget, the one he claimed was nothing but a lapse in judgment. That one, single kiss had caused her to question everything she had ever thought she had known about intimacy. Did it always feel like that when a man kissed a woman? Or was there something special between them?
She shook her head vigorously and looked out the window. Thoughts and questions like that could quickly evolve into dangerous monsters if one did not temper them as soon as they arose.
Yet he had felt solid, purposeful, entirely real against her. His mouth had felt warm, so much so that even now she felt heat rush upward through her as she recalled how breathless she had been afterward.
She wanted to forget, but she could not, and she feared she never would. How did one forget a moment that would more than likely shape the expectations of the rest of her life?
Later that evening, after the Laurels had dispersed and the household quieted, Cassian retreated into the solitude of his workshop. The room smelled faintly of cedar shavings and varnish, the scents that usually grounded him, but tonight, they seemed to mock him.
He picked up a fresh block of wood, set his tools before him, and genuinely tried to lose himself in the familiar rhythm of carving, but no matter how he angled the knife, no matter how he shaped the wood, everything he crafted seemed pointless.
He tossed aside the block of wood with a frustrated exhale and stared at his fingers, the same fingers that recalled the brush of hers in the kitchen. It was brief, accidental even, but she’d released a soft gasp when his knuckles had grazed her skin. Her cheeks had flushed again, that rosy hue that made his resolve snap like a poorly tied knot.
Worst of all, he had wanted to kiss her right then and there. The only thing that had held him back was the fact that her little sister had been watching.. God help him, he had desperately wanted to because he’d remembered the way her lips had felt beneath his, maddeningly sweet. The taste of her, the feel of her fingers clutching his lapel, the way she melted into him even as she pushed him away.
His jaw tightened, desire burning low in his chest.
He had told her it was a mistake, a moment of weakness, yet he had not stopped thinking about it since.
Was it really a mistake?
He recalled the hurt look in her eyes, mingled with confusion, when he had said that to her. Had she not thought of it as a mistake? If she had not, then how did she feel about him?
He stood abruptly, his chest tight, and hurled his carving tool onto the table with a clatter and one thought in his mind.
He needed a distraction.
Anything to keep her out of his mind.
Tristan’s favorite pub sat only a short carriage ride away, a place where company required no emotional effort whatsoever. It would do.
He grabbed his coat and left the estate, slamming the door harder than necessary behind him.
