She held his gaze for three heartbeats. Then she walked to the door, back straight, shoulders squared.
At the threshold, she paused. Looked over her shoulder. Ran her gaze over him one last time. Slowly. Shamelessly. From his bare feet to his wet hair.
His expression shifted.
“See you at the games, then,” she said, one hand on the handle.
“May the best man win.”
She closed the door, leaned back against it, and pressed both hands to her face.
“What the hell is happening to me?” she whispered.
She could hear him on the other side. The floorboards creaking. A glass clinking. A drawer slamming. He was right there, with only inches of oak between them.
Gordon had been predictable, cruel in ways she could learn and brace for. No surprises. She knew his moods. She knew what he would do. When he was angry, he went quiet. When he was planning something, he smiled. When he wanted to punish her, he talked about the weather.
She had learned all of that in the first six months and spent the next two and a half years using it to stay alive.
She did not know what the Hound wanted. He was not angry, and he was not smiling, and he was not talking about the weather. He was standing in his bedroom, smelling like soap and looking at her with an expression she could not read, and her curiosity was worse than her fear. Much worse. Fear, she knew how to handle. Curiosity was new.
She pushed off the door and walked to her chambers. Chin up. Pace steady. She passed a maid on the stairs and nodded as though nothing had happened, as though she had not just been standing in a man’s bedroom watching candlelight dance across his ribs, as though her heart were not hammering so hard she could feel it in her fingertips.
The maid curtsied. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
“Good evening.” Normal voice. Steady hands. Valeria was getting very good at pretending.
She closed her bedroom door. Sat on the bed. Let out the breath she had been holding since she knocked on his door.
The room was quiet. Her room. Her bed. Her choice to come and go. She reminded herself of that. She could leave whenever she wanted. She could lock the door from the inside. Nobody was trapping her here.
She would not think about his scars. She would not think about his laugh. She would not think about the candlelight on his skin or the way his voice dropped when he said,I know that feeling,or the look on his face when she ran her eyes over him at the door. She would not think about the scar on his shoulder or the one below his collarbone or the dark strip of hair below his navel. She would not think about any of it.
Until she thought about all of it.
She lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the fact that for the first time in three years she had walked into a man’s bedroom of her own free will and walked out again whenever she chose, and nobody had locked the door behind her. She could go back if she wanted to. She could stay in her room if she wanted to. The choice was hers.
That was new. That was everything.
She did not sleep for a very long time. But she was not afraid. And that, she thought, counted for something.
CHAPTER 5
Edward could not sleep.
He tried, but the bed was too soft. Too clean. He stared at the ceiling.
She had lookedathim, not through him. Not past him. Not at the floor. She looked at him like he was a person.
For twelve years, he had been alone. Nobody held his gaze. Not the men he worked with. Not the women in foreign cities. Not even George, his oldest partner, who still flinched when Edward moved too quickly.
She flinched too. But she did not look away.
Edward gave up on sleep around four. He sat up. The room was cold. He did not mind cold. Cold meant he was alive and alert, and nobody was trying to kill him, which by his standards made it a good morning.
He dressed in the dark. Muscle memory. He could dress, load a pistol, and climb out a window in under two minutes. Nathaniel called this disturbing. Edward called it practical. The two of them had never agreed on what constituted normal behavior, which was why Nathaniel was a respected member of Parliament and Edward was the man Parliament sent when they needed someone to disappear.
He stood at the window. The sky was grey and low. The gardens stretched out below, the hedges still wet from the night, paths of pale gravel curving between beds that someone had cared for meticulously.
