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He turned back to her, his fists uncurling, his shoulders slumping.

“You make it sound so simple,” he breathed.

“No.” Laura shook her head. “I think it is anything but simple. I only think you should not have to carry it alone.”

His face softened, and he swallowed. He was close now, closer than she’d realized either of them had moved, close enough that she could see the storm still raging behind his eyes, could feel the heat radiating from him in the narrow space between them.

“Laura…” Her name came out rough, half warning, half something else. It made the blood in her veins rush at an unnerving speed, pooling in a place she dared not acknowledge.

“Nathaniel?”

She didn’t step back, even though every sensible instinct told her she ought to. She couldn’t. She was being pulled by a force beyond her comprehension. She took a deep breath, and all she could smell was that mountain scent that made her heart race.

I am not strong enough to fight this.

She licked her lips, and his hungry eyes followed the movement.

For one suspended moment, she was rooted to the spot, the air between them thick and taut.

She held her breath as his hand rose to her jaw, not quite touching it. It hovered there, as though he hadn’t yet decided whether he had the right to touch her. She felt herself lean in, just slightly, just enough to close the distance between them.

But then the memory of the last time they had gotten this close flashed through her mind—his mouth on hers in the dim light, and the panic that had followed immediately after—and she stepped back before she could stop herself.

Nathaniel’s hands fell back to his sides. Whatever had been building in his face shuttered again, quick as a door.

“Forgive me, I have forgotten myself.” His voice was flat, careful, every trace of the man who’d almost kissed her packed away behind it. “That was not my intention.”

“I know it wasn’t,” Laura said, though she wasn’t entirely sure it was true for either of them.

He nodded his head. “Good,” he whispered, then cleared his throat. “Thank you. For comforting Iris.”

“Of course,” she replied softly.

He stepped back and turned to leave. At the door, he paused and gripped the handle.

“I will try,” he promised.

With that, he stepped back into his room.

Laura was left standing alone in the firelight, with her pulse racing and no idea what to do with the wanting she couldn’t seem to talk herself out of. She knew it was only a matter of time before her resolve shattered.

Oh, what would you have done, Mama?

CHAPTER 13

“Slowly, Your Grace,” Miss Borden called after them, smiling as she said it, hurrying to keep pace as her bonnet strings flew loose in the warm wind.

The nearby village was smaller than Laura had expected. It was just a single, crooked high street lined with a bakery, a milliner’s, a chandler’s shop, and a green where a handful of geese patrolled.

Iris had been all but bouncing with excitement since the carriage turned off the estate road, and the moment they stepped down, she seized Laura’s hand and towed her straight toward a shop window full of ribbon.

“I want the blue one,” she announced, pressing her nose against the glass. “No, the yellow is prettier. No… Laura, which do you think, blue or yellow?”

“Why not both?” Laura suggested. “Do you think our Geralds will like them?”

Iris giggled and darted inside, and Laura followed.

For the better part of an hour, the two of them moved from shop to shop with a happy leisure. Iris talked about the village as though she’d appointed herself its official historian.