And with that, he kissed her.
His right hand came up and caught the side of her face, his fingers sliding into her hair, and his mouth found hers, and every thought in Mary’s head went silent.
The kiss was not gentle. It was not the careful, measured thing she might have expected from a man who controlled every other aspect of his life.
It washungry.
His lips moved against hers with an urgency that felt like something breaking open, something held too tight for too long, and Mary’s hands flew to his chest, her palms flat against bare skin, and the heat of him burned through her fingers and spread up her arms and settled in the center of her body like a flame finding air.
She kissed him back, her body deciding for her, her fingers curling against his chest, her mouth opening to his. His hand tightened in her hair and pulled her closer, his body pressing harder against hers.
He was warm, solid, and he tasted of brandy and something darker, and the sound he made against her mouth, low and rough, sent a shiver down her spine that reached her toes.
His bandaged arm came around her waist. She felt him wince at the pull, and she should have stopped, should have been careful, should have remembered that he was wounded and she was angry and this solved nothing, but his mouth moved to the corner of her jaw, and his breath was hot against her skin, and she tipped her head back and forgot every rational thought she had ever had.
The kettle screamed.
The shrill, furious whistle cut through the kitchen like a blade.
Mary gasped. Evander pulled back.
They stood inches apart, breathing hard, his hand still tangled in her hair, her palms still pressed against his bare chest, and the kettle shrieked on the grate, and the fire popped, and the candle flame shuddered in the draft of their breathing.
Mary stepped away. She crossed to the hearth and pulled the kettle from the fire with a cloth. The whistling died. The kitchen settled into a silence so loud it pressed against her ears.
She stood at the hearth with her back to him and felt her pulse hammering in her throat, her lips, her fingertips. She could still feel the shape of his mouth on hers. She could still feel the heat of his skin under her hands and the way his arm had pulled her closer, and the echo of it ran through her body like a current that had not yet found ground.
“I… I should not have done that.”
His voice came from behind her. Rough around the edges. Controlled in the center. She heard him clear his throat.
Mary turned. He stood beside the chair with his ruined shirt in his hand and his jaw set and his eyes dark in the firelight. The bandage on his arm was white against his skin. He looked at her the way a man looks at a door he has just opened and is already regretting.
“Thank you,” he said. “For the wound.”
He picked up his coat. He walked past her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him as he passed, and he left the kitchen, and his footsteps faded up the stairs, and the door to his chambers closed, and Mary stood alone in the kitchen with a cooling kettle and blood on her hands and the taste of brandy on her lips.
She touched her mouth.
Her fingers trembled.
The fire crackled. The candle guttered. Mary stood in the silence of the kitchen and let herself feel every single thing she had spent three weeks refusing to feel, and she did not push any of it away.
CHAPTER 11
“Six o’clock, Your Grace?”
The cook stood in the kitchen doorway with a lamp in one hand and a look on her face that suggested she was reconsidering her employment.
Evander had never taken breakfast before half past seven, and the kitchen staff had clearly not expected to find the Duke of Blackholm sitting at the dining table in the gray half-light of dawn, dressed and staring at a plate of toast he had no appetite for.
“Coffee,” Evander said. “And eggs, if it is not too much trouble.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” The cook retreated, and Evander heard her muttering to the scullery maid about early risers and the strange habits of newlyweds.
The bandage beneath his shirt pulled with every movement. Mary’s handiwork. Clean linen wound tight around his triceps, the knot tucked flat against the underside of his arm where the fabric of his coat would hide it.
The cut throbbed in time with his pulse, a low, persistent reminder of Southwark, the alley, and the knife, but the bleeding had stopped overnight, and the wound felt stable enough to survive the morning.
