A long pause.
When he turned, his face was composed—but she saw the fracture lines beneath it. Fear. Longing. The fragile edge of hope.
“What I wish,” he said carefully, “has never mattered.”
“It matters to me.”
He closed his eyes. She watched the struggle move across his features—habit and hope contending in silence, the old instinct to withdraw battling something far braver.
When he opened them again, there was a shift in his expression. Something that looked like resolve.
“Stay.”
The word was barely a whisper.
“What?”
“Stay.” He crossed to her and took her hands, his grip warm and steady. “Not indefinitely—I have no right to ask that. But afew days more. Long enough for us to understand what this is. What we might be.”
Her heart pounded so fiercely she wondered that he did not feel it through her gloves.
“And if we discover it is something… more?”
“Then we shall confront it honestly.” His thumbs traced slow circles over her knuckles. “I promise nothing grand. Only that I will not retreat. That I will not hide from you. That I will allow you to see me as I am—and decide whether you can endure it.”
“I already know I can.”
“You have seen only fragments,” he said quietly. “Not my silences. Not the days I withdraw into myself. Not the less agreeable parts of my temperament.”
“I have been here a fortnight.”
“You have been a guest.”
“Then allow me to be something more.”
She rose slightly and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“Let me choose you, Christian.”
He exhaled—a long, unsteady breath, as though releasing years of practised solitude.
“Very well.” His voice was rough with feeling. “Stay. Choose me. And we shall see where it leads.”
She smiled against his lips.
“I believe,” she murmured, “it is already leading us somewhere rather extraordinary.”
Chapter Seven
The letter arrived on a Tuesday.
Fiona was in the yellow parlour, attempting to concentrate on a volume of poetry borrowed from the library, when Mrs Blackley appeared bearing a silver salver and an expression of discreet curiosity.
“For you, miss. From Whitby.”
Fiona’s stomach tightened.
She had written to her aunt three days prior, explaining the accident and her convalescence at Thornwick Castle. She had been deliberately vague about her reasons for remaining after the roads cleared—mentioning only that the physician advised continued rest and that His Grace had been generous in extending his hospitality.
