Leena fought against it, until she heard his voice rumbling through his chest. Perhaps she imagined him speaking altogether; perhaps it was the beat of her own heart that she heard.
I cannot surrender, Leena.
Leena did not know if she imagined his words, if they were theechoes of the storm, or if her own toiling mind was creating phantoms that were never there.
Still, she did not dare look up at him. If she did, she was afraid to confirm what a part of her had already known standing on Weavingshaw’s shore: that he saw her as another siege he would have to withstand.
That hewouldwithstand her.
Leena shut her eyes tightly, trying to swallow the rawness of that reality.
When she finally dared to lift her head, it was to see they had entered the cave, leaving the downpour behind.
It felt likethey had entered another world. Instantaneously, the cacophony of the storm dimmed, the curved walls of the cave offering them shelter. To her right were stacks of old, abandoned crates, the hinges now coppery with rust. It was dry inside, but her breaths still came out in white puffs.
It took a long moment before St. Silas put her down on her feet, and she had to overcome the feeling of being adrift without his arms around her. Her teeth still chattered even though the cave was warmer than the ocean.
St. Silas had already taken off his coat, handing it to her slowly. “Should anyone cast doubt on my being a gentleman…”
She threaded her arms through the sleeves, once more wrapping herself in his scent, before throwing a slanted glance at the man himself.
He is unguarded,Leena thought to herself in bewilderment, for when she did meet his eyes again, it was to see a flash of possessiveness mark his glance as he absorbed her standing wrapped in his clothing, her frame all but lost in his overcoat.
Leena could not articulate why she felt warmth spread across her chest at his look, nor could she stopit.
He turned abruptly away to face the mouth of the cave, loosening his wet cravat. The well-defined muscles of his back shifted fluidly while he stripped himself of his waistcoat, leaving him in only his damp linen shirt. Leena tried not to stare, but she was sure she wore the same look on her face as the one he had given her on the shore. She was glad he was turned away from her.
Thinking of the shore brought back to her mind the compulsion that had led her there in the first place.
“Thank you for your help earlier. I do not—” Leena flushed. She desperately wanted to be calm when she spoke of the revelation that had flung her into the ocean in the first place. It took great effort to keep her voice measured. Already he thought her wild, and there was no need to press that point further. “I do not regularly frequent the outdoors in my…my…”
He turned to face her once more. “Undergarments.”
“Chemise—it is called a chemise, and it is meant to be—”
“Transparent?” His voice was strained again.
It was her turn to look away, eyes lifted to the ceiling in an effort to contain her embarrassment.
“It is not transparent. Only the water made it…made it so.” Leena tried to subdue her rising panic, but, by the Saints, justhowmuch had he seen?
She raised herself to her full height, once more attempting a dignity she did not particularly feel. “Can we please refrain from discussing my…my clothing any more?”
“Certainly. Although I thought we were discussing the lack of it.” Still she did not look at St. Silas, but she heard the laugh in his voice.
Hearing him like this, the shades of reservation and composure usually hovering between them cast away, Leena almost convinced herself that shecouldlet go of the turbulent emotions welling inside her.
She almost convinced herself that the battlegrounds had all been laid out—that the battle had already been fought, and it had nothing to do with her.
It mattered little that Leena knew St. Silas’s secret, that he was the 17th Lord Avon. It changed nothing within their contract and her task remained the same.
And would it not have been easier if they could have stayed in this moment, pulsating with fragility and humor and something as yet unnameable between them, away from dangerous and painful truths?
Yet Leena, who had never learned to walk away from the things that could hurt her, could not walk away now.
He watched her with his arms crossed across his chest, eyes nearly lost within the shifting storm-wrought shadows of the cave. She wished she could ask him to step into the light.
Whatever levity had existed between them had transformed, replaced with the revelation that weighed them both down, waiting to be voiced.
