"I would never presume to think anything, Your Grace. I am a simple valet, concerned only with the arrangement of cravats and the polishing of boots. The inner lives of my betters are entirely beyond my comprehension."
Martin glared at him, but there was no heat in it. Haberton had known him too long to be intimidated by glares, and frankly, Martin was too exhausted to put any real effort into intimidation.
"Is there anything else, Your Grace?"
"No. Yes." Martin hesitated, considering. "Have a basket sent to the Wayworth residence. Something appropriate for an invalid. Hothouse flowers, perhaps, and some of that French chocolate Lady Wayworth favours. And a book, something amusing, light reading for someone confined to a chaise longue."
"Addressed from you, Your Grace?"
"Addressed from..." He stopped. If he sent a gift in his own name, it would occasion comment. Lady Wayworth would wonder at the attention. Edward would ask questions. Vanessa herself might read more into it than he intended…or less.
"Make it anonymous," he said finally. "No card…. No indication of the sender."
"As you wish, Your Grace." If Haberton found this instruction peculiar, he gave no sign. "Will there be anything else?"
"That will be all."
Haberton withdrew, leaving Martin alone in the entrance hall. He stood there for a moment, staring at nothing, replaying the morning's events in his mind.
He had touched her ankle. He had sat beside her on a bench and spoken of secrets and truths. He had watched her carriage disappear around a bend and felt something crack open in his chest.
He was in trouble. Deep, inescapable trouble.
And the worst part was, he no longer wanted to escape.
Martin climbed the stairs to his study, his thoughts still churning. He had touched her today. He had held her ankle in his hands, felt her pulse beneath his fingertips and seen the flush spread across her skin. It had been entirely innocent, a necessary examination of an injury and yet it had felt like something else entirely.
It had felt like the beginning of something.
Or perhaps the end.
He crossed to his desk and opened the top drawer. The letters were there, where he had left them, a neat stack bound with blue ribbon, waiting to be read again.
He should burn them. He should consign them to the fire and pretend he had never seen them. It was the honourable thing to do.
Instead, he lifted them out and settled into his chair.
He did not read them all. Not this time. He merely held them, feeling the weight of them in his hands, running his thumb along the edges of the paper. These were her thoughts, her feelings and her most private confessions. They did not belong to him.
And yet here they sat, in his desk, in his possession. He had not asked for them. He had not sought them out. They had simply arrived one day, delivered by some quirk of fate or some meddling aunt, and now he could not give them back.
Could not unread them. Could not unknow what they contained.
He set them down and rested his forehead in his hands, breathing slowly, trying to still the tumult in his mind.
I wonder sometimes,she had written in one of the later letters,what it would be like to be touched by him. Not the careful, proper touches of the ballroom…his hand on my waist during a waltz, his fingers brushing mine as he hands me into a carriage. I wonder what it would be like to be truly touched. To feel his hands on my skin without the barrier of gloves or propriety between us.
Today, he had touched her. Truly touched her, skin to silk, with nothing but a thin stocking between his fingers and her flesh. It had been medical necessity, nothing more and yet.
And yet...
He could still feel the warmth of her ankle beneath his palm. Could still see the flush spreading across her cheeks, the way her lips had parted, the rapid rise and fall of her breath. She had felt something. He was certain of it. Whatever electricity had crackled between them, it had not been one-sided.
Had she felt it too? That electric awareness, that sense of something shifting between them? The way she had gasped when he rotated her foot, which had not been pain. He was certain of it. That had been something else entirely.
He set the letters down and rested his forehead in his hands.
He was losing control of the situation. He had spent six years building walls around his feelings, and in the space of a single morning, those walls had begun to crumble. If he was not careful, they would collapse entirely, and then what? Scandal, recrimination, the destruction of his friendship with Edward, the ruination of Vanessa's reputation.
