She followed the path she’d seen Tristan take and found him standing with his back to her near a thick-trunked oak.
“I thought perhaps you were avoiding me,” he said, his voice low and gravelly in a way that sent a delicious shiver through her.
Hyacinth took a few steps closer until she stood side by side with him. There was a pond ahead surrounded by reeds, the moonlight glinting off the surface of the water.
“I didn’t wish to interrupt your conversations with others,” she admitted quietly.
“Mmm,” he said thoughtfully. “And yet I kept hoping you would.”
Hyacinth looked up at him, studying his profile—his sculpted jaw, firm chin, waves of dark hair that framed his face. Even his nose was perfect and appealing.
The longer she looked, the more his mouth eased into a smile.
“You were hoping I would be rude?” she asked teasingly.
He shifted his arm toward her, and brushed her hand with his own.
“Yes,” he said as he tipped a look her way. “And I wanted to be rude too and find a way to have a moment alone with you.”
“And now you’ve succeeded.” His eyes were dark under the shelter of the tree, but she still saw a spark in them.
He didn’t regret the kiss either.
At her side, she felt his fingers sliding against hers, threading theirs together, and clasping her hand. Then he tugged gently and led her to the other side of the great oak, where they truly were secluded from the eyes of others.
“This feels…” he started, then fell silent as he lifted his free hand and traced his fingertips gently against her cheek.
“Yes?” she prompted as she reached a hand up and laid her palm on his chest, her fingers mindlessly tracing over one of the buttons of his waistcoat.
“Dangerous,” he breathed before stepping closer.
Hyacinth frowned. Nothing about this felt dangerous to her. It felt right. It felt exquisite. It felt like more than she’d dared to hope for.
Tristan ran a finger over the spot between her brows. “You disagree?”
“Entirely,” she told him matter-of-factly.
He chuckled at that. “Then how would you describe it, Hyacinth?”
The way he said her name, so tenderly, as if he savored the feel of it on his tongue, made her toes curl in her slippers.
“Magical?” she whispered.
He lifted his head and looked down at her with a wolfish smile. “We, with our scientific minds, are magical beings, are we?”
Hyacinth licked her lips, and she heard Tristan swallow hard.
“Perhaps it is only magical to me,” she admitted. “I have thought of this for a long while.”
As soon as the confession was out, her pulse began to race. Maybe it was too much, too bold or presumptuous to say such a thing.
Indeed, he straightened, pulling back a bit.
Oh, good grief, she’d ruined it and now?—
“You thought of me?” he asked, his voice low and full of what sounded a great deal like surprise. “For how long?”
Hyacinth’s lungs were burning, as if she couldn’t get quite enough air into them. She considered ducking under the arm he had resting on the tree trunk beside her and dashing back to her room so that she could feel every ounce of mortification on her own.
