She shifted in her seat. “It’s being taken care of.”She didn’t yet have the heart to tell her that it had already been sold.
“Tri, really.” Gabriel admonished his bride. “I don’t think Lady Alyssa wishes to discuss this subject at the moment. Perhaps when you’ve had some time to catch up on your own you can interrogate her all you wish.”
Tears instantly struck her eyes. “I’m sorry, Aly. I didn’t mean to…”Triana sighed as she laid her head on Gabriel’s shoulder,appearingat a sudden loss for words.
Alyssa watched as her husband held her close, his hand rubbing soothing circles on her upper arms. It was in that moment Alyssa started to feel like she didn’t belong there. While she’d long been friends with Triana and had considered Rosewood more of a home than Breyton Hall, as she watched the couple across from her, she realized that these people werefamily, while she was nothing more than the outsider looking in.
And as Triana began to start a new life of her own,Alyssa realized thatthings would never be the same. Those carefree days of inventing new worlds at the ruins, and standing together along the walls at the ballrooms were gone. Triana was a wife now, a duchess, with great responsibilities. Soon, she would be a mother.They would always be friends,buteventually their association would become nothing more than a murmured greeting at atongathering, and a few moments of conversation over afternoon tea.
With a sudden tightness in her chest, Alyssarose.“If you’ll excuse me, I should…check on my roses.”It might have seemed like a rather inane excuse, but it was all she could think ofto get away.
Alyssa rushed to the conservatory, her breathing heavy and uneven. The moment she shut the door behind her, she walked over to her Blue Ladies and attempted to draw on the comfort that they always provided. But today, they were oddly silent.
A single tear splashed on one of their sapphire petals and she gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white.Get a hold of yourself! There is no need to be crying!But even as she chided herself, the quiet sobs continued.
Notuntil she heard the shuffle of a boot behind her, did she spin around with a gasp. Travell was standing in the doorway, his expression unreadable. She turned away and wiped at her tear-stained cheeks, but the moisture continued to seep out of her eyes, even though she told herself to stop being such a watering pot. Of course, he had to notice that she was upset, but she grabbed a set of nearby trimmers and pretended to speak as if nothing was amiss.
“What are you doing here?”
“Tri and Gabriel are speaking to Dr. Perimore. I thought I would give them a chance totalkto him alone.” He paused. “I came to see how youare.”
“I’m fine.” She waved a hand, but refused to look at him, her chin still quivering with emotion. Desperate to put some distance between them, she went around the other side of the table where most of her face was shielded by an overgrown rhododendron.
She heard him close the door and take several steps into the room. “I don’t think that’s true.”
Don’t do this to me!She wanted to shout.Don’t you dare back me into a corner like this, not when I’m feeling so vulnerable, when just the slightest touch of your hand could send me over the edge…
“Of course it is.” She tried to laugh, but all she did was manage to sniff rather guiltily. And so it became a game of cat-and-mouse. She moved through the foliage in the glass-enclosed structure, while Travell continued his pursuit.
As a bead of perspiration began to travel down her back, Alyssa tried to blame the humid temperature in the conservatory, but that wasn’t the only reason for her distress. Heat didn’t make one heart’s pound with anticipation, nor did it cause one’s pulse to flutter. No, that was all due to Travell and his towering figure that had neatly blocked off any hope of escape she might haveotherwisehad.
Glass enclosed three sides of the room, but as she faced the brick wall of the manor, she knew there was nowhere else to go. She set the trimmers down and laid a hand on the brick, the only thing there that was cool to the touch. She closed her eyes and laid her forehead against thewall, a harsh sigh escaping her chest. She couldn’t help but compare this barricade to her current situation.She might imagine that America would be the cure to all her problems, but she couldn’t outrun her own mind. These torturous thoughts would remain with her whether she was in England or across the Atlantic. She would always have a hole in her heart when it came to Aunt Pearl. Alyssa told herself she’d cried all the tears she’d had when Lady Alwan had been placed in the ground, but as the weeks passed without her kind shoulder to lean on, Alyssa realized that her grief still remained. It didn’t matter if she had started wearing lavender to appease Caroline, it wouldn’t change the fact that her heart was still broken.
Or that Travell would never truly love her.
“Alyssa.”
A traitorous sob escaped her when he put a gentle hand on her arm. She desperately wanted that touch, the show of human emotion that the Duke of Chiltern had shown to his wife, the kindness that she’d been denied after Pearl’s passing.
But that wasn’t all she wanted.
She slowly turned to face Travell, and through the haze of her tears, she could see that handsome face before her, watching, waiting patiently for her. With trembling hands, she lifted them to his face and whispered two words, “Kiss me.”
***
Travell couldn’t have denied Alyssa that simple request even if he’d wanted to—which he didn’t. He’d been aching for another sweet taste of her lips for days, so he bent his head and captured her mouth with his.
He set his hands on her waist, drawing her closer to him as she wrappedher arms around his shoulders with an almost pleading whimper. He knew she was hurting, and while he imagined he was the worst sort of scoundrel for feeling as though he were taking advantage of this moment, he reminded himself that she’d wanted this. In turn, he desired nothing more than to bring that brilliant smile back to her face, to make her feel pleasure instead of pain, to erase it altogether, if that were even possible.
But that might take more than a kiss to accomplish.
Did he dare?
Travell slowly slid his right hand up the side of her ribcage, stopping just below the curve of her breast. He broke the kiss just long enough to see her expression when he rubbed his thumb over her nipple. Even through the confines of her stays he could feel the hardened tip and he had to clench his jaw.
Alyssa’s lips parted and so he did the same with her other breast. When she didn’t stop him or pull away, he cupped the full mounds in his hands, and lightly kneaded them through the material of her gown. When he started to move away, she clutched his wrists and opened her expressive brown eyes, dark from her desire. “Don’t stop.”
Travell swallowed thickly, not sure if he should have started this. If she pushed him away, he wasn’t sure he could stand it. His control was hanging by a thread as it was.
