“Too late.”
His hands settled on her waist, pulling her back against him with that possessive grip she’d come to crave. She could feel his heartbeat against her spine, quick and uncertain.
“I don’t know how to love you back.” The admission seemed to pain him, his voice rough with it.
“Then don’t. Just... let me love you. Let that be enough for now.”
He turned her in his arms, his scarred face stark with emotion she couldn’t name—fear, hope, desire, pain, all mixed into something uniquely Adrian. “You terrify me.”
“Good.” She reached up to trace his scar, feeling him shudder at the touch. “You terrify me too. But here we are.”
He kissed her then, desperate and hungry, his hands tangling in her carefully arranged hair, sending pins scattering across the conservatory floor. She responded with equal fervour, trying to pour all her love and frustration and hope into the contact, to make him understand with her body what her words couldn’t seem to convey.
“Tonight,” he said against her lips, his breathing ragged. “Come to me tonight.”
“Adrian—”
“I need you.” The admission seemed torn from him, raw and bleeding. “After today, after everything... I need you.”
She understood. The walls he’d built had cracked today, letting in light he’d shut out for years. He needed the anchor of their physical connection, the certainty of their bodies, even when everything else felt uncertain. He needed to reclaim control after a day that had left him stripped of it.
“I’ll come,” she promised, pressing her palm against his racing heart.
“Midnight,” he said, then kissed her again, harder this time, claiming. “Wear the green silk.”
“The one from the opera?”
“That one.” His smile was dark, promising. “And nothing else.”
Heat flooded through her at the command, at the promise in his voice. “Adrian—”
“Midnight,” he repeated, then left her there among the tropical plants, her lips swollen and her body aching.
***
Dinner was an exercise in tension. They maintained perfect propriety—Adrian at the head of the table, Marianne to his right, Catherine to his left. The footmen served course after course of Cook’s finest efforts, but everything might have been ash for all anyone tasted a bite.
Adrian spoke of estate business in measured tones—drainage issues in the south field, a tenant farmer’s requestfor repairs, the need to review the timber contracts. Catherine contributed observations from her travels about agricultural methods she’d seen in Tuscany. Marianne mediated, keeping the conversation flowing when it threatened to stall.
But underneath the mundane words ran an electric current. Adrian’s eyes kept finding hers, dark with promise. His fingers brushed hers when she passed the salt, lingering a moment too long.
Catherine seemed oblivious to the undercurrents, chattering about Roman society and the English expatriates she’d met there. But even she couldn’t miss the way Adrian’s gaze tracked Marianne’s every movement, or how Marianne’s cheeks flushed whenever their eyes met.
“I believe I’ll retire early,” Catherine finally announced after the dessert course, her lips twitching with what might have been amusement. “The day’s fatigue, you understand.”
“Of course,” Marianne managed, though her voice came out breathier than intended.
The moment Catherine left, the air in the dining room changed, becoming charged with possibility and danger.
“Midnight,” Adrian said, rising from his chair with predatory grace. “Don’t be late.”
That night, when she entered his chambers at precisely midnight, she found him standing by the window, the wolf figurine in his hands. He’d shed his jacket and cravat, his shirt open at the throat.
“She tried to hurt herself because of me,” he said without preamble, not turning from the window.
“She was ill with grief. People do desperate things when they’re in pain.”
“I should have been there.”
