“Lord Eastclere cannot believe we are at fault in any way,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him. “Can he?”
Asher nodded, although begrudgingly. “I am sure you are right,” he said, before his expression shifted to one much more focused, strategic. “It might help us discover any inconsistencies or overlooked details.”
“I was also hoping to speak to some of the servants, if possible,” she added, and Asher nodded thoughtfully, running his thumb and index finger over his chin as he listened to her.
“This means a lot to you,” he noted.
“I do not like being suspected of something I didn’t do,” she said firmly. “I am also still annoyed that someone would think they could control my future.”
“Has it turned out so badly?” he asked, and while his words came off as confident, she saw that flicker in his eyes that needed some reassurance that she didn’t despise being married to him.
She wasn’t sure how to tell him that it rather depended on the moment.
Currently, she was more than happy with it.
They sat together for a few more minutes, discussing their plans for the next day, until the servants cleared away the dessert dishes. They stood simultaneously, Asher quickly rounding the table so that he could pull back her chair.
He was so close that Evelyn could feel the heat of his body behind her. If she leaned back an inch, her shoulders would brush against his chest. What would it feel like to have him near, to feel his lips on her bare skin? She was startled out of her reverie by the low rumble of his voice, and she came back to herself, shaking off the sensation that she had been about to arch her neck into him.
Why did he have to be so handsome?
The air was charged between them as Asher stepped to the side and offered his arm.
“Allow me to walk you up?”
She nodded as he led her from the room, until they were climbing the stairs in silence, their bedrooms their destinations. So close to one another, yet still with that barrier between them.
They stopped in the corridor before Evelyn’s door, and she turned toward him. They had taken so much time at dinner, it seemed that nearly everyone else was abed, and it was just the two of them remaining, in their own world.
She tilted her head up, catching him staring at her lips, and wondered if he might kiss her, surprised to find she wanted it more than she ever thought possible.
He stepped closer, and she didn’t move away, her eyes exploring his entire face. That hard ridge between his brows, the deep blue of his eyes, the lips that were far more sensuous than any man had a right to own.
He paused a breath above her as she exhaled, ready, waiting, her head lifted, her lips parted, her eyes beginning to close?—
“Goodnight.”
Her eyes flew open at the word, only to find him beginning to back up.
The words of objection were on her lips, nearly leaving her mouth, but luckily, she reigned them in.
“Goodnight,” she said, clearing her throat and crossing her arms in front of her to defend herself, recognizing the space he was putting between them.
She realized then that she had asked the wrong question at dinner.
She shouldn’t have asked him if he was planning to take lovers outside of the marriage bed. She should have asked him if he was planning on taking a loverwithinthe marriage bed.
That would have given her far more clarification on what to expect. He had answered her without hesitation, and while perhaps she was not ready to be intimate with him, she wouldn’t mind a little affection. Some recognition that this was more than a friendship. More than a partnership.
But perhaps he didn’t want that. In fact, she had no idea if he was even attracted to her. He was likely the most handsome man she had ever seen, and she— well, she knew some thought her beautiful, but everyone had different tastes, did they not? She had always considered that her hair was too straight, her nose too big, her curves too rounded.
Perhaps Asher felt the same.
She had to remember that this was merely a circumstance of two people learning to live together after being forced toward one another, she told herself as she opened the door behind her, nodded, and escaped into her room.
Even as she knew with every part of her that she was lying to herself.
Asher triedto shake himself awake for this early morning venture to the Eastclere Gallery. He had stayed up far too late,standing out his window, his mind elsewhere, still standing outside Evelyn’s doorway.
