The sight of him, disheveled and determinedly nonchalant, infuriated her. She stepped further into the room. “Neither,” she spat, though her tone lacked the venom she intended. “If I wanted to see you humiliated, I’d have asked Lady Honoria to choreograph it.”
He raised his glass in salute and tipped it back with a wince. Even this small movement drew a flicker of pain across his face, quickly masked. “She’d do a better job, I suspect. Your brother’s form is unrefined, but he has the strength of a plow horse.”
Louisa scanned the clutter in the study. A landscape of open books, scattered notes, and a decanter with barely a swallow left. “You deserve it,” she said, her voice softening despite her efforts. “You know you do.”
He regarded her over the rim of his glass. “Ah, so the verdict is in. Prison or merely exile?”
She folded her arms. “You could at least pretend to be sorry.”
Niall considered this, then set his glass down and leaned forward. “Would it make any difference, Primrose? I’m already the villain. Yours, the ton’s, the entire damned continent’s.”
She found herself standing over him, feeling uncomfortably tall and too involved. She sidestepped to the mantel, where she could regard him obliquely, buffered by a row of antique Greek philosophers. “You’re not a villain. You’re just…” She floundered for the right word and found none that didn’t sound like a compliment.
“Reckless?” he suggested, recalling the morning’s debacle. “Unfit for polite company? Your mother called me a blight on the face of England, but I suppose there are worse things.”
“Are you going to take this seriously?” she demanded, her composure fraying. “You’ve thrown my entire family into disarray. Lucas is fielding letters from half the county. My mother is…” she hesitated, unwilling to admit the magnitude of her mother’s distress, “practicing her weeping in the morning room.”
He regarded her steadily. “That’s rather impressive. The capacity to weep on demand takes discipline.”
She wanted to hurl a volume of Aristotle at his head. Instead, she focused on the kettle. The study’s tea service sat on the sideboard, and Louisa busied herself pouring a cup in silence. When she realized her hands were shaking, she willed them to stop.
He watched her, making her hyper-aware of each movement—the angle of her wrists, the tremor in her fingers, the way her hair drifted forward to frame her face. She expected him to mock her for the tremor, but instead he said softly, “Does it frighten you?”
She spun to face him. “What?”
He shrugged. “The idea of being associated with me. Even in rumor.”
She stared at him. “I am not frightened. Merely appalled.”
He did not press. Instead, he turned his gaze to the dying fire and let the silence deepen. For a moment, Louisa wondered if he’d simply fallen asleep with his eyes open—a trick she’d heard he could perform when bored by Parliament.
Then, quietly, “You could have denied it.”
Louisa swallowed her throat suddenly tight, and lifted her chin as if pride could shore up whatever that simple sentence unsettled.
She blinked. “What?”
“The engagement story,” he said. “You could have laughed it off, made it clear to everyone that you’d never even considersuch a union. But you didn’t.” He looked up, and for the first time, she saw genuine vulnerability in his expression. “Why didn’t you?”
Her hands fumbled with the cup. She set it down, grateful for the table’s steadiness. “Because,” she began, then lost herself in the tangle of explanations. “Because denying it would only have made the rumor stronger. Because Lady Honoria was eager for an outburst. Because…” She trailed off, suddenly aware that her motivations were not as clear as she’d pretended.
He smiled, and the smile was not mocking but almost kind. “That’s what I told myself, too.”
Louisa found herself drifting closer to the hearth, the room’s chill gathering in the corners now that the fire was low. She eyed the bruise along his jaw, the way it deepened the hollows of his face. “Does it hurt?” she asked, unable to stop herself.
His hand went to the wound, fingers probing with detachment. “Only when I laugh. Or speak. Or think.”
She rolled her eyes. “So not at all, then.”
He grinned, but the effort made him wince. “Is this the part where you offer to kiss it better?”
She laughed, and the sound felt shockingly intimate in the small room. “I’d sooner apply arsenic.”
He nodded solemnly. “That’s what I like about you, Primrose. Always so tender.”
Without thinking, she reached for his chin, but caught herself before touching him. Instead, she let her hand hover in the air, as if the possibility of comfort might undo them both.
“You should ice it,” she said, retreating a step. “Though perhaps the brandy serves.”
