“And are we?”she asked quietly.“Only friends?”
No.Never again only that.He wanted to say it.Wanted to drop to one knee here in the crush and damn the consequences.
Instead, he brushed an invisible speck from her sleeve, letting his fingers linger against the silk a heartbeat too long.“I think we are whatever we decide to be, Lady Peregrine.And I have decided I should very much like to be a great deal more.”He spoke so lowly, he almost wondered if she heard him.
Confessions were made for privacy, and this was certainly not private.However, the words must be said; his heart demanded it.
Her breath caught.For one shining moment, the ballroom fell away, and there was only the two of them suspended in candlelight and possibility.
Then the orchestra struck up a country dance, the spell cracked, and as dancers exchanged places on the ballroom floor, he backed away a few steps to ward off suspicious eyes.
He met her gaze and mouthed the wordLater.This was not the time or place, and he wanted their conversation to not be limited to whispers and words that could be possibly overheard.
Pere nodded once, her expression understanding and resolute.
Then, unable to resist one flirtation with danger, he stepped forward, grasped her hand, and kissed the air above it.“Soon.And yet not nearly soon enough.”
He watched as her tongue darted out to lick her lips as she studied his, and the power of it sent a thrill of desire entirely inappropriate for a crowded ballroom deeply through him, searing his soul.
“Until then, my lord,” she whispered.
“Tomorrow?”
“If I must wait that long,” she teased, her full lips taunting him.
“Then we shall both be impatient till then.”He released her hand, and stepped back, needing distance so that he wouldn’t do anything impulsive.
The rest of the night passed in a blur of polite smiles and careful distance.He danced with debutantes he barely saw, bowed to dowagers he barely heard, all while his gaze tracked her across the room like a compass needle seeking north.
It was near the end, when the chandeliers were being snuffed and yawns poorly hidden behind gloved hands, that he saw her.
Lady Devon—Peregrine’s mother—standing far too close to a tall, silver-haired gentleman near the card room.The man’s hand rested possessively at the small of her back.His profile sharp, aristocratic,unmistakable.
Lord Carver.
The name slammed into Hawthorne like a fist to the sternum.The same Lord Carver who had been his mother’s lover.The same man who had smiled across his father’s dinner table while plotting to destroy his family.The same man whose whispered promises had driven a blade through a marriage and left a boy to pick up the pieces of a shattered father.
His vision narrowed to a tunnel.Blood roared in his ears.He felt his hands curl into fists so tight the knuckles sang.
Not here.Not now.Not near her.
But Lady Devon laughed at something Carver murmured, her hand brushing the lapel of his coat with easy intimacy, and the sight was a match to dry tinder.Every old wound tore open at once.His father’s hollow eyes, his mother’s careless cruelty, the years of guarding his heart behind ice and cynicism because some sins echoed down bloodlines whether one wished it or not.
Henley must be told.The thought arrived with the force of a commandment.His closest friend—practically his brother—was on the verge of aligning his house with a family that harbored the very poison that had killed Hawthorne’s own.
But how to tell him without sounding like a madman nursing a decade-old grudge?
Worse—Peregrine.She must be told.She must be protected.Yet the idea of laying such ugliness at her feet before he had offered for her—before he had secured the right to shield her—felt unbearable.If he warned her now, she would think he acted only from spite, or jealousy, or some petty need to break her family apart.She might never trust his heart again.
Offer first.Secure her first.Then tell her—gently, carefully—and stand with her against whatever storm followed.
But what if Carver had already sunk his hooks into Lady Devon so deeply the scandal would drown them all?What if waiting even one more day gave the man time to—God forbid—seduce Peregrine’s mother into something irreversible?
His chest felt flayed open, raw and bleeding.He could not lose her now.Not when he had only just found her.
Across the room, Peregrine glanced up, caught his eye, and smiled—small, quizzical, worried.She had seen the change in him; of course she had.She saw everything.
He forced his fists to unclench, gave a nod in return that he prayed looked reassuring.
