He needed to set her away from him, now, before he could no longer think, but even as the warning wound through his head, he was burying his face in her hair, his eyes closing as his lips parted over the soft skin of her neck.
A sound, the crunch of footsteps over frozen ground recalled him back to himself. He opened his eyes, steeling himself to face Haslemere’s knowing gaze, but his friend had melted into the darkness.
Gideon allowed himself to breathe her in, to hold her against him for another instant before he took her shoulders in his hands and turned her in his arms. “What are you doing out here? Is it Isabella?”
“No, Isabella’s fine.” She gazed up at him with huge dark eyes. “I didn’t leave her alone. I-I fetched Amyto watch her.”
“Then why are you out here, wandering in the dark?” Gideon’s fingers tightened on her shoulders as fear gripped him, squeezing his throat. What if the alleged “ghost” had come across Cecilia out here? “Did it even occur to you it isn’t safe to be out here alone?”
“I’m not alone. I knew you and Lord Haslemerewere out here—”
“Butwedidn’t knowyouwere!” Relief gave way to a dread that robbed him of his breath. “Damn it, Cecilia. When I saw someone moving in the garden, I thought you were…” Gideon dragged a frantic hand through his hair. “I mighthavehurtyou.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’d never intentionally hurt—”
“Don’t you understand? I’d have done it thinking you were someone else.” Gideon covered his eyes with his hand. “I told you to stay in your bedchamber, but you followed us out here onto the grounds even after I’dforbidden it—”
“You neverforbade me to—”
“Stop it, Cecilia! You know damn well I don’t want you out here. Why do you think I put Duncan on your door? To keep you and Isabella safe! I shouldn’t have to tell you not to sneak about the grounds at night, alone, in the dark. Haven’t you anysense at all?”
Cecilia’s fingers curled into his coat. “I wasn’t—”
“But you’re not accustomed to following orders, are you? You’re no servant.” Gideon jerked her into his arms and tugged her against his chest, the last vestiges of his control dissolving like mist in the frigid night air. He was no longer betrothed, and she was in his arms. warm and soft and tempting…
Her scent enveloped him as his lips skimmed her temple, and he couldn’t stop himself from burying his face in her hair again. “I knew it the first moment I saw you. I should have sent you away then, but I couldn’t…couldn’t bear to…”
“What?” She gazed up at him, searching his face. “What couldn’t you bear?”
“To let you go.” He’d told himself over and over he was betrothed, that it was wrong of him to want Cecilia. That he could never have her. He’d tried to stay away from her, not even to look at her, but with every day that passed, he only wanted her more. “Why did you come to Darlington Castle? What do youwant from me?”
She braced her hands on his chest, her eyes dark and wild as she gazed up at him. “I just want the truth, Gideon. I want you to tellme the truth.”
His eyes dropped closed at the sound of his name on her lips, and for that one blissful moment, when her body was pressed against his, he wanted to tellher everything.
Everything he knew, everything he suspected, everything he wished he could forget. He wanted to take her to his bed and lose himself in her until her gasps and cries chased the darkness from his mind and he could pretend he was like any other man, if only for a few hours.
But his truths were twisted and ugly, and they his alone to bear. “No, you don’t. You don’t know what you’re asking for. You don’t want that darknessin your head.”
“What darkness?” She tore free of him then with such suddenness, Gideon was left with his arms still out, clutching at air. “What’s happening at Darlington Castle, Gideon? Who did Miss Honeywell see from her bedchamber window? Was it a ghost? The ghost of your dead wife? Or is she not really dead, after all?”
“What?” He stared at her, shocked. “I-I don’t understand.”
“Is your marchioness truly dead, Gideon, or have you been chasing her all this time?” Cecilia’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Is her death a lie, or part of some twisted game? Is it true, what the villagers in Edenbridge whisper about you?”
“Are you asking if I’m a murderer?” Gideon’s arms fell to his sides, his body going still. “Do you… do you truly believe that of me, Cecilia?”
“No, I…I don’t know! I don’t know what to believe anymore, but I know something is terribly wrong at Darlington Castle. The villagers say no one ever saw Lady Darlington’s body. They say you murdered your wife and denied her a proper burial. Is she hidden in the walls of Darlington Castle, Gideon, as the villagersclaim she is?”
The air seemed to grow darker and colder around Gideon then. A chill rushed over his skin, skeletal fingertips that left a thin layer of ice in their wake. It didn’t occur to him Miss Honeywell—hisbetrothed, the woman he’d intended to marry—had accused him of the very same crimea day earlier.
She didn’t matter. Miss Honeywell, her mother, his broken betrothal…none of it mattered. The ugliest of the rumors he’d heard whispered in the village, the appalled glances of thetonin London, even the nickname the Murderous Marquess—he’d borne them all without a murmur.
But nothing—nothing—had ever hurt him as much as Cecilia’s words did. They flayed him open like the strike of a whip, tearing through the scars there and opening the raw, bloody flesh beneath. All the ugliness, all the lies and loss of the past year, the grief and the pain and the betrayals came oozing out of the gaping wound, threatening to drown him.
And this time, itdidmatter. Because this time, it washer.
So, for the first time since Cassandra’s death all those months ago, Gideon clawed his way free of the blackness. With quick, jerky movements he stripped off his coat, draped it around Cecilia’s shoulders, then took her hand.“Come with me.”
