Pierce Worthington could ruin a woman in a hundred ways.
I was only just learning that tenderness was one of them.
Afterward, he held me against his chest…and talked.
Outside, Ravenscroft settled into evening. The deep groan of old timbers. The occasional knock of a shutter somewhere in a distant wing, the wind coming off the cliffs in long, cold pulls. The estate had a different feel after dark. Less stately. More strangely alive, as if it were watching us.
As I listened, it was odd to realize he didn't have anyone else to say these things to. I couldn’t quite grasp why he chose me to confide in.
"Did you and Jameson ever get along?" I asked, tracing the buttons on his shirt.
"When we were boys. Before either of us understood what the name Worthington meant." He was quiet for a moment. "There's a tree line at the back of the east garden. We used to race to see who could reach it first. He'd cheat every time. And I’d let him…I’d let him win. Every time.”
"What changed?"
"Our father started keeping score."
He said it the way someone mentioned the weather, but his jaw tightened, and his thumb stilled against my shoulder.
I didn't push. He'd given me more in that one sentence than I suspected he'd given anyone in years.
It wasn't until Tompkins came up to tell us dinner was served that I'd even realized how late it had gotten.
Pierce had dinner brought up to the Blue Room. A smaller table had been set up near the window.
Tall tapers in silver holders threw unsteady amber light across white damask, the cloth falling to the floor in heavy folds, its embroidered edge catching the glow.
At the center sat a small bouquet of dark roses, their petals just beginning to curl at the edges, releasing that particular thick sweetness of flowers past their peak. Not rotten, not quite, but edging toward it.
The Worthington china was ivory with a thin border of black. Mourning colors. I wondered if that was deliberate.
The silverware was heavy in my hand. The handles were engraved with the same mark worn into the china, smooth in the grip where a hundred years of Worthington hands had held them. How many of those dinners had involved plotting someone's downfall? Probably most of them.
The steak was perfect. The wine was better. A Bordeaux so dark it was nearly black in the candlelight, leaving its color against the crystal in slow, clinging legs.
I pressed my fingertip to the cut grooves in the crystal. “I don’t understand. Why would Jameson care if you married me?”
Pierce took a moment to consider this, then seemed to come to a decision. Holding my gaze, he gently said, “The death of Madison Hastings wouldn’t make the front page.”
I blinked to clear the tears from my eyes. “I see.”
Pierce noticed. He always noticed. “Madison?—”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
“A few weeks ago you felt the same way.”
“I know.”
I twirled the wineglass by its stem, watching the blood-like liquid absorb the light. “So what changed?”
“I met you.”
The candle between us guttered in a draft from the old window. The glass was wavy and imperfect, the way antique panes always were, distorting the dark outline of the cliffs beyond.
There was that dangerous tenderness. When he combined it with honesty it was getting harder and harder to not believe him.
