Acklan Castle
James had kissed her in this room.
The night before, he’d kissed her and called her his dear before he’d escorted his daughter back to the nursery and spent the rest of the evening pretending he hadn’t done something so insanely foolish.
But he had done it.
This morning, he’d successfully pushed away the memory of the night before from his mind. There’d been too much that needed to be dealt with, after all. Ducal duties and responsibilities that required his attention. He’d met and plotted with Daniel and Darling. Then he’d sent a letter off to Burroughs, asking the fellow to travel to Valenciennes in search of a heinous peer. After that, he’d devoted himself fully to the Greaves tenancy before turning his attention to a myriad of other correspondence that had thankfully arrived just in time to keep his mind occupied from other thoughts…
Until there was nothing else that required his immediate attention.
When there was nothing left to distract him, he’d somehow ended up right back in the library where the memories he’d avoided all day were there waiting as soon as he crossed the threshold.
The fire had been laid in the hearth but not lit. So, he crouched and lit it himself with the tinder. Then he stayed there a moment, watching the flames take hold while the memory of a gentle beauty danced about the edges of his mind.
He’d kissed her in that room.
James straightened back to his full height and blew out a breath. He was a damned fool. That’s all there was to it.
He went to the window, but there was nothing to see on the horizon. The rain was still coming down, making the moors impossible to see in the distance. Just grey land and sky through the blurry, rain-streaked glass and fading light.
He turned away from the window.
Alice’s book of sonnets was still on the side table and he felt a pull in his heart.
Damn it all.
He had kissed Cori in that room. Last night.
And the truth of the matter was, she’d fit rather perfectly in his arms. Her kiss had stirred something deep inside him that he’d thought long dead. She heated his blood anew and clouded his mind until he couldn’t even remember his own name. If Hannah hadn’t come upon them when she did…
James closed his eyes in an attempt to block out his foolish memories.
It didn’t work. He could still see Cori, staring up at him like she had the night before in his mind’s eye. Her long hair down around her shoulders. The way her fingers felt against his jaw. The way her breath felt against his lips.
Damn it all. He’d kissed her in that room, but it hadn’t been fair to her in the least. He had no right to kiss her, to let her hope for something that couldn’t be. But he’d kissed her anyway, selfish bastard that he was.
James crossed to a row of shelves and looked at them without truly seeing them. He pulled a volume from its spot, turned it over in his hands, then put it back.
He was still staring at the shelf when the library door opened and he turned toward the sound.
Hannah stood in the doorway in a frock that had seen better days, Marmalade tucked under one arm, her small face set with purpose. She had not been sent for. Of course, she rarely was.
"You’re supposed to be with Miss Roseberry," James said.
"She’s resting." Hannah shrugged slightly. "She said I could sit quietly for a quarter of an hour."
"And you’ve decided to sit quietly in the library?"
"It is a quiet room, Papa," she told him, stepping more fully into the library.
James supposed she had him on that count. "Come in, then, if Marmalade can behave himself."
“Marmalade has been naughty,” Hannah told him as she went directly to the hearthrug with determined purpose.
“Has he?”
“Mmm.” She settled cross-legged in front of the fire with Marmalade in her lap. The kitten endured this for less than ten seconds before relocating himself to the rug beside her. Hannah accepted the amendment without comment. "He made Mr. Atherton fall down in the drawing room."
