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He tried to capture her gaze, but she did not glance up.“For years,” she continued, “you’ve taken care of both me and my sisters, beginning in the very time in life most young men are out carousing. And yet, you have never, either in deed, or in word, cried ‘not my fault’ and bemoaned your fate.”
She was defending him, but still not able to look at him.
“You could have done so,” she said, almost as if convincing herself. “You could also have put in the minimum effort. Guardianship doesn’t mean upending one’s life, just stewarding the finances. And yet you upended yours. You even moved into the Albany for us.”
“Anyone in my position would have done so.” His life had already been upended by his father’s death. In their own ways, they’d all been mourning together.
“No,” she insisted. “My own father didn’t inconvenience himself on our behalf.”
Asquith thought back more carefully. He could not recall a single instance when Mr. Wainwright, the honored MP, showed his daughters warmth.
Had Wainwright been capable of warmth?
Was he? “I don’t want to hurt you.” By changeling power, she had drawn from him the truth. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeated.
She pulled back and raised her face. “And yet you just did.”
“I am truly sorry.”
Her lips parted, drawing his gaze.
Asking to hold her had straddled a line. Requesting a kiss would send him tumbling past the point of no return. He didn’t care. He had already passed the point of no return back in Adrian’s yew maze.
Even earlier, in fact.
He searched her upturned face. “I’d like to kiss you.”
“Probably not the best idea, but...” Her voice trailed off.
A dangling conjunction was hardly a convincing argument. He waited, wanting her to be sure.
“Why hesitate?” she asked. “You’ve kissed me before.”
“No, I haven’t.” His voice had roughened. “You kissed me. I hardly participated.”
Her brow knit. Finally, she met his gaze. “Would it be different?”
So different. His head drained of blood. He forced himself to nod. Somehow, his hand had already moved to cup her cheek.
Heaven and earth. “Lenora.”
She closed her eyes, looking pained. “Please don’t say my name that way.”
“What way?”
“Like the syllables carry the world’s weight.”
They did. They always had.
“You may kiss me. If, that is, you can tell me I am not your burden.”
He would have said she was. That she would always be. But now he wondered if he’d been confusing burdens and blessings.
Hell. He was going to kiss her, whether or not kissing her was a good idea.
“Not a burden.” But, hopefully, still his.
He bent his head and brought his mouth lightly against hers. Every organ in his body lit like rapidly spreading fire.
