She deserved better.
And yet?—
He had spoken those lines fromThe Merchant of Venicenot as an actor performing a role, but as a man laying bare his own heart.
It made no sense. None at all.
All afternoon he had refused to meet her eyes, keeping his distance with careful precision. So why choose that moment to drop his guard?
Why did he look at her like that afterwards? As if every word had been meant for her alone?
The contradiction burned. He couldn’t ignore her all day only to scorch her with that gaze when the lines suited him.
Was this some cruel game?
She pressed her fingers to her temples. Norman was the most impossible man she had ever met.
And Kitty had not imagined it. He had barely looked at her, except when forced, and even then, his expression was unreadable, as though he had painted his face in layers of politeness to avoid being known.
But that made it worse, didn’t it? The fact that he was putting up a wall between them.
Kitty pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes.
He had kissed her—by his own will. He had initiated it.
And to make matters worse, he had looked at her with something that made her chest burn. And now—now he was pretending she did not exist.
It was infuriating.
Was this how it was going to be?
No. Absolutely not.
She sat up, the bed creaking softly beneath her. Her breath trembled as she exhaled, but her jaw was set, sharp as the moonlight slicing through her window. If she did not ask him—if she did not force the words into the open—they would eat her alive.
She needed to understand.
She needed to know what had changed between yesterday and today. Even if the answer hurt.
Kitty threw back the coverlet and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold beneath her feet. She reached for her dressing gown and tied it tightly around her waist.
The house was silent. The fire in the hearth had long since gone out, and only the moonlight guided her as she crept across the room and eased open the door.
The corridor yawned before her, a stretch of blackened wood and faint, familiar creaks.
Kitty paused in the doorway and listened. Nothing. No footsteps. No voices. No servants returning from the kitchen or early risers starting the hearths. Good.
She stepped out into the hall.
The air was colder out here, touched with that peculiar dampness that only came in the dead of night. Kitty wrapped her arms around herself and began to walk, barefoot, her steps nearly soundless against the rug that stretched the length of the corridor.
She passed portraits of ancestors she did not like, paintings of moors and lakes she had never visited, and an urn on a pedestal that seemed almost alive, if not a bit judgmental of her.
The silence pressed against her ears like water. Every breath she took felt too loud. Every floorboard that groaned beneath her step felt like a betrayal.
Norman’s room was in the east wing, near the observatory. He had requested it himself when they had all arrived for the summer. Too far, Kitty had thought at the time. Too remote. But perhaps that had been the point.
She just knew she had to go.
