“Yes.”
“Why then? What changed?”
He was silent for some time. They reached a stone bench beneath an ancient oak, its branches stark against the pale sky. He gestured for her to sit. She arranged her skirts carefully; he lowered himself beside her—near enough that warmth radiated through wool and muslin, yet not quite touching.
“I had a dream,” he said at last. “The night of the storm. Before you came to me.”
“A dream?”
“A nightmare.” His gaze drifted toward the bare branches overhead. “The same one I have had since childhood. I am in a ballroom—my mother’s ballroom in London—and everyone is staring. Then my clothes begin to vanish. My coat. My waistcoat. My shirt. Until I stand there exposed.”
Fiona’s chest tightened.
“They always react the same way,” he continued quietly. “They recoil. Some laugh. Some look away. My mother is always in the front. She looks at me as though I have disappointed her beyond repair.”
“It is only a dream.”
“Is it?” His eyes met hers, shadowed with memory. “When I was seven, my nurse insisted I attend a house party. She believed I should have companions my own age.”
Fiona’s fingers closed around his instinctively.
“We were playing in the garden. A boy tackled me. My shirt came loose.” His jaw tightened. “The screaming was… instructive. The children fled. The adults came running. I remember sitting in the dirt while they stared.”
“They were ignorant.”
“They were honest,” he replied flatly. “My mother never allowed me such gatherings again. She said it was for my protection. I understood what she meant.”
Fiona’s grip tightened. She could not undo his past. She could only sit beside him now, in winter light, and refuse to look away.
“And that night of the storm,” she said quietly, “was it the nightmare that drove you to the library?”
“It was. But the dream itself had altered.” His thumb traced the curve of her knuckles, slow and absent-minded. “When I stood exposed, the crowd parted, and you walked through them. You walked toward me.”
Her breath caught. “And?”
“You did not hesitate.” His voice roughened. “You touched the mark, and then you kissed it—before them all. Just like youdid later that night. You pressed your lips to the birthmark, and you said, ‘This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.’ And then I woke up.”
Fiona’s eyes were stinging. She blinked rapidly, refusing to let the tears fall.
“I woke and understood,” he said. “I was weary of hiding. Weary of fear. You asked what changed.” He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “You did, Fiona. You changed everything.”
Emotion closed her throat. She leaned forward and kissed him.
It was meant to be gentle. A quiet answer.
But he made a sound—low and shaken—and gentleness dissolved.
His hands rose to frame her face, thumbs brushing her cheeks as he deepened the kiss. She clutched at his coat, drawing him closer. His mouth claimed hers with a hunger no longer disguised, and heat unfurled through her like sudden flame.
The winter air vanished.
There was only him.
His hands slid from her face to her waist, then to her chest—hesitant at first, then surer. His palms curved over her soft and tender flesh through layers of muslin and wool, reverent yet urgent, as though committing the shape of her to memory.
Heat unfurled low within her, sudden and insistent. A deep, aching awareness gathered between her thighs, a longing not merely to be touched but to feel him fully—to see him undone, to draw him into the same consuming fire that now claimed her.
“Fiona,” he breathed against her mouth. “We should not—we are outside—anyone might—”
